Habits are like the wrinkles on a man’s brow; if you will smooth out the one, I will smooth out the other.

A habit sets the way a face sets, gradually and then permanently. You cannot argue either of them away by deciding to, because both were produced by thousands of repetitions rather than by a choice you could reverse with another choice. What actually shifts a habit is changing the conditions that keep producing it, and giving that as long as it took to form.

Pick one habit and stop attacking it directly. Look instead at what reliably precedes it: the hour, the mood, the room, the person. Change one of those and leave the habit alone, then judge over a month rather than a day.