“You need to make a major change in your life. Do you make it all at once, cold turkey style, or incrementally? “

This is exactly how I stopped biting my fingernails. It was a bad habit and I knew it would take forever and be nearly impossible to overcome. Or so at least that was the narrative that I told myself. Then one day a few years ago I decided that I had had enough of hiding my fingers because I was embarrassed by them. I did a little reading and there were lots of suggestions on how to break myself of the habit. Mostly they were related to things I had to buy, like little fingertip condoms, special fingernail polish which would harden the nails beyond damage from teeth, all the way out to click-training yourself out of the habit. I got to laughing and really thinking about how if I could just make a break with it I could do it. And that was all it was. I brought some willpower to bear and resolved to not do it any longer. A line in the sand as it were. Since then I haven’t gone back to biting my fingernails. I’m quite proud of my accomplishment. So I would say that at least for me, it was the coldest turkey of them all.