Why Do I Keep Doing This? The Real Reason Habits Stick—and How to Finally Change Them, with Kati Morton
Lisa Marie Bobby, PhD, LMFT, BCC
Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby is a licensed psychologist, licensed marriage and family therapist, board-certified coach, AAMFT clinical supervisor, host of the Love, Happiness, and Success Podcast and founder of Growing Self.
So much of the work we do through coaching and counseling at Growing Self begins with a moment of self-recognition. You notice a pattern that no longer feels aligned with who you want to be, yet it keeps resurfacing anyway.
There is a particular kind of frustration that comes with understanding yourself well enough to see what you are doing, while still feeling unable to stop. You may know the habit is not helping. You may even know where it came from. And still, it shows up. Again.
In this episode of Love, Happiness and Success, I sat down with licensed marriage and family therapist and mental health educator Kati Morton to talk about why this happens, and what actually helps people change. Not at the level of willpower or self-discipline, but at the level where habits are formed and reinforced.
What emerged was a compassionate and psychologically grounded explanation of why breaking habits that keep you stuck is rarely about trying harder, and much more about understanding what those habits have been doing for you.
Self-Sabotaging Behaviors Make Sense in Context
Many of the behaviors people struggle with most are not random or irrational. They are learned responses to stress, uncertainty, or unmet emotional needs. When we talk about self-sabotaging behaviors explained through a clinical lens, they often turn out to be survival strategies that once served a real purpose.
As children, we learn how to manage discomfort, seek connection, and stay emotionally safe long before we have the language to describe what we are doing. Over time, those early strategies solidify into emotional coping habits. Perfectionism. People pleasing. Avoidance. Overworking. Numbing out. Control.
Research on habit formation and change, including Charles Duhigg’s work in The Power of Habit (2012), shows that habits follow predictable loops of cue, behavior, and reward. Later studies on habitual versus goal-directed behavior further clarify why patterns persist even when we want to change them (Gillan et al., 2011).
What matters is not just stopping the behavior, but understanding the reward it provides.
The Nervous System’s Role in Habit Loops
A major theme of this conversation is nervous system regulation. When the body perceives threat, emotional or physical, it shifts into survival mode. Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn.
In these states, the brain prioritizes immediate relief over long-term goals. This is why habits that soothe in the short term can feel compelling even when they create problems later. From a nervous system perspective, they are doing their job. This perspective is also supported by social baseline theory, which suggests that human nervous systems are wired to expect connection and shared support, not constant self-regulation. When people feel emotionally alone, stressed, or unsupported, the brain expends more effort to cope, making rigid habits and survival-based patterns more likely (Coan & Sbarra, 2015).
This understanding aligns with research on emotion regulation and nervous system functioning, including emotion regulation theory (Gross & John, 2003) and polyvagal theory (Porges, 2011), which explain how safety, connection, and regulation shape behavior.
It also helps explain why shame backfires.
Why Shame Keeps Habits in Place
When people respond to unwanted habits with harsh self-criticism, the nervous system reads that as threat. Shame activates the same survival responses that created the habit in the first place.
Research consistently shows that shame is associated with poorer psychological outcomes and greater behavioral rigidity (Tangney et al., 2007). In contrast, self-compassion is linked to greater motivation, resilience, and sustainable change (Neff, 2003; Breines & Chen, 2012).
This is where compassionate habit change becomes essential. Curiosity creates safety. Safety creates flexibility. And flexibility makes new choices possible.
