Essays About Bad Habits: 5 Essays Examples and Writing Prompts

Writing about bad habits poses an interesting topic; to help with your essays about bad habits, read our top essay examples and writing prompts below.

Many people tend to discount their bad habits as small. They get blinded to their life-shattering and long-term effects because they don’t think of it as a “big deal,” they get blinded to their life-shattering and long-term effects. 

Whether smoking or procrastination, these habits are detrimental to our quality of life. Many people don’t realize how detrimental these habits can be until they create more significant problems in their lives.

Writing about bad habits and how to kick them will create an engaging, compelling, and thought-provoking essay. Read on to see the best examples of essays about bad habits and 8 intriguing writing prompts.

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1. Weekly Reflections – The Ordeal of Breaking Bad Habits by Steven Lawson

“Our external realities are always tied to and flow out of our interior/spiritual core. Change occurs first at one’s core and then manifests itself on the surface, not the other way around.” 

Lawson uses a spiritual approach to understand bad habits, including how they’re formed and how to get rid of them. He delved into his difficulties with transforming his bad habits and wrote about how he perceived his bad habits as a behavioral reaction to a problem.

2. How to Break a Bad Habit and Replace It With a Good One by James Clear

“You can teach yourself new and healthy ways to deal with stress and boredom, which you can then substitute in place of your bad habits.”

Clear’s take on bad habits is that they are methods of dealing with stress and boredom. After explaining the formation of habits from stress and boredom, he provides methods and tips for replacing them with good habits. Clear also included examples that his readers can easily relate to.

3. How Bad Habits Form (And Why They’re So Difficult to Break) by Ian Kan

“Of course, you might feel guilty, but the goal is to be aware of those bad habits and how often they happen. Then from there, you can hatch a plan to break those habits.”

Ian Kan’s essay on bad habits dives into the psychology behind habit formation, including the various stages. After this in-depth look, he offers various methods of transforming bad habits into good ones.

4. Break Your Bad Habits by Amy Novotney

“Self-motivation is best sustained by having a clear, long-range goal that can be broken down into a series of specific, attainable smaller goals to guide one’s efforts along the way.”

Novotney’s essay focuses on the top ten habits that grad students have that prevent them from gaining further academic success. She emphasizes how these habits keep students from making it through graduate school. On top of listing a good number of commonly practiced bad habits among students, she also included solutions for fixing and correcting them.

5. 5 Bad Business Habits You Need to Stop Immediately by Dylan Ogline

“But with each habit I shed, my prospects got brighter. When I shed all five, my agency was on track to becoming the seven-figure business it is today.”

Ogline takes bits and pieces from his experience as a business owner to write his essay on bad habits. He also provides business smarts and wisdom for readers of his essay, whether they’re simply interested in the essay or fellow entrepreneurs.

8 Prompts on Writing Essays About Bad Habits

Consider the essay ideas and topics we’ve listed below if you’re more interested in writing your essays about bad habits.

1. Causes of Bad Habits

Understand why bad habits exist or how they form by reading and writing about them. Use this essay writing opportunity to talk about how certain actions, situations, or emotions may lead to the formation of some bad habits.

2. How Bad Habits Take a Toll on the Health

Like stress, bad habits can worsen a person’s health. This essay focuses on the harm bad habits may cause to a person’s physical or mental health. You can even include how bad habits caused by stress can stress a person even more.

3. Getting Past the Challenge of Changing Bad Habits

This idea will drive you to consider how difficult it is to get out of a habit cycle. When you choose to write about this topic, ensure you research the different methods of effectively dropping bad habits for different kinds of people. It gives immense help if you’ve already experienced how hard it is to break a bad habit. 

Figure out how to write a narrative essay to better share your story.

4. How to Know If a Habit Is Bad or Good

Sometimes, a habit lies in the gray area. It can be good in certain situations and bad at other times. Thus, it’s helpful to figure out how detrimental or beneficial a habit is. Consider including a habit’s effects in the short and long term.

5. Does Stress Drive Us to Form Bad Habits?

Bad habits can form from many things, including stress. This essay prompt encourages you to read about how stress can create bad habits in a person. For example, drinking alcohol can become a way for someone to cope with stress from work or family pressure. Then, consider other forms of bad habits and how stress might have a hand in encouraging their formation.

6. Are Bad Habits Contagious? Learn How to Avoid Adopting Them

Essays About Bad Habits: Are Bad Habits Contagious
You can also apply this essay to fictional works wherein the characters start adopting each other’s bad habits

Like diseases, bad habits can spread from person to person. In extreme cases, bad habits can even affect entire nations. Think about the bad habits you’ve gotten from being around or observing other people. You can also apply this essay to fictional works wherein the characters start adopting each other’s bad habits. It provides a good study on how bad habits can

7. American Habits That Are Considered Weird or Bad Habits in Other Cultures

What you may see as a bad habit can be good in a different culture. A famous example is slurping noodles loudly in East Asian countries. Loud slurping is unpleasant and rude in the West, but it’s a sign of appreciation for the food in East Asia. Research other habits that create cultural divides and discuss the different ways people view them, whether negatively or positively.

8. Understanding the Time It Takes to Break a Bad Habit

Let’s say you’re ready to break a bad habit. The challenge is to endure until you’ve gotten rid of it or changed it into a good one. This essay idea is a perfect topic for people who have tried breaking several bad habits and want to write about the experience. Use this essay topic to explore why some bad habits took longer to stop and how difficult it has been to break them. 

Get more writing ideas from our informative essay topics list for students.   

Author

  • Maria Caballero is a freelance writer who has been writing since high school. She believes that to be a writer doesn't only refer to excellent syntax and semantics but also knowing how to weave words together to communicate to any reader effectively.

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