It’s been a long time since I’ve been in touch but I’ve got some provocative thoughts to share.
I recently returned from delivering a keynote address for the newly formed Wellness Alliance* in Chicago, and I am so energized by the response from people after the talk that I want to share it with you.
In this keynote, one of the things I do is lay out an extensive critique of habit formation as a viable real-world strategy for complex lifestyle behaviors like healthy eating and exercise. Most of the audience had never considered this critique before. While many resonated with the science-based reasons I presented about my concerns, hearing this perspective appeared to be completely eye-opening.
But it’s not only these audience members who are open to rethinking the value of habit formation, it’s even the very habit formation researchers doing the research! I was honored that my “unhabit” critique, published for academics, got noticed by some of the leading habit researchers in the world. In fact, a recently published responding article by Gardner, Rebar, de Wit, and Lally (2024) showed that they have begun to think a little more critically about the very real real-world barriers that automatic habits encounter with more complex behaviors, like exercising.
That was the purpose of my critique, and I am pleased that it got their attention. But I fear that they didn’t quite get the full picture.
In their article, they used “taking a shower” as the behavioral example and delineated two phases of habits: The habitual instigation is the pre-action phase of the shower habit, such as turning on the hot water. The second phase is the habitual execution phase – the action phase, where people soak their body and lather up. (I know this is quite jargony, please stay with me here.)
Most importantly, they defined behavioral complexity as “the intricacy of executing an action, not instigating it.” They further suggested that rather than aim to fully automate complex behaviors (that is, automating both the instigation and execution phases), we should aim to form instigation habits for both simple and complex behaviors. Their rationale is that the instigation phase is not as complex as the execution phase, lending itself to automate.
I could not disagree more! Unfortunately, their proposed solution ignores the commonsense reality that the context of instigation habits for complex behaviors is still the real world. And it is our complex real-world context that so often blows up our attempts to form complex habits.
It’s the context of the behavior that complicates habit formation, not the phase. Exercising is a far more complex behavior than showering. So beyond using a simple behavior to make a point about a complex one, this example misses the point that the complexity of behavior is very much also about the complexity of the context(s) surrounding the instigation of behavior. Bathrooms? Not such a complex context. Home, work, traveling, changing plans, families, urgencies . . . these score exponentially higher on the scale of complexity of context domains.
Creatively navigating context – in this case, our challenging daily lives – is everything when it comes to sticking with complex lifestyle behaviors. Research suggests (and you know this too) that the value of any one choice always depends on the context of all our other choices and needs, which are constantly changing. The weather, a sick child, a rescheduled meeting, and any number of new needs can break down a carefully planned habit loop, the popularized concept for the more technical “cue-behavior association learned from consistent repetition” phrase used by habit researchers. And, of course, the context of behavior also includes our internal world: the self-talk, potential discouragement, low motivation, etc. that’s never silent between our ears.
Happily, I know from listening to podcast interviews with other behavioral scientists and practitioners that my concerns about habit formation for complex behaviors are being heard. In addition, Ryan Rhodes, the “how-to-close-the-intention-behavior gap” guru, aligns with my contention that habit formation is not recommended for those who do not have routine and predictable lives, such as those juggling many responsibilities during life stages like parenthood and midlife.
So, let’s ask this question: If rigid, automatic habits don’t do the trick for healthy eating and exercise for so many who score high on unpredictability, then what is the secret life of creating sustainable change…that we should be trying to create in our own lives and those of the patients, clients, employees and communities our professional work targets?
The answer, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the opposite: pivoting, bending, and flexing that have been overshadowed by the extreme – non-evidence-based – popularity of automatic habits.
Let’s focus on flexibility!
As many of you know, I believe that behavioral resilience underlies sustainable behavior change. But according to the dictionary, resilience has two meanings: the strength aspect, “the ability to withstand or adjust to challenges”; and the flexibility aspect, the ability of something to return to its original shape after it has been stretched, pressed, bent.
I feel that our field has been over focusing on strength when the real hero of this story is flexibility. And it’s not just semantics. The research on how we respond when challenges arise to our lifestyle plans is pretty clear: Exercise, eating, and weight-related outcomes tend to be better with flexible coping (looking for another, perhaps less perfect solution in pursuit of our overall goal) rather than rigid responding (trying to stick to the plan no matter what, and perhaps giving up when we can’t).
A comment from a past audience member brought this wisdom home to me bigtime. Last year, I spoke to physicians and their spouses about these same ideas at a private Permanente Medical Group event in Monterey, California. Afterward, one of the spouses told me that as an engineer, he found that my presentation aligned with his training. He explained that engineers are trained to make products flexible because “if they don’t bend, they break.” Amen brother!
As we enter the fall season, gearing up for work and school and a succession of family holidays, I ask you to try to keep this truth in mind for you or the clients, patients, and employees your work helps: For most, successful sustainable change is not about “sticking to the plan” or hitting the gym for a target number of hours per week. As I said in No Sweat, and have repeated many times over, “It’s consistency over quantity.” And also, while I haven’t written about this in a while, try to remember that any behavioral tactic, even flexibility, is likely to fail if it’s not in service of The Right Why.
Do most people need to create conscious intentions and plans for their complex self-care behaviors? Yes. But it’s what we do next, when that plan bumps into something unexpected, that influences about ability to sustain that behavior.
Rather than trying to aim for the bullseye every time, and feeling bad about yourself when you so often miss it, try something new: Aim instead to more consistently support your greater health and self-care goals by making daily decisions that can bend, press, and stretch within your changing context to achieve just that. and. Ironically, when you aim for consistency over perfection, you hit the mark every time!
As always, I welcome pushback (email me!) and I welcome learning new things (send me research!).
* The Wellness Alliance
WELCOA and NWI have recently merged to form the Wellness Alliance. Both organizations have a long history of being leaders in individual and workplace wellness education. As an affiliate of the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans, the Wellness Alliance serves the diverse community of professionals who influence and shape the health and well-being of individuals and workplaces.
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Copyright © Segar, Michelle.