Curiosity is more powerful than willpower
Do you ever feel trapped by your habits? Stuck in stubborn behavior patterns that won’t budge or eventually resurface? Breaking free from habit loops — whether endless scrolling, stress eating, procrastination, or emotional outbursts — can feel impossible.
Your brain is wired to create and operate on habits. That’s what makes habits so tough to break once they’re formed. Yes, your brain is a habit-making machine. But what if you could hack into your brain’s reward center, reprogram, and take control?
Welcome to the world of habit hacking, where understanding how your brain works is the first step to lasting change.
Thanks to ground-breaking research about how your brain forms habits, we know behavior change requires more than willpower, substitution strategies, and avoiding temptation. It’s more about hacking into your brain’s reward center to overcome cravings, stop destructive behaviors, and create a life you love.
I took my first deep dive into habit hacking in October 2019 when I enrolled in a training program with one of the premier experts in habit change, Judson Brewer, MD, PhD. Brewer, a leading neuroscientist and addiction psychiatrist, appeared in 2018’s fourth most watched TED talk, A Simple Way to Break a Bad Habit. His groundbreaking research first gained prominence when his smoking cessation program (Craving to Quit) proved five times more effective than the gold-standard treatment. From there, he and his lab developed the first clinically proven apps for anxiety (Unwinding Anxiety) and craving-related eating (Eat Right Now).
The more I learn about the neuroscience of habit change, the less enchanted I am with forcing myself to adopt new behaviors and desperately trying to maintain them with willpower and motivational mind games. I’m learning that habit change is more about getting curious, staying present, and letting your brain learn naturally.
What do I like most about Brewer’s unique brand of habit change? He cleverly morphs his research findings into short, practical, smartphone-based applications. This format appeals to my clients: time-strapped, high-achieving executives, professionals, and two-career couples.
Why Are Habits So Hard to Break?
Habits are formed in the oldest, most primitive area of your brain and are part of your survival system. Habits are efficient shortcuts that save time and energy by helping you react automatically without thinking about it. Habits are designed to free up your brain to focus on more important and interesting stuff.
The core of habit formation is reward based learning. If you’ve ever caught yourself reacting on autopilot — reaching mindlessly for food, a drink, or the “complete purchase” button — this simple three-step loop will feel familiar:
- Trigger: A trigger can be almost anything — a situation, thought, or feeling, often outside your conscious control — that starts the habit.
- Behavior: You act automatically in response to the trigger — grabbing a snack, checking your phone, or lashing out in frustration.
- Reward: You feel a brief sense of relief, satisfaction, or pleasure.
Because our brains are so efficient, this loop quickly becomes so automatic that you barely notice it anymore.
Reward-based learning has kept humans alive for thousands of years. The downside? Modern life is bombarded by artificial triggers designed to exploit your brain’s reward-based learning system. Food, social media, and online shopping are engineered to give your brain quick dopamine hits. As you constantly trigger this reward system, it creates loops that trap you in behaviors you often don’t enjoy that much.
Everyday Addictions Are Everywhere.
Think addictions only apply to alcohol or drugs? Think again. Everyday addictions are everywhere:
- Things: Shoes, snacks, gadgets.
- Behaviors: Binge-watching Netflix, doomscrolling, or gaming.
- Thoughts: Obsessing over the latest news, relationship drama, or diet disguised as a wellness plan.
These behaviors offer quick relief when you’re stressed, bored, or lonely. But the relief is short lived — and often followed by regret.
What Drives Everyday Addictions?
Modern life combines three subtle yet powerful forces that fuel everyday addictions:
- Stress: Boredom, loneliness, frustration, or worry.
- Availability: Smartphones, streaming platforms, and online stores make everyday addictions all too easy to indulge.
- Intermittent Rewards: Sometimes you get what you’re craving. (One of the best examples of how intermittent reinforcement works is gambling. Sometimes you win. That makes it harder to walk away.)
Why Willpower Alone Doesn’t Work
What makes breaking habits so hard?
Most strategies, like willpower, rely on the brain’s decision-making center, the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Unfortunately, the PFC, a newer part of the brain, shuts down when you get overwhelmed, tired, or stressed. At the exact moment you need it most, your PFC goes offline.
Other common strategies, like substitution (swapping one habit for another) or avoidance (avoiding triggers), also fall short because they rely on the PFC.
I’ve learned that Brewer’s approach to habit change targets both the old brain and the new brain, allowing them to work together and make it easier for you to recognize, reframe, and rewire.
Curiosity Is Stronger Than Willpower
What supercharges habit change is curiosity — particularly what scientists call interest curiosity — a wide-eyed, judgment-free interest in understanding yourself and your behavior. It’s different from deprivation curiosity, that itchy, nagging feeling of needing to know something (e.g., “Who just texted me?”)
I’ve found it’s a profoundly different feeling when you’re caught in a habit loop and infuse it with curiosity instead of criticism. And your old brain is really into feelings. Addressing your primitive brain’s need to feel something good helps it calm down and let the PFC come back online.
Who would have thought? By cultivating interest curiosity, you can disarm cravings and approach habit change with smarts and compassion instead of frustration.
The Science of Breaking Free
The first step to rewire your brain’s reward system may surprise you because it doesn’t involve trying to change or stop the habit immediately.
It starts with switching off your brain’s autopilot and switching on fresh, present-moment awareness of your behaviors and curiosity about how rewarding they are.
A specific brain area, the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), rapidly compares the relative reward value of different behaviors to determine what Brewer calls the bigger, better offer (BBO).
Hacking the Habit Loop:
Brewer uses a simple analogy to explain how the habit change process works: gears on a bike.
Reverse: When you’re on autopilot, you’re stuck in reverse — repeating the same old behaviors without thinking.
As an example, you may be so used to beating yourself up that you don’t even realize how much of your daily headspace is hijacked by your inner critic. And how much living with a constant inner critic attack in your head is making you less effective, not to mention affecting your happiness and your peace.
First Gear: Awareness kicks in. You start to notice your triggers and how you respond to them.
“Hey, I feel like crap, and I don’t know why. I shouldn’t be feeling like this. I should be able to kickstart myself out of this funk right now… What’s wrong with me? Successful people don’t deal with BS like this…”
Second Gear: Let curiosity take over: Explore how the habit feels — what are its actual costs and rewards?
“So this is what an inner critic attack feels like — pissed at myself because I can’t figure out why I feel like crap, and I can’t shut it down or shake it off…”
“Is getting pissed at myself helping me get out of this mindset? No, but I don’t know what else to do…(yet).”
Third Gear: You experiment with a new behavior that’s more rewarding than the old habit.
“What might help more than beating up on myself? Well… I’d feel better if I stopped trying to force myself to feel good. This is odd… It feels better to acknowledge that I feel bad, I don’t know why, and that I can go on with my day anyway…”
Interest curiosity intrinsically feels good. That’s why curiosity can offer you some relief from an inner critic attack or the relentless pressure of your inner pusher. When your primitive brain takes in the feel-good chemicals generated by curiosity, it calms down and lets your PFC come back online. Now you can start problem-solving and help yourself out of the mindset funk.
Your Brain Is Ready for a Reboot. Are You?
Habit change isn’t just about stopping the bad stuff. It’s also about automating positive routines, like exercising, journaling, or sleeping better. Regardless, I find this new brain/ old brain approach more effective and efficient than relying on willpower, substitution strategies, and motivational mind games.
But don’t take my word for it. Your inner critic may be (appropriately) skeptical when I say making habit change feel better makes it work better. Your inner pusher may be (appropriately) skeptical when I say making habit change feel better makes it work faster. Let these “Radical Dr. Jan” comments pique your interest and inspire you to test it yourself. Honor your primitive brain’s need for a “show me the money,” felt sense that you can trust this new mindset.
If you’re curious about getting curious, staying present, and letting your brain learn naturally, please get in touch with me at www. DrJanAnderson.com or 502.426.1616.