Sometimes we eat too much, or stay up too late staring at our phones, or skip morning yoga.
Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images
It’s easy to prescribe faults in personality like “laziness” or “apathy” to someone (or ourselves) for having bad habits.
Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket via Getty Images
As social psychologist Wendy Wood explained to Inverse, our good or bad performance is a reflection of habits — not our desires or goals.
Klaus Vedfelt
And thankfully, these bad habits aren’t entirely our fault. It turns out, any habit is incredibly hard to make or break.
Peter Dazeley
It’s easy to say to yourself that you’re going to put your phone down at a certain time every night or go for a run after work, Woods explains, but it’s actually much harder to follow through with those goals than we think.
Yiu Yu Hoi
People tend to punish themselves too harshly if they fail to perform a good habit (or fail to avoid a bad habit).
Francesco Carta fotografo
The most important thing for making or breaking habits, Wood explains, is changing our environment.
Here are three things to keep in mind when trying to make or break a habit.
Aleksandr Zubkov/Moment/Getty Images
1. Remember that habits take about 2 months to develop or break, and don’t beat yourself up if you mess up once or twice.
Virojt Changyencham/Moment/Getty Images
2. Make the habit enjoyable. Turn on your favorite TV show while you clean the bathroom or stop for a smoothie after a run. Associating the habit with something pleasurable can help the habit stick.
3. Repeat on a regular basis. Again, it takes about 2 months to form or break a habit. Be patient and do your best to repeat the action.