Habits

You probably know what you “should” do. Exercise more. Eat better. Read instead of scroll. Wake up earlier. Be more productive.

And yet you don’t do it. Not consistently anyway.

This isn’t a willpower problem. It’s a systems problem. And systems can be designed.

Why willpower fails

Willpower is a limited resource. You wake up with a certain amount. Every decision, every resistance to temptation, every act of self-control depletes it. By evening, it’s gone.

This is why you eat well all day then binge at night. Why you’re productive in the morning and useless by 4pm. Why resolutions fail by February.

You cannot willpower your way to lasting change. Anyone who tells you otherwise either has unusual discipline or hasn’t tried to change something hard.

Habits don’t require willpower

Once something becomes a habit, you do it automatically. You don’t have to convince yourself to brush your teeth. You just do it.

Habits are stored in a different part of the brain than conscious decisions. They’re like programs that run without input. This is why habits are powerful - they don’t drain your limited willpower reserve.

The goal isn’t more willpower. The goal is building systems that run without it.

How habits form

Every habit has three parts (the habit loop):

Cue: The trigger that initiates the behavior. Time of day, location, emotional state, preceding action, other people.

Routine: The behavior itself. The thing you do.

Reward: The payoff that makes the habit stick. Pleasure, relief, satisfaction, accomplishment.

To build a habit, you need to establish all three clearly.

Building new habits

1. Start absurdly small

Most people fail because they start too big. “I’ll go to the gym for an hour every day” is a recipe for quitting by week two.

Instead: “I’ll put on my gym clothes.” That’s it. That’s the habit.

This feels stupid. It works. Once the clothes are on, you often go to the gym. But even if you don’t, you’re building the cue-routine connection that matters.

Make the habit so small you can’t say no. Two pushups. One page. Five minutes. Expand later, after the habit is established.

2. Attach to existing habits (habit stacking)

New habits stick better when attached to established ones.

Formula: “After I [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].”

Examples:

After I pour my morning coffee, I will write in my journal for one minute
After I sit down at my desk, I will identify my most important task
After I finish dinner, I will walk around the block

The existing habit becomes the cue for the new one.

3. Design your environment

You’re heavily influenced by your environment, usually without realizing it.

Make good behaviors obvious:

Put your running shoes by the door
Keep healthy food at eye level in the fridge
Put your book on your pillow

Make bad behaviors invisible:

Delete social media apps from your phone
Keep junk food out of the house
Put your phone in another room while working

Willpower is about fighting your environment. Design is about making the environment fight for you.

4. Make it satisfying

Habits persist when the reward is immediate. This is a problem because many good habits have delayed rewards (exercise improves health… eventually) while bad habits have immediate rewards (scrolling feels good now).

Solutions:

Add immediate rewards to good habits (listen to favorite podcast only while exercising)
Create a visual record of progress (X on a calendar, tracking app)
Celebrate small wins (sounds cheesy, but your brain responds to it)

5. Never miss twice

You will miss days. Life happens. This is fine.

What destroys habits is the spiral: you miss one day, feel like a failure, miss another day, feel worse, eventually give up entirely.

Rule: never miss twice in a row. One miss is an accident. Two is the start of a new habit.

This single rule handles most setbacks.

Breaking bad habits

The same framework in reverse:

Make it invisible: Remove cues. Don’t keep cigarettes in the house. Delete apps. Avoid triggering situations.

Make it difficult: Add friction. Website blockers. Put your credit card in a drawer. Make the bad habit harder to do.

Make it unsatisfying: Change the reward association. Some people quit smoking by making themselves feel sick while smoking. Pair the bad habit with unpleasant consequences.

Replace, don’t just remove: Bad habits often serve a function (stress relief, boredom, social connection). If you just remove the habit without addressing the function, you’ll default back or find another bad habit. Find a better way to meet the same need.

Identity-based habits

The most durable habits are tied to identity.

Instead of “I want to run” → “I am a runner” Instead of “I want to write” → “I am a writer” Instead of “I want to quit smoking” → “I am a non-smoker”

When habits become part of who you are, they no longer require motivation. You don’t have to convince yourself to do things that are just “what you do.”

Each time you perform the habit, you’re casting a vote for that identity. Enough votes, and the identity becomes real.

The compound effect

Habits compound. 1% better every day is 37x better after a year. 1% worse every day is nearly zero after a year.

This is hard to see day to day. The difference between writing today and not writing today is invisible. But the difference between writing every day for a year and not writing is enormous.

Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year.

Habits are how you get the year-long gains without year-long willpower.

A practical starting point

Choose ONE habit to focus on (not five)
Make it absurdly small (two-minute version)
Attach it to an existing habit
Design your environment to support it
Track it visually
Commit to never missing twice
Run the experiment for 30 days

That’s it. Once it’s stable, add another.

You don’t change your life overnight. You change your life in small increments, compounded over time. Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.

Related: Health (habits for physical wellbeing), Decisions (the choice to commit), Identity (becoming who you want to be)