Comfortably Numb

Extracted with permission from Little Addicts by Kerene Strochnetter

You are what you do (repeatedly)

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence is not an act but a habit.” This quote by Aristotle inspires me for two reasons. First, it highlights the power of habit in shaping our lives. Second, it suggests that we can change our lives by changing our habits (behaviour), a notion that recent findings in neuroscience fully endorse.

Repeated behaviours reinforce neural pathways and hardwire habits into the brain. It’s what neuroscientist Donald Hebb famously described as “neurons that fire together, wire together.” In other words, every time you repeat a behaviour or thought, you strengthen the brain’s circuitry for it. This is why I often remind clients, you build your habits, and then your habits build you.

Think of it like walking the same path through the bush: the more often you tread it, the clearer and easier it becomes to follow. Eventually, it’s so well-worn that your feet find it automatically, even when you mean to take another route.

Whether that path leads somewhere nourishing or destructive doesn’t matter to your brain; it just gets better at whatever you practise. That’s why breaking a habit isn’t about willpower or strength; it’s about patiently rewiring the path itself. Addiction is not a failure of character but a well-rehearsed pathway the brain keeps walking until we learn to create a new one.

The catch, of course, is that our habits don’t care whether they help or harm us. For me, a glass or two of red wine each evening slowly carved itself into my brain until it wasn’t optional anymore; it was an addiction. But the same brain that locked me into that cycle has also helped me build healthier habits. Practices like yoga, walking, Pilates, and meditation are now part of my daily routine, proof that repetition can entrench what heals us just as powerfully as what harms us.

When it comes to building habits, those that typically offer immediate rewards are easier to establish. The brain is wired for instant gratification and energy conservation, making low-effort, high-reward activities more appealing. ​

Today, it’s far easier to feed and fulfil our habits because the modern world is geared towards convenience, and availability plays a massive role in shaping our behaviour. High-fat foods, sugary snacks, cigarettes, vapes, porn and alcohol are readily available, highly accessible, heavily marketed, and legal.

With instant access at our fingertips, the friction is substantially reduced, and that changes everything. The harder something is to get, the easier it is to resist. And vice versa.

Healthy habits require more mental effort, discipline, and a commitment to long-term goals. They generally don’t trigger the same dopamine release, and the delayed reward makes them harder to establish and stick to. But that doesn’t mean we have to stay stuck in harmful habits. It simply means we have some work to do.

Most of us don’t think about changing our behaviour until it starts to cost us something: our health, our sleep, our relationships, our integrity, or our self-respect. In a conversation on my Little Addicts podcast, leadership expert and best-selling author Michael Bunting shared an insight that cuts to the heart of why change is so hard: “Most people don’t explore change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of change.”

Read that again.

We don’t change because it’s logical, well-timed, or good for us. We change when what we’re doing starts to hurt more than the uncertainty of letting it go. When the nightly glass turns into three. When scrolling steals our sleep. When busyness costs us relationships. When self-soothing quietly becomes self-sabotage.

Until then, staying the same feels safer. Familiar. Predictable. Even if it’s limiting.

This is why insight alone rarely leads to change. You can understand your habits, name them, even dislike them, and keep doing them. Because if they’re relieving discomfort in the short term, the brain will cling to them.

Pain, uncomfortable as it is, becomes the signal. Not a failure. Not a flaw. A message.

This can’t go on!

When that moment arrives – when staying the same starts to hurt – curiosity becomes more useful than criticism. As a coach, I’ll often ask, “How have these behaviours served you in the past?” Then I’ll ask, “What’s the impact in your life right now?” or “How might your life look without it?” These questions aren’t about judgment; they’re an invitation to get curious.

It’s not just about making “better” choices

I also want to be clear that the solution to dealing with any addiction isn’t simply about making better choices. Blaming addiction on bad choices is the same as saying that if you have a problem, it’s your fault. Not only is this untrue, but it’s also unhelpful.

Addiction rarely begins as a conscious choice. What often starts as a way to cope, soothe, or escape can, over time, rewire the brain’s stress and reward systems. The capacity to regulate impulses breaks down and survival takes over. Addiction isn’t about willpower; it’s the body and emotions driving behaviour beyond conscious control.

When you understand addiction this way, it makes sense. Think of it as a normal human response to relieve pain and feel better. Instead of blaming yourself for being weak-willed or flawed, it’s far more useful to develop a deeper understanding of how your inner experience shapes your choices.

This is why logic so often fails in the face of craving. In moments of stress, fatigue, or emotional discomfort, the brain prioritises immediate relief over long-term consequences. Even when you “know” a behaviour is harming you, that knowledge alone is rarely enough to stop.

Understanding doesn’t equal control.

Shame only adds fuel to the fire.

When we judge ourselves for our habits – calling ourselves weak, broken, or out-of-control – we increase nervous system distress. And when distress rises, the urge to self-soothe becomes stronger. Avoiding and numbing emotions can feel wise in the moment, but it perpetuates the cycle.

Being human makes us all vulnerable to addiction, so there is no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ in this conversation. This is a conversation about humans doing human things: why we do them, how they begin, where they can lead, and how to address them if you want to change.

Understanding what’s driving a behaviour helps you lay down the burden of self-blame. It creates the space needed to respond with awareness rather than habit, and to begin choosing differently, not from force or guilt, but from clarity.