Have You Ever Quit a Bad Habit Cold Turkey?

There are some people who are able to quit a habit cold turkey; one day they smoke the next they don’t. However, this doesn’t usually work for the majority of people as change is a process rather than a one off event. Using only willpower generally isn’t enough to successfully quit. As Mark Twain said “Habit is habit and not to be flung out of the window by any man, but coaxed downstairs a step at a time.”

Six separate stages have been identified to successfully quit a bad habit. The six stages are Denial, Awareness, Preparation, Action, Maintenance and Termination.

It is important to understand the various stages or you might replace one bad habit for another. I’ve watched smokers gain weight as they gave up smoking as they satisfied their nicotine cravings by overeating.

Also, be aware that most people who successfully change a habit fail at least once before they succeed. Think of the habit breaking process like the journey of an airplane; the plane looks like it is going straight from point A to point B when in fact it is constantly making small corrections in its journey to bring it back on course.

Whatever your bad habit is, you may have tried to break it many times. Many of us have experienced the frustration of trying to break a bad habit. Frustration is a natural part of the process to break your bad habit. Rather than letting these frustrations disrupt your process instead look at the low points as only a small part of the process. Sometimes we learn more from our mistakes than we do from our successes.


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