"It's Not That Bad": Minimizing a Habit You Already Decided to Change

The thought arrives casually, often while you are doing the thing you said you would stop. It does not sound like an excuse. It sounds like perspective. “It’s not that bad. Other people do much worse. I’m functioning. Nobody’s complained.”

What makes the thought so effective is that it may contain facts. You may be functioning. Other people may do worse. The thought is not lying. It is changing the question.

How the comparison shifts

When you decided to change, you were comparing the habit to something you wanted: better sleep, less guilt, more money, a feeling of being in control. “It’s not that bad” replaces that comparison with a different one: the habit measured against worse versions of itself, or against other people’s habits.

The theory of cognitive dissonance, first described by Leon Festinger in 1957, proposes that people experience discomfort when they hold conflicting beliefs and are motivated to reduce that discomfort [1]. Knowing that you want to change and knowing that changing is difficult creates exactly this kind of tension. Minimizing the problem reduces the tension without requiring any action.

Research on social comparison describes this move more specifically. The psychologist Thomas Wills proposed that people under threat to self-esteem tend to compare themselves with worse-off others, a pattern he called downward comparison. The purpose is self-enhancement: you feel better about your own situation by looking at someone in a harder one [2]. When applied to a habit, it sounds like: “At least I don’t do what they do.”

A fictional example

The following is an illustrative example, not a real person’s story.

Aisha decided three weeks ago to stop buying lottery tickets. She was spending about forty pounds a week, and the running total over the past year unsettled her. She told her sister she was done.

On a difficult Thursday, she buys a ticket. The thought arrives immediately: “It’s just one ticket. It’s not like I’m gambling my rent. Some people spend hundreds.”

• What she thinks: “I’m making too much of this. Plenty of people buy tickets. It’s a bit of fun.”
• What she feels: A brief flash of guilt, quickly replaced by something smoother, almost like relief.
• What she does: Buys another ticket on Friday, then Saturday. By Sunday, the weekly total is back to where it was.

Aisha’s thought is not wrong. She is not gambling her rent. Other people do spend more. But three weeks ago, the question was not “Am I worse than other people?” It was “Do I want to keep spending two thousand pounds a year on something that has never paid off?” The minimization swapped the question without telling her.

What the research on minimization shows

In clinical settings, minimization is one of the patterns that comes up frequently.

A cross-sectional study of 225 patients in inpatient addiction treatment used a scale measuring cognitive distortions specific to addiction. Minimization was among the distortions reported, alongside justification and hopelessness. Higher distortion scores were associated with more harmful substance use patterns, though the study’s cross-sectional design means it cannot show which came first [3].

In an interview study with 31 adults with gambling problems, participants described a range of cognitive patterns, including minimizing losses and comparing their behavior favorably with that of other gamblers. The researchers noted that these comparisons helped participants maintain a self-image as a normal gambler rather than a problem one [4].

How strong is this evidence? Modest. The studies are small, drawn from clinical populations, and correlational. But the pattern is consistent: when behavior threatens the way people see themselves, comparisons with worse cases are one of the tools they use to manage the threat.

Why it is not the same as healthy perspective

Minimization can look like the realistic self-appraisal that psychologists sometimes associate with good functioning. An influential 1988 review argued that mildly positive illusions about oneself are linked to well-being and that overly harsh self-views are not a sign of accuracy but of depression [5]. That review has been debated extensively, but the point is useful: not every self-protective thought is a problem.

The difference with “it’s not that bad” is direction. Healthy perspective keeps you proportionate: it stops you catastrophizing a slip into a verdict on your character. Minimization moves in the other direction: it shrinks a real cost until the reason for changing disappears. The test is whether the thought brings you closer to or further from the decision you made.

Questions to examine the thought

When “it’s not that bad” shows up, you do not need to argue that things are terrible. You need to return to your own benchmark.

• What made me decide to change in the first place?
• Am I comparing my habit to what I want, or to what other people do?
• If I listed the specific costs of this habit last month, have those costs changed?
• Would I give a friend the same reassurance, or would I gently point them back to their reasons?

Returning to your own reasons

Research on self-determination theory suggests that autonomous motivation, doing something because you genuinely value it, predicts better health outcomes than controlled motivation, doing something because you feel pressured [6]. “It’s not that bad” often works by disconnecting you from your autonomous reasons and replacing them with an external comparison.

A useful exercise is to write your reasons for changing on a card or a note and reread them when minimization shows up. Not to guilt yourself, but to remind yourself what the comparison ought to be. Aisha’s question is not whether she is worse than other people. It is whether spending two thousand pounds a year matches the life she wants.

The thought as a signal

When “it’s not that bad” arrives frequently, it may be worth asking what makes the change feel threatening enough to need minimizing. Sometimes the answer is that the habit meets a real need, and you have not yet found another way to meet it. For that, see why wanting to quit does not mean wanting every part of quitting. Sometimes the answer is that one slip has triggered a broader sense of failure: see when “I already failed” becomes the argument for giving up.

When to get more support. If minimization is keeping you from addressing a habit that is harming your health, finances or relationships, or if you find yourself unable to cut back despite wanting to, talk to a doctor or therapist. In gambling, the patterns described above, including downward comparison and minimization of losses, are among the cognitive distortions that specialized treatment helps people examine. In the UK, the National Gambling Helpline is 0808 8020 133. In the US, call or text 988 if you are in crisis, or contact the National Problem Gambling Helpline at 1-800-522-4700.