Coaching practices for Make Bad Habits Harder

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Make Bad Habits Harder, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• The thing I’m trying to cut is just too easy
• My new habits only survive on the good days when I’m rested and motivated, then the first hard, exhausting day comes and they collapse
• My bad habits run on autopilot but the good one I’m trying to build never feels automatic
• Every time I try to break this habit I just try to white-knuckle it away and grit my teeth through the craving
• I do great with a new habit until the first bad day

Practices that may help

1. Add friction to unwanted behaviors
   Inserting even a small obstacle between you and an unwanted behavior meaningfully reduces how often it happens.
   Environment Design for Behavior Change
2. Shrink the behavior until it’s tiny
   Scale the habit down to something you can do even on your worst, busiest day.
   Tiny Habits, Made Practical
3. Build a craving deliberately to cement a new habit
   Create an anticipatory craving for the reward of a new behavior before the reward arrives.
   The Habit Loop, Made Practical
4. Keep the cue and reward, swap the routine
   Duhigg’s “golden rule”: change a habit by inserting a new routine between the same cue and reward.
   The Power of Habit, Made Practical
5. Design the habit to be no-fail even on your worst day
   A habit that can be skipped on hard days will be skipped — the minimum must survive your worst-case day.
   Mini Habits, Made Practical
6. Fire the new routine on the original cue
   Leave the trigger in place and attach the new behavior to it, every time.
   Habit Substitution: Swap the Routine, Keep the Reward
7. Choose between carrots and sticks based on your goal type
   Sticks (loss-framed penalties) work better for stopping behaviors; carrots (rewards) work better for starting new ones.
   Commitment Contracts, Made Practical
8. Reduce friction for good behaviors to near zero
   Make the healthy behavior the path of least resistance by removing every avoidable obstacle between you and starting.
   Environment Design for Behavior Change
9. Make it attractive with temptation bundling
   Pair a behavior you should do with one you want to do.
   Atomic Habits, Made Practical
10. Reduce friction on desired behaviors
    Make the healthy choice two fewer steps than the unhealthy one.
    Nudge Theory, Made Practical

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