You wake up on January 1st, ready to turn over a new leaf. This is the year you’re finally going to eat healthier, exercise consistently, and drink more water. You’re motivated, full of enthusiasm, and determined to make this work.
For the first couple of weeks, you stick to your plan. You avoid processed foods, you hit the gym, and you stay hydrated throughout the day.
But then, life gets busy.
Work piles up, stress creeps in, and suddenly, all that motivation starts to fade. One missed workout turns into three, a single takeaway meal becomes several, you swap your fancy new water bottle for a coffee mug and wine glass. Soon, you’re back where you started, frustrated and wondering what went wrong.
This cycle of motivation, action, burnout, and relapse is all too common. If you’re guilty of this don’t worry, it’s not your fault!
The truth is that most people approach health and fitness the wrong way. They try to rely on willpower and short-term motivation instead of creating habits that make healthy living effortless.
Science consistently shows that the key to long-term health isn’t about forcing yourself to make the right choices every day—it’s about automating them through small, repeatable habits. This article explores why habits are more reliable than willpower, how they shape long-term success, and how you can start using them today to make healthy living second nature.
Why Relying on Willpower & Motivation Doesn’t Work
Willpower is often seen as the key to success, but it is a finite resource. As the day goes on, making decisions, resisting temptations, and handling stress gradually deplete our willpower. This concept is known as decision fatigue, a well-documented phenomenon covered extensively in the book Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney.
Motivation is also unreliable. It comes in waves. It’s great when you’re feeling inspired, but it vanishes when you’re tired, stressed, or faced with unexpected challenges.
Perhaps some of these real-life failure examples sound familiar:
- The New Year’s Resolution Crash – You start the year determined to eat healthy and work out, but as motivation fades, old habits return.
- The “I’ll Start Monday” Diet Cycle – You restrict yourself for a few days, then binge at the first sign of stress.
- The Gym Membership That Never Gets Used – You sign up with the best intentions, but when life gets busy, workouts stop happening.
- The 30-Day Challenge That Leads to Burnout – You follow a strict plan for a month but fall back into old patterns once it’s over.
- The After-Work Snacking Spiral – You eat well all day but come home exhausted, and willpower is too drained to resist junk food.
If you’ve experienced any of these struggles, it’s not because you’re lazy or lack discipline. It’s because you were relying on willpower instead of building habits that make healthy choices effortless.
The Science Behind Habits and Health
Habits are the key to making lasting changes because they remove the need for constant decision-making. Once a habit is ingrained, you don’t have to think about it—it just happens automatically.
But what exactly are habits?
They are routines formed through repetition and reward. They are small actions repeated consistently that rewire the brain to make them second nature.
Your brain favours habits because they conserve energy, reducing mental effort by turning behaviours into automatic actions. Once a behaviour becomes habitual, you no longer need to waste willpower debating whether to do it. It simply happens as part of your routine. This not only frees up mental energy but also creates consistency, ensuring that you follow through even on days when motivation is low. Over time, these small, repeated actions become second nature, making healthy choices effortless rather than a constant battle.
Research also supports this: A 2009 study published in The European Journal of Social Psychology found that, on average, it takes 66 days to form a new habit. Those who repeated a behaviour consistently during this period were far more successful in maintaining it long-term than those who relied on motivation alone.
For example, instead of debating whether to exercise, making it a set part of your morning routine means you do it automatically, like brushing your teeth. Even on days when you don’t feel like working out, the routine carries you through.
How Focusing on Habits Fixes This
So instead of relying on motivation and willpower to make the right choices, shift your focus to habits to remove the mental effort from the equation.
For example, if you struggle with late-night snacking, creating the habit of prepping a healthy snack in advance ensures that it’s the first thing you reach for, rather than scrambling for junk food. If exercise constantly gets skipped, setting out or putting on your workout clothes right after waking up removes friction, making it easier to follow through without relying on motivation.
This same principle applies across different areas of health, where small, repeatable habits always outperform short-term bursts of motivation. Consider these opposing approaches and consider what would work better for you.
1. On Exercise
Motivation Approach: “I’ll go to the gym five times a week.” This works until life gets busy.
Habit Approach: “I’ll run for 5 minutes before my morning shower.”
You can then gradually increase the time spent running, but the point is that a tiny action naturally grows into a routine. Eventually, you’ll do it like second nature, without needing motivation.
2. On Drinking More Water
Motivation Approach: “I’ll drink more water throughout the day.” This is easy to forget without a system.
Habit Approach: “I’ll drink a glass of water before each meal and coffee I drink throughout the day.”
By linking the goal to an existing habit, you make it automatic.
3. On Eating Healthier
Motivation Approach: “I’m cutting out all junk food.” This feels restrictive and hard to maintain, especially when you’re tired and hungry.
Habit Approach: “I’ll stop keeping junk food in the house, I’ll add one extra vegetable to my dinner, and I’ll eat an orange every afternoon and before I go shopping.”
These are small, sustainable changes that decrease the probability of desiring junk food in the first place.
The exact examples shown above might not work well for you, but the key is not to overhaul your lifestyle overnight but to introduce tiny, manageable changes that naturally build momentum towards your goal.
Habits For Effortless Health
The most important takeaway from this article is that willpower and motivation can fade, but habits last. By focusing on small, consistent actions, you remove the mental effort from making healthy choices and create a lifestyle that feels natural and sustainable.
The trick to building lasting habits is to:
- Start tiny – Make habits so small that skipping them feels harder than doing them.
- Link new habits to existing ones – e.g., drink water after brushing your teeth.
- Make habits enjoyable – If you hate running, try dancing or walking instead.
Give it a try this week, think about what small habits you can start to help you towards your health and wellness goals.
