Replacing a habit with another is often the easiest and most effective way to create change. Our brains love patterns, so swapping out an old loop for a new one can feel surprisingly natural.
For example:
If you tend to open social media out of habit, try putting something more aligned with your goals – like a journaling app, language tool, or meditation app – in the same spot on your home screen.
Instead of scrolling first thing in the morning, you could leave a book where your phone would usually be, and spend ten minutes reading or journaling.
You could swap your evening glass of wine or beer for a non-alcoholic alternative or sparkling water.
Rather than mindlessly reaching for crisps or chocolate, you could replace them with more health-conscious options.
These changes work because you aren’t having to break the pattern – you’re still acting out the same habit – but the outcome is different because of a choice you made beforehand.
But What If You Can’t Just Replace the Habit?
Not all habits are easily swapped. Some are tied to deeper emotional needs or long-standing coping strategies.
Take stress eating. You’re not eating because you’re hungry – you’re eating to soothe your nervous system, to ease discomfort, or to feel relief in the middle of overwhelm. Food – especially carbohydrates – can have a calming effect on the nervous system. So it’s not just emotional; there’s a physiological response involved.
You can’t just replace that with a few deep breaths and expect it to stick. The habit isn’t random – it’s serving a purpose, even if it’s no longer serving you.
In cases like this, awareness becomes the first and most important step. It’s about recognising what the habit is trying to resolve, and asking the question: Is there a more helpful way to meet this need?
Awareness: The First Step to Change
Awareness is that moment when you pause and think:
“Hang on… this isn’t working for me.”
It’s when you realise that what you’re doing – or not doing – doesn’t align with who you want to be. It’s not just a passing thought like “I shouldn’t do this.” It’s deeper – a realisation that this behaviour has a cost. It leaves you feeling worse. It pulls you further from your goals.
You are no longer on autopilot.
Catching Yourself in the Act
The key to moving from awareness to actual change is learning to catch yourself in the moment – while the habit is happening. This is where the idea of creating a wedge comes in.
The wedge is a deliberate pause.
It interrupts your regularly scheduled programming between the stimulus (what triggers the habit) and your response (the action you usually take). However brief, it gives you the chance to act with intention rather than impulse. Choice instead of compulsion.
Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
That space – that pause – is the wedge.
It’s your response-ability: your ability to choose your next move.
Even a single breath, or catching a thought like “I don’t actually need this right now” can be enough to insert the wedge. It’s not always about doing something dramatic – it’s about creating just enough space to decide whether this action serves you.
In that space, the question becomes:
“Is this really what I want right now?”
That’s the power of the wedge: choosing – in the moment – to interrupt the old pattern and open the door to something new.
The Fork in the Road
When you create that wedge, you open the possibility of choice.
You’re no longer just reacting – you’re responding.
You stand at a fork in the road.
One path is familiar: the automatic habit. You know exactly how it makes you feel.
The other path is unfamiliar: the choice to do something different – and that can be uncomfortable.
Even when we know a habit isn’t serving us, it’s predictable. And predictability is comforting.
It’s a strange paradox: we often repeat behaviours that go against our better judgment simply because we know how they’ll make us feel – even if that feeling isn’t good.
But that moment of pause is powerful.
It’s the moment you ask:
“Which path do I want to take –
the one that keeps me stuck,
or the one that moves me forward?”
Choosing Your New Path: Micro-Decisions Matter
There’s power in choice. Even if you choose to follow through with the unhelpful behaviour, the simple fact that you made a conscious decision – rather than acting on autopilot – can reduce the guilt, shame, or frustration that often follows.
Even if the behaviour hasn’t changed yet, your relationship to it has.
You’re no longer being dragged by the habit – you’re starting to detach from it.
Change doesn’t happen in one big moment. It happens through small, consistent ones.
Every time you catch yourself mid-pattern and choose differently, you reinforce a new neural pathway.
This new path isn’t built overnight – it’s built through repetition.
Even when you slip, that doesn’t mean you’ve failed. It means you’re human.
The act of noticing, pausing, and trying again is what strengthens your ability to choose.
The Role of Self-Compassion
None of this works without self-compassion.
If you’re constantly criticising yourself for every slip-up, you reinforce the very habits you’re trying to shift.
Self-compassion doesn’t mean letting yourself off the hook.
It means recognising that change is hard – and that mistakes are part of the process.
You are not your habits.
The Compound Effect: Small Choices, Big Change
Over time, those small decisions add up.
The new path becomes more familiar.
Your identity begins to shift – from someone who reacts automatically to someone who responds intentionally.
You start to trust yourself. You build momentum.
And eventually, the new behaviour becomes your default.
Change Is a Practice, Not a Perfection
Change isn’t a finish line – it’s a practice.
A loop of awareness, pause, choice, and repeat.
It doesn’t require perfection – just practice.
And the willingness to keep trying.
It’s about being aware –
and choosing, one decision at a time,
the person you’re becoming.
So, the formula for change:
(Awareness + The Wedge) × Repeated Choice = Lasting Change