3 Ways to Make Good Habits Actually Stick

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Have you ever promised yourself you’d start eating better, maybe work out more, or finally quit that late-night scrolling habit? You may start very well with a lot of dedication, only to find yourself slipping back into the same old routine. If you relate to this, know that you are not alone.

Most people think it is because they are lazy or have no discipline. We might think we lack willpower, but the real issue is often our approach toward changing habits. Willpower alone is rarely enough to create lasting change. Instead, habits are shaped by the environmental cues around you and the way they’re tied to your identity. Here are three simple ways to leverage this.

1. Anchor New Habits to Old Ones

One simple yet effective way to build a new habit sustainably is “habit stacking”: instead of trying to create a habit out of thin air, you simply “stack” it onto something you already do consistently. For instance, after you pour your morning coffee, you can stack the habit of writing down something you are grateful for, or after you take off your work shoes, you immediately put on your workout clothes.

This works because the first habit is something you already perform automatically without conscious effort. For instance, making your morning coffee, brushing your teeth, or taking off your work shoes are habits that are likely already ingrained. So, they serve as a natural trigger for the new habit.

A 2021 study examined how attaching a new habit to either a daily routine or a specific time affects habit formation. Participants included 192 adults between the ages of 18 and 77 who chose a nutrition behavior to perform daily. Participants were randomly assigned to either a routine-based cue group, which involved linking the behavior to an existing daily habit, like making coffee, or a time-based cue group, which meant performing the behavior at a set time each day.

All participants reported whether they completed the behavior and how automatic it felt over 84 days. Researchers found that both methods were effective in increasing habit automaticity, with repeated enactment of the planned behavior being the strongest predictor of success. They also found that on average, it took about 59 days for participants who successfully formed habits to reach peak automaticity.

So, small but consistent actions linked to existing routines are quite powerful. This way, you create a natural cue that prompts the desired behavior without extra mental effort. Consistency and repetition matter more than perfection or intensity. These small nudges compound over time to create lasting change.

Over time, these intentional pairings of old and new behaviors can steadily take you toward the life you want to build.

2. Use Your Environment to Make Bad Habits Invisible

Few people realize how heavily their behavior is influenced by the cues and context around them. A 2020 systematic review examined 88 studies testing how “choice architecture,” involving small changes in one’s environment when one makes decisions, influences physical activity and sedentary behavior in adults.

Most of the interventions involved prompts such as signs encouraging stair use or message framing, social comparison, and feedback. The results showed that in the presence of these interventions, 68 percent of studies reported a positive effect on behavior. However, once the interventions were removed, the effect dropped, with only 47 percent of studies showing a lasting impact.

This highlights how your environment matters in shaping habits in a lasting way. People followed through effortlessly when their surroundings supported their behavior. This reinforces the idea that lasting habits require designing your own environment in a way that continuously supports your desired behavior. You can make the right actions the default by reshaping the cues around you.

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For instance, if your goal is to work on your health and make certain dietary changes, you can redesign your kitchen environment to support you. This could involve keeping fruits on your kitchen counter and nutrient-rich foods more accessible than other foods you wish to avoid.

Similarly, if you want to read more and scroll less before bed, put your phone in another room at night and keep a book on your nightstand. Your focus should be on making the “good habit” the easiest and most obvious choice.

3. Build Habits Around Your Identity

Lasting change comes from within, rather than just from your external behavior. Most people start with focusing on outcomes like “I want to lose weight” or, at best, processes like “I’ll go to the gym three times a week.” However, since identity is one of the most powerful drivers of change, you should instead focus on becoming the kind of person who doesn’t miss any workouts.

In a 2019 study published in Frontiers in Psychology, researchers conducted two studies to examine the connection between habits and a person’s sense of identity, specifically what they consider their “true self.” They found that people whose habits reflected their identity tended to have higher self-esteem and a stronger orientation toward their ideal self. Similarly, when habits are consciously connected to important goals or values, the habit-identity association becomes stronger.

In this sense, when you focus on changing your identity to that which aligns with your desired goal, every small action becomes a vote for the type of person you want to become. Reading one page, then, makes you a reader. Going for a short run makes you a runner. Recycling one bottle makes you more environmentally conscious. Each action is a way to reinforce the story you tell yourself about who you are.

The key is to approach habit change with patience and self-compassion. The process may feel invisible day to day, but over weeks and months, small changes in the right way can accumulate and gradually reshape your life in a way that feels natural and sustainable.

You don’t need to wait for motivation to strike. You create conditions where good habits happen naturally, day after day, until they become part of who you are.

A version of this post also appears on Forbes.com.

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