Jim KatsoulisJim AI — Your Personal Guide to Living at Your Goal Weight

you can't get rid of bad habits

29 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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Jim Katsoulis presents a short, advice-focused talk arguing that bad habits cannot be eliminated by removing their neural wiring; instead, you must overlay new habits on top of old ones. He gives two reasons: (1) attempted changes can appear to revert because the original neural pathways remain, and (2) willpower alone is ineffective because it fights the habit rather than building a replacement. The recommended solution is to reinforce a new habit until it runs automatically.

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You can't get rid of bad habits, the neural wiring that is those bad habits cannot be removed. What you can do is you can wire new habits over that one. And understanding this is crucial for two big reasons. First one is that I know you've had the experience where you've changed a bad habit for a little while, only to have it come back full force as if it never left. And that's because it never went away. But don't freak out about it. All you want to do is again reinforce that other habit. And the second one is that you can't rely on willpower, because willpower just fights against this bad habit, but never focuses on overlaying the new habit over it. And that is the real, true solution. Because once you have the new habit laid over it, you no longer have to consciously think about it. It just runs on its own.