On Purpose with Jay Shetty - How to Break 90% of Your Bad Habits in 2026! (Use THIS 10-Second Trick and Beat the Pattern!)

Episode Date: January 9, 2026

Today, Jay invites us to rethink everything we’ve been taught about breaking bad habits. Instead of blaming willpower, discipline, or personality traits, he reframes habits as systems shaped by our triggers, emotions, and environments. He explains why most habits aren’t character flaws but subconscious coping strategies designed to provide comfort, escape, or relief. With this approach, we end up battling ourselves instead of breaking the loop that’s actually sustaining the habit. The real shift begins when we stop asking “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking “What is this habit doing for me?” Jay then breaks down the four-part habit loop: trigger, emotion, behavior, and reward and shows how interrupting just one part can collapse the entire pattern. He explains that our environment matters more than motivation and if you want to change a habit, you have to change the cues that trigger it. Rather than quitting habits cold turkey, he encourages replacing the reward with a healthier form of relief, reminding us that the brain will always seek comfort. Through simple, practical examples, he shows how small interruptions, conscious pauses, and thoughtful substitutions can dismantle habits that once felt impossible to break.  In this episode, you'll learn: How to Break Bad Habits Without Relying on Willpower How to Identify the Hidden Triggers Fueling Your Habits How to Interrupt the Habit Loop How to Stop Fighting Habits and Start Understanding Them How to Build an Identity That Makes Good Habits Stick How to Use Small Replacements to Create Big Change Every habit you want to change once served a purpose, now you get to decide what serves you going forward. When you become aware of your triggers, redesign your environment, and choose support over struggle, growth becomes lighter and more sustainable.  With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here. What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 00:34 How Do You Actually Break a Bad Habit? 02:06 You Are Not Your Habits 05:04 The 4-Part Loop that Creates the Habit 07:11 Action #1: Redesign Your Triggers 08:44 Action #2: Replace the Reward not the Habit 11:33 Action #3: Interrupt the Loop In Real Time 12:48 Action #4: Build a New Identity Around Your Choices 15:00 The #1 Mistake in Breaking Habits 15:51 90-Day Habit Breakup BlueprintSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast, guaranteed human. You can't break a habit if you still see yourself as the person who does it. If you think I'm lazy, you can't break a habit that proves you're disciplined. If you think you're disorganized, you can't build a habit that proves you're focused. If you're not on top of everything, you can't prove to yourself you have a plan. So instead of saying I'm trying to quit, say I'm not someone who chooses that anymore. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty.

I could never change my habits until I did this. What if I told you that 90% of your bad habits have nothing to do with discipline and everything to do with the systems you live inside? Most people blame themselves for their habits. I'm just lazy, I'm not consistent, I always mess this up. But here's the truth. You don't have bad habits because you're a bad person. You have bad habits because you have invisible patterns that no one ever taught you to see.

And once you see them, you can break them fast. Let's be honest, if you want to have a great 2026, breaking bad habits and building good habits is core to your success. We are what we repeatedly do. This is the wisdom that's been passed down for generations. Yet we rarely focus on our most repeated thoughts, actions, beliefs, and values. And we think it's going to be some miraculous manifesting moment, some random thing that happens in our life that changes the trajectory of everything, when in reality it's all about our habits.

If you want 2026 to be the best year of your life, this episode is for you. If you want to break your bad habits in 2026, this episode is for you. And if you're someone who's done just setting goals and not meeting them, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. So why can't you break your bad habits? Let's get honest. If you could have broken the habit by now, you would have. The problem isn't effort. The problem is misdiagnosis. Most people think a bad habit is a character floor. But science shows a bad habit is usually an emotional escape. When we have a bad habit, we think it's because we're a bad person.

We had bad parenting. We had a bad background. We had bad company. Now, even if you did have a lot of challenging things, the truth I want you to realize is a bad habit is more of a subconscious response. It's something that you can train. It's not something that you're stuck with. A bad habit can be a triggered loop.

A bad habit can be a dopamine pattern you've repeated. A bad habit can be an environment cue or a story you've been carrying for years. But you can change it. You can transform it. A habit is not something you have to live with because it's who you are. You are not your habits. You are made of your habits. You're defined by your habits.

but you yourself are not your habits. Here's the key idea. You don't fix bad habits by fighting them. You fix them by understanding what they're doing for you. Because every bad habit has a job. Scrolling equals distraction. Overeating equals comfort. Procrastinating equals protection.

Overworking equals avoidance. People pleasing. equals fear of rejection. Staying up late equals escape time. Your habit isn't random. It's a coping strategy. And once you understand the strategy, you can rewrite it.

Oftentimes when we want to change our habits, we just think, I just want to wake up earlier. Okay, great. But what does staying up late do for you? What is it providing that you need to change the strategy? If you say to yourself, oh, I just want to stop drinking sodas. What is that habit? What is the loop? What is the trigger? What is the incentive that you turn to that for?

Right? Every habit we have, you can say, I don't want to do this and I want to start this. I never want to do this again. I always want to do this. But in reality, if you don't get beneath the surface, if you don't get beneath the hood, you have no idea as to why you even turn to it in the first place. And if you don't understand why you turn towards something, you can't turn away from it. don't know why every night even when you don't want to you turn on the TV and waste two hours. If you don't know why you do that, you can't change it. If you don't know why you choose to sleep in instead of going to the gym, you can't change it. Here's what I want to talk to you about, the four-part loop that runs 90% of your habits. Every habit follows the same pattern. Number one, trigger. Something happens. Number two,

Emotion. You feel stress, boredom, loneliness, fear. Number three, behavior. You reach for the habit. And number four, reward. Your brain gets relief. The loop completes. And your brain says, let's do that again tomorrow. But here's the moment that changes everything. If you interrupt just one part of the loop, the habit collapses. That means you don't have to change yourself. You just. You just. change the loop. This is where the real transformation happens. We keep thinking, I can't change myself. I don't know what's wrong with me. I just can't do this. I'm just a lazy, useless person. But the reality is we're trying to change the loop, not trying to change you. It's the loop that has become you. Therefore, if we can interrupt the loop, change the loop, transform the loop, we can change how we feel. Focus on the loop. Don't focus on yourself. We over. We over. focus on ourselves and our character more than we focus on the actual trigger. So here's what I want you to do. Change your triggers. Most people try to change the habit, but your habit is not the

problem. Your trigger is. Here's an example. You don't bin-scroll because you want to, right? I don't think you go to your phone and go, I can't wait to binge-scroll today. You bin-scroll because your phone is beside your bed. don't eat late and night because you're hungry. You eat because your kitchen is the only quiet moment you have. It's a place of escape. You're exhausted, you're tired, you didn't eat something right before. You don't procrastinate because you're unmotivated. You procrastinate because you're overwhelmed, because you're scared of rejection. So here's your first actionable step. Redesign your triggers. Move the phone out of the bedroom. Prep your meals early. Schedule work into smaller emotional

portions. Remove the cue. Remove the craving. Your environment beats your willpower every single time. Don't try to fight the habit. Break the loop. Don't try to fight the habit. Break the loop. Focus on the design part that you can change to show. shift the direction of where you're going. I really want you to think about this profoundly and thoughtfully. I'll give you an example. I know that I used to turn to sugar when I felt stressed. Sugar would get me out of that feeling. I also know that I used to turn to sugary drinks or sodas when I felt I didn't have energy. I used to think that I couldn't work out unless I had energy, not realizing that working out gave me energy. When I'm working out, I'm working out, I'm

less likely to crave a sugary drink or a snack. Also, going even a step further, when I'm sleeping well, I make better choices. Now ask yourself, why are you not sleeping well? What are you stressed about? What's keeping you up at night? Figure out that trigger and interrupt that pattern. Focus on solving that and you'll be able to wake up earlier and sleep better as opposed to just beating yourself up for not having a good bedtime routine. Next, replace the reward, not the habit. You can break your habit faster if you replace the reward before you remove the behavior. Here's what I mean.

If your habit gives you comfort, replace the comfort, not the habit. If your habit gives you escape, replace the escape, not the habit. Most people try to stop a habit cold, but nature hates a vacuum. So I remember at one point, I would just want to play video games. games after a day of work. No activity. My brain goes dull. I just need to switch off. Instead, I switched it for pickleball. Playing a sport in the evening gives me that sense of play. But it also gives me connection, gives me physical activity and burning calories and getting steps and getting a sweat in. Replacing the habit is better than just saying, I'm not going to do anything this evening.

I'm just going to start doing nothing from now on. That's just not going to work. For example, if you say to yourself, I'm going to start eating healthy now. I'm never going to reach for the chips. But if all you have in your snack drawer is chips, if you replace the habit, and now you've got healthier alternatives, that's what you're going to reach for. Remove a habit without replacing the reward.

And your brain will find another habit to fill the gap. This is why emotional eating turns into bin scrolling or why overworking turns into overthinking. Your brain is not sabotaging you. It's solving for. relief. So you need an upgraded relief system. We all need relief at the end of the day. We all need relief at the end of the week. That's normal. We couldn't possibly read a book instead of watching a show. Reading a book requires effort. Watching a show requires no effort. So if you eat for comfort, call a friend for three

minutes. If you know you're going to watch a show, what's something that you feel really engaged by and fulfilled by rather than disappointed when you finish. If you scroll for escape, take a 90-second walk outdoors and truly escape and feel the difference. If you procrastinate, set a five-minute timer, let yourself procrastinate, but have a deadline. If you stress and you go shopping, write about what you're feeling. Talk to someone about it. Small replacements break big habits. I remember when I was first trying to give up refined sugars, I would find sweet products that were not as bad. I was eating some monk fruit. I was eating some dates. I had to still solve for my craving at the time. But I wanted to find a healthier craving so that I wasn't hurting myself. Does that make sense?

I hope that's resonating with you. I don't want you to just say I'm never going to do this ever again. It's really, really hard to do that. The next step is interrupt the loop in real time. This is the most important step. When a trigger hits and you feel yourself slipping into the habit, pause. Just 10 seconds. Your brain only needs a tiny interruption to disrupt the automatic pathway. Say this out loud. What am I actually needing right now?

That one sentence moves you from subconscious habit to conscious choice. This is where the bad habit loses. power because habits thrive in autopilot and die in awareness. As soon as you're aware, as soon as you ask yourself, what am I doing here? What do I really want right now? If while you are scrolling, you ask yourself, what do I really want right now? You might actually say to switch off. And you might actually find a 20 minute power nap better than that hour doom scroll that you're about to do. If you're watching a show late at night and you ask yourself, what do I really need? You'd probably say to decompress and rest. And maybe getting into bed 30 minutes earlier is better than

that extra episode, if you woke up in the morning and asked yourself, what do I really need right now? You'd say, I really need to get moving, right? And you're going to choose that over snoozing. That question reestablishes what's really important to you. Now we're getting into some serious growth. The next step is to build a new identity around your choices. You can't break a habit if you still see yourself as the person who does it. Let me say that again. You can't break a habit if you still see yourself as the person who does it. If you think I'm lazy, you can't break a habit that proves you're disciplined. If you think you're disorganized, you can't build a habit that proves you're focused. If you're not on top of everything, you can't prove to yourself

you have a plan. So instead of saying, I'm trying to quit, say, I'm not someone who chooses that anymore. Notice the difference. Instead of I'm trying to wake up earlier, say, I'm a morning person in training. Instead of I'm trying to stop procrastination, say I'm someone who starts small. This isn't about manifestation. This isn't about creating something from your mind. This is about identity. Identity is the soil, habits of the seeds, plant a new identity this year,

and your habits will grow into it. Because we don't change our self image, we can't change our habits. If you imagined yourself as an athlete every day, you would wake up, eat right, and sleep well. Because you see yourself as an athlete. You treat yourself as an athlete. But if you see yourself as someone lazy,

an underachiever, someone who doesn't perform, why would you suddenly start doing all of that? When I'm working with a client, I encourage them to see themselves as an athlete. How would they treat their body? How would they treat their mind? How do they play game day on Saturday or Sunday or Monday and actually have an impact on the field?

What does that look like? What does that sound like? What does that feel like? We have to build the identity first and the behavior will follow. When you understand your past, you understand why you reach for certain habits and how to outgrow them.

For example, breaking habits isn't a about force. It's about understanding where they came from so you can finally let them go. That's one of the biggest mistakes we make. We're just trying to fight this thing and beat it and break it down, whereas you can actually take its power away when you go, oh, I remember when I was stressed out at school and I started that habit because it made me feel less stress. Guess what I'm not stressed out anymore. You know what? I remember that I developed that habit when I was really broke. And now I still feel broke, even though I'm a bit safer. I can let that habit go. You disempower bad habits when you recognize where they came from. So here's the 90-day habit-breaker blueprint.

And I need you to commit for 90 days. Here's the structure I want to give you. Month one, focus on your awareness and triggers. your habits for seven days. Identify the top three triggers. Redesign your environment. Month two, replacement and micro wins. Assign a new reward for each habit. Practice the 10 second pause and celebrate tiny successes. This part is huge. Here's what you need to do. When you make the right decision, write down how you feel after it. I'll say that again, when you make the right decision, write down how you feel after it. When I first started going to the gym in the morning, I used to have to write down how I felt after it because it felt amazing. It always felt better than

skipping. It always felt better than sleeping in. It always felt better than not showing up. And in the beginning, I had to write that down so that the next morning when I woke up again and my mind came up with a list of excuses, I was convinced. Because here's the thing, when you're doing things that are good for you, they always feel hard before you do them. You're going to wake up and your mind is going to say, sleep in. You don't need to work out. You're tired. You've been working hard. But if you've recognized that even when that's the case, you feel better after you work out, you'll show up. And especially if you celebrate tiny successes. So many of us don't celebrate until the big thing happens, until the big win happens. The problem with that is that

to take a year. And if you start celebrating, a weekly win, a monthly win, you'll feel more momentum towards the big thing than taking energy away. Month number three, focus on identity and integration. Rewrite your identity statements. Tell one friend your new commitments. Choose one habit to turn into a ritual. There's a quote that I love and it says, a bad habit is not a life sentence. It's just an old story waiting for a new ending. I can't stress how important this piece on identity is. We have to start seeing ourselves as not the habit. You are not your thoughts.

You are not the voice in your head. You are not the habits you've practiced for all these years. That's not who you are. you are so much more than that, you're beyond that. And simply by training your self-image, your habits can change. If I don't see myself as a podcaster, I won't podcast. If I don't see myself as an interviewer, I would never sit in the interviewer's seat. A lot of us are not doing the things, not because we're not capable, but because we don't see them.

you're not held back by your lack of capability. You're held back because of your lack of vision. You're not able to start that new business, launch a podcast, write a book, build a social media channel, not because you're not skilled enough, but because you think you're not there yet. You think you have to do something else before you do that. Please change your identity.

Here's the thing. Most people think breaking a bad habit takes strength. but it actually takes understanding. You're not failing because you're weak. You're stuck because your system was built for a version of you you no longer are. And once your system changes, your habits will as well.

So remember, you don't have to break everything at once. You just have to break the loop. Start today, interrupt one habit, redesign one trigger, replace one reward, shift one, identity because when you change one habit, you don't just change your behavior, you change your future. This is the year you break the pattern. This is the year you take your life back. This is the year you make the shift. This is the year you transform your future and future generations.

You can break 90% of your habits. Now why did I say 90% and not 100%? Because I didn't want to miss lead you. I remember one of my monk teachers saying to me, even if you take the word habit, it teaches you a lot about breaking habits. When you first start breaking habits, you take away the H in habit and a bit is still left. And then he said, you work some more on breaking your bad habits and then you take away the A. He goes, bit is still left. And then he goes, hey, you work harder on your habits. You get rid of the H, the A, the B. And guess what? It is still left. And then you go, The idea being that when you're breaking your habits, it doesn't just all evaporate at once.

You're really excavating every layer. The first layer is just the trigger. The second layer is the loop, then it's the reward, and then you get into this subconscious space of why do I need that escape? Where does it come from? You could locate it to a childhood memory, you could locate it to a friend or family member,

an interaction. Sometimes people are not chasing their dreams, And when you go to the subconscious level, the answer is because people at school, teachers, never believed in me. No one never believed in me. And guess what? Then sometimes you hear people who are really successful

and you ask them what they heard in school, they said, people never believed in me. Interesting, right? Two people in the same class heard the same thing. The teacher said, I don't believe in you, to both of them. One person went on to become successful, one person didn't. Why?

Because one person saw as fuel, one person, saw it as being held back. But you can retrain that habit. You can rewire that function. You can change it into fuel. You don't have to live up to what people expected of you. You simply have to pursue the life you won. And it all starts when you start breaking 90% of your habits.

They will stay. There'll be some habits that will take years to break and that's not to discourage you. It's to be honest. But know that you can keep chipping away and it will be worth it because you will unlock another level of growth,

performance, success every time you chip away. I really hope this is the year that you succeed in breaking, the habits that are holding you back, and most of all, start seeing yourself as already capable of everything you want to achieve.

Remember, I'm forever in your corner and I'm always rooting for you. Thank you for being here. Make sure you subscribe so you never miss a video. Let's lock in in 2026. If you love this episode, you will also love my interview with Charles Duhigg on how to hack your brain, change any habit effortlessly, and the secret to making better decisions.

Look, am I hesitating on this because I'm scared of making the choice because I'm scared of doing the work? Or am I sitting with this because it just doesn't feel right yet? This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.