Linux - passwd "The password is too similar to the old one"

 At times, if you are 

1. the VM owner 
2. does not really care about security on a this particular VM
3. need to change the password or keep it in sync with other password you are using
4. you had sudo access

You could bypass the error "The password is too similar to the old one" by running

sudo passwd <username>

This is the root user way to reassign password for user and it does not check password similiarity.