How to use the 5 stages of change to break your bad habits, from the author of 'The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control'

 If you resolved to form a new habit — or break a bad one — this year, it's likely you've already abandoned the task. 

And it makes sense: habit-forming is hard and every time you slip up it feels like a personal failure. 

You're also setting yourself up for failure, says Katherine Morgan Schafler, a psychotherapist and author of "The Perfectionist's Guide to Losing Control." 

"Most people operate under the dysfunctional assumption that change is a one-step process that is achieved by stopping something or starting something," she writes in her book.While this framing makes it easier to enact change in the short term, it also makes sustaining change harder in the long term.