One-Time Fixes for Habits That Won’t Stick
I don’t believe anyone makes New Year’s resolutions with the intention of giving them up.
Or that we fail because we don’t care enough.
In the moment we decide we’re going to walk more. Go to bed earlier. Cook more at home. Read again. Drink more water. Start journaling.
Stretch. Meditate.
We do mean it.
Usually because a lot of New Year’s resolutions are an attempt to take care of ourselves in a way that’s overdue.
So it feels good to make the effort and start out the year with good intentions.
And then a normal week shows up.
Work runs late. Someone gets sick. You’re tired and distracted, and you get home and the day does what it always does. By February, the resolution feels like something that happened to a different person.
Most people write them off as a waste of time… I don’t. New Year’s resolutions are helpful, even when they “fail”.
They’re the perfect illustration of the fact that a lot of our behavior isn’t driven by motivation at all.
It’s driven by what’s around us.
You reach for what’s closest. You repeat what’s already in place. You do what requires the fewest steps.
If your phone is beside the bed, you will use it in bed.
If the book you want to read is put away, you’ll forget about it on the nights you’re tired.
If the healthy option takes more effort than the easy option, the easy option will win more often than you’d like to admit.
We think it’s some moral failing, a black mark on our character. That we’re lazy and lack will power… but really it’s just how people work, our brains are wired to react to our environment and save energy.
The space around us sets the default for our behavior.
I’ve been thinking about this for most of my career. When I work on a home, I’m watching for these invisible patterns. The small design features that make certain behaviours more or less likely. The hurdles that get in the way of some actions.
The intended paths and the paths of least resistance that will silently shape how people move through a home.
We work around these things, adapting to them without realizing we’re doing it. But they’re there, influencing everything from how well you sleep to whether you actually use that beautiful reading chair or just walk past it.
Most habits are simply defaults we repeat. That’s why they’re so stubborn—they’re not really decisions anymore. They’re routes. Sequences. Autopilot.
So when you try to start a new habit, you’re not only trying to change your behaviour. You’re trying to interrupt a pattern that’s been continually reinforced by the same surroundings, day after day, often for years.
This is why willpower is such a poor long-term strategy. It asks you to override your brain’s default every single day, usually at the exact moment you have the least patience for a fight.
A better approach is to change your physical surroundings so you can create a new “default”. You only need to make that change once and then you can reap the benefits every time you complete your new habit.
If you want to walk more, the right shoes need to be visible, within easy reach, and with everything else you need.
If you want to journal, it can’t be something you have to fetch, clear a space for, hunt down the right kind of pen, and then convince yourself to do.
If you want to eat differently, the first thing you see when you open the fridge matters more than people think. If it’s difficult to see what’s available, to imagine a recipe, then Doordash is going to feel so much easier.
You can’t expect yourself to just “make good choices” if your home makes it easier to choose the actions you no longer want to take.
Most homes don’t need a dramatic intervention for you to get started. Just enough to stop the constant negotiation you have with yourself every time you consider your new habit.
So if you’re thinking about a change you want to make this year, try this: look at the room where the habit will happen, can you make one-time changes that will make it even a little easier to complete the habit every day?
Try that instead of will power.
Once your home supports the change, you stop relying on the perfect mood or a perfect week. The habit has a chance to take root even on ordinary, chaotic days.
And ordinary days are the only ones that really count.
Michele
