Against your better judgement

When is the last time you acted against your better judgement? Bought snacks you wanted to avoid. Stayed up past your bedtime, knowing you wouldn't get enough sleep. Watched just this one more youtube video for three hours. Put something off repeatedly only for it to become more and more stressful. What did you do about it?

One thing you can do is to beat yourself up about it. What you did was wrong. Make yourself feel so bad about it that the next time you are in this situation, you will act differently. The problem with this approach is that it doesn't work. Willpower is a limited resource and changing one's behaviour is hard. Beating yourself up about it will only make yourself miserable.

You could also do nothing about it. Doing anything becomes easier if you focus on a few things at a time. Maybe the behaviour that annoys you right now just isn't as important as something else you are working on. Simply accept it for now. You can come back to it later.

But if you want to change your behaviour, there are a few things you can do. The core of every habit is a loop of cue, routine and reward. You can change the environment to avoid the cue. If you are buying snacks in the grocery store on your way home, try to take a different route. Each habit quenches a craving. To figure out what craving is behind your habit, experiment with different rewards. The next time you enter the grocery store, instead of buying cookies, buy an apple instead. You'll need to make many such experiments. But once you know the cue and the craving behind your behaviour, it's much easier to change.