Doing Less Can Break Your Worst Habits

What if I told you that doing less can actually help you break your worst habits? It might sound counterintuitive, but there are important steps you must follow before you go about creating change. These key steps are less effort-intensive strategies and can lead to faster, longer-lasting habit change.

I cover these strategies in my upcoming book, Unhooked, but I wanted to give you a sneak preview here. In this post, we’ll explore how doing less can be the secret to breaking your worst habits by using what I call the EAT cycle: Explore, Accept, Transform.

The Myth of Doing More

We often believe that breaking a habit requires quick action, immense effort, and buckets of willpower. We think that if we just try harder, we'll succeed. You've probably tried this before yourself. How did it play out for you?

After working with thousands of people, I can tell you that this approach often backfires. So many people try to muscle their way through this type of change, end up trying too hard, and burn out and fail. They keep trying to change their behavior when it gets them results they don't want. But, without a plan in place, and without a real understanding of what they're truly struggling with, the work is often wasted on the wrong target.

"Quick fixes are like putting a Band-Aid on a wound that needs stitches. They may provide temporary relief, but they don't address the root cause of the problem."​ (from Unhooked)

Many people get stuck trying to change without truly understanding their behavior.

Source: Adi Jaffe

Instead of pushing yourself to the limit and relying on your willpower, you need to focus on the root causes of your habits and make small, manageable changes.

The EAT Cycle

In my first book—The Abstinence Myth—as well as in the upcoming Unhooked (coming out in early 2025)—I talk about a cycle of self-exploration that makes all behavior change more effective. The EAT cycle is an acronym that stands for Explore, Accept, and Transform. This approach helps us understand and change our habits more effectively by breaking down the process of behavior change into three manageable steps:

1. Explore: Understand the factors driving your behavior.
2. Accept: Practice self-compassion and accept your current path.
3. Transform: Make small, consistent changes to create new habits.

Explore: Understanding Your Habits

Whether you're aware of it or not, your behavior is driven by relatively unconscious factors. These may be external things you see, hear, or otherwise experience, or internal feelings and bodily sensations. Your behaviors (even the most long-held habits), are activated by these. Odds are, you learned your habits a long time ago, to deal with uncomfortable feelings created in your environment by similar triggers.

Before you can change your behavior, you must first explore the factors and forces that are driving the behavior you don't like. This involves identifying triggers and underlying causes. If you don't do this initial work, you may be aiming your change at the wrong target.

One of my clients, Bradley, wanted to lose weight quickly. He had tried a nearly endless number of fad diets, but they never stuck. He either couldn't stick to the diet or the weight would come back immediately after. After we did some work together, and during his Exploration stage, Bradley realized that his eating habits were tied to emotional stress, specifically tied to his marriage and work. When things with his wife went sideways, he'd fix his discomfort by eating. When work was stressful, he'd start eating high-calorie foods in the middle of the workday to make himself feel better. The fad diets cut calories, sure, but they didn't help fix the issues that were driving his desire to overeat. After some couples work, and by learning to address his work stress through mindfulness and some reframing work we did, he was able to make lasting changes to his diet and lifestyle.​

By exploring the root causes of his behavior, Bradley was able to make more informed and effective changes.

And the same can work for you.

In all my years, I have never seen a behavior not driven by early life experiences, trauma, ongoing relationship struggles, perfectionism, self-esteem issues, or other important factors.

Make sure you uncover yours if you want to experience successful change.

The Important Role of Shame and Self-Compassion

I'll cover additional parts of the EAT cycle in future posts (you can read The Abstinence Myth, even if addiction is not a primary issue for you, for more insight on this technique).

For now, know this: The next step in the EAT cycle is acceptance. This means practicing self-compassion and accepting your current path without judgment.

"Self-compassion is essential for lasting change. By being kind to ourselves, we can navigate setbacks and challenges with a positive attitude, making it easier to stay on track."​ (from Unhooked)

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Practicing self-compassion allows you to be more forgiving of your mistakes and more committed to your goals. It reduces shame, which is a massive blocker for action.

The final step in the EAT cycle is transformation.

Mistakenly, this is the step most people jump to first. It's easy to want to simply change your negative behavior as soon as you notice it. But, as pointed out earlier, if you jump to transformation, you are likely to pick the wrong target for change and spend too much energy trying to change the wrong thing. For instance, in Bradley's case, working over and over to change his diet became wasted effort when it didn't address the root causes that were driving his overeating.

Once he fixed this and began the actual transformation process, Bradley found that relatively small changes—healthier food choices at home, daily walks with his wife—did much more to gradually reduce his weight and keep it off than any of the fad diets.

Transformation is usually about making small, consistent changes over time instead of massive leaps over a short period. Small changes are more sustainable and less overwhelming to maintain.

Do Less to Experience Better Long-Term Success With Change

Breaking your worst habits doesn't have to be about trying harder. By identifying the true targets for change and focusing on small, incremental changes, you can achieve lasting success. Embrace the "do less" approach and the EAT cycle: Explore, Accept, Transform. Share your experiences and encourage others to try this method.