As the calendar flips to a new year, many Canadians set ambitious goals to improve their lives. Whether it's vowing to be more active, reduce screen time, or eat healthier, you're in good company. Nearly 50% of Americans make similar pledges each year. Yet, the familiar pattern persists: by the time February arrives, only about half of those resolution-makers are still on track.
The Science of Making Habits Easy
So, what's the secret to transforming short-term intentions into lifelong habits? This was the central question posed to Dr. Wendy Wood, a renowned behavioral scientist and author of "Good Habits, Bad Habits: The Science of Making Positive Changes Stick," on a recent episode of HuffPost's "Am I Doing It Wrong?" podcast, hosted by Raj Punjabi-Johnson and Noah Michelson.
Wood's foundational advice is strikingly straightforward. "If you want to start a new habit, the best thing to do is to make it easy — easy to do the new behavior, and hard to do the behavior you’re trying to change," she explained. This means strategically engineering your environment to support your goals.
For example, if your aim is to read before bed instead of scrolling through social media, you must remove the obstacles to reading and increase the friction for scrolling. Wood suggests a practical step: take your smartphone out of the bedroom entirely. "Maybe have a basket and put it in your kitchen, so you can hear it ring, [but] you're not worried about it," she said. Then, ensure your bedroom is equipped for reading with a good book and a proper light that won't disturb a partner.
The Crucial Role of Rewards and Specificity
Another powerful tool is to attach an immediate, enjoyable reward to the new behavior. This positive reinforcement makes you want to repeat the action. "In this case, the reward would be reading a really good book that makes you feel good while you’re reading it," Wood noted. She shared a personal example: she built a habit of using her treadmill by rewarding herself with an episode of a reality TV cooking competition during each workout.
Wood also highlights a critical mistake people make: setting goals that are too vague. Habits are not broad aspirations like "I want to lose weight." "That just doesn’t even make sense," she stated. Instead, they are specific, repeatable behaviors. "You’re trying to add more fruit and vegetables into your meals. You’re trying to eat smaller portions. You’re trying not to snack. Those are specific behaviors."
This lack of specificity is a key reason so many New Year's resolutions fail. "When we set New Year’s resolutions, we sometimes do it at this really high level that doesn’t map on to any particular behavior," Wood explained. Without a concrete action to focus on and plan for, success is elusive.
Building Habits Without the Struggle
A profound insight from Wood's research is that habit formation should not feel like a constant battle of willpower. "When we’ve observed people who are really good at beating their goals... they’re not struggling to do it," she said. They have automated the desired behavior through context and repetition, so it no longer requires intense mental effort or "white knuckle" determination.
In fact, Wood offers a clear warning: "as soon as you start struggling, you know that you’re not building a habit." The goal is to reach a point where the good habit is the default, easy choice, and the old behavior simply fades from mind.
Wood acknowledges that her research conclusions — making it easy and rewarding it — might seem obvious. "Your mother probably would have told you the same thing," she quipped. Yet, most people ignore this simple wisdom and instead rely on sheer willpower, which is why so many well-intentioned changes don't last.
Ultimately, the path to lasting change in 2026 and beyond lies in a simple two-step process: 1) meticulously engineer your environment to make the good behavior effortless, and 2) find a genuine, immediate reward that makes you want to do it again. By focusing on specific actions and removing the struggle, you can finally make those New Year's resolutions a permanent part of your life.
