Why habits hold, and why they break

We think of habits as a matter of willpower. The one who succeeds is assumed to have more discipline; the one who fails is assumed to have too little. It is a grim model, because it turns every setback into a failure of character. And it fits poorly with what research actually shows: habits depend less on wanting enough and more on how the situation around the behavior is built.

A habit is at its core a learned link between a cue and an action. Something in the situation, a time, a place, a feeling, something you just did, triggers the behavior almost without you deciding. Wendy Wood, who has studied habits for decades, estimates that a large part of what we do on an ordinary day consists of exactly such automatic responses to recurring situations, not conscious choices. This is good news: it means you can influence your habits by influencing the situation, not only by steeling yourself.