By A Psychologis,Contributor,Mark Travers

Copyright forbes

Are you relying on willpower and discipline, or are you ready to design your environment so change happens effortlessly every day, bringing your goals within reach?

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 lack discipline. You might think you lack willpower, but the real issue is often our approach toward changing habits.

Willpower alone is never enough to create lasting change. What you have to realize is that habits are shaped by the environmental cues around you and the way they’re tied to your identity.

This is the central idea behind James Clear’s bestselling book Atomic Habits. He drew on psychology, neuroscience and decades of behavior-change studies. He also combined them with his own hard-earned lessons after recovering from a severe injury. This book serves as a practical framework that reframes habits as something you design, rather than something you try to force.

He explains the very essence of the book in an interview with Abbe Wright when he says, “You don’t rise to the level of your goals — you fall to the level of your systems.” To put this in perspective, lasting change doesn’t come from aiming higher. There needs to be more focus directed toward building systems that make good habits inevitable and bad habits harder to stick to.

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That’s why Clear suggests techniques that help you shift in a way that makes change stick. Based on the book, here are three simple ways to make good habits effortless.

1. Anchor New Habits To Old Ones

One simple yet effective way to build a new habit sustainably, which Clear mentions in the book, is “habit stacking.” The idea is very straightforward. Instead of trying to create a habit out of thin air, you simply “stack” it onto something you already do consistently.

He describes it as creating an “implementation intention,” which means a specific plan that links a new behavior to an existing routine. For instance, after you pour your morning coffee, you 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 would mean 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

Another powerful technique emphasized in the book is “environment design.” The central idea is that many people do not realize that their behavior is heavily 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% of studies reported a positive effect on behavior. However, once the interventions were removed, the effect dropped, with only 47% of studies showing 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 Clear’s 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.

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

The most profound idea in Atomic Habits is that real change comes from shifting your identity and not just your 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.” But Clear, in his book, argues that one of the most powerful drivers of change is your identity. So, you could instead focus on becoming the kind of person who does not miss any workouts.

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.

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.”

Participants rated 80 everyday behaviors on two aspects. First, on how habitual the behavior was. Second, on how much it reflected their core values or sense of self. These 80 behaviors represented 10 basic values, such as health, social connection or personal growth.

In the first study, they looked at how strongly a person’s habits aligned with their identity and how this related to other psychological measures, like self-esteem, prioritizing self-relevant information and striving toward an ideal self. They found that people whose habits reflected their identity tended to have higher self-esteem and a stronger orientation toward their ideal self.

In the second study, the researchers tested whether explicitly linking habits to personal values would strengthen the habit-identity connection. Participants were asked to identify the values their behaviors served, which reinforced the association between the habit and their sense of self. This showed that when habits are consciously connected to important goals or values, the habit-identity association becomes stronger.

Simply speaking, habits are more likely to stick and influence behavior when they are tied to a person’s identity as well as their core values.

Relying On Motivation Sets You Up For Failure

Many people think that lasting change comes from motivation; that if they just “feel like it,” they’ll be able to stick to new habits. The truth is that motivation can be unreliable. Habits are built on consistency.

Changing habits is not as simple as flipping a switch. Many people start with high hopes, with a rush of motivation or inspiration, imagining themselves as a “new person” overnight, only to feel frustrated when progress is slower than expected.

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.

What’s one bad habit you’re ready to overcome today? Take the science-backed Self-Awareness Outcomes Questionnaire to find out.

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