Force of Habit

From over-worrying to over-shopping, your impulses might hold you back more than you think. Cycle-breaking insights, ahead.

- Lydia Wang

Sometime during childhood, I developed a seemingly unbreakable habit of twirling my hair and picking at split ends. It happened mostly during moments of stress, anxiety, and inactivity, and I always wanted to quit. The habit followed me to high school-I can viscerally remember the shame I felt when a teacher mimicked me in front of my classmates. But compared with other tendencies and coping mechanisms I've worked to overcome, playing with my hair just never felt "bad" enough to put much effort into quitting.

The older I get, though, the more determined I am to kick this specific habit. I feel more confident in social and professional settings when I abstain from hair touching; I'm even convinced I sound more composed on calls when I pull my hair back (though the person on the other end doesn't know any better). Overall, I've made progress, but it seems ironic that a habit that was easy to pick up as a kid remains difficult to kick as an adult. Shouldn't I have outgrown this, like I did snarky graphic tees?

Halting a habit, even a menial one, is hard because you often don't realize you're doing it until you've completed the behavior, says Wendy Wood, PhD, provost professor of psychology and business at the University of Southern California and author of Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes That Stick. Take typing in your email password as soon as you log on to your work laptop, for example. Your habit of checking your email each morning means you automatically do it, regardless of whether you actually want to look at your inbox.