Why Change Is So Hard — And How Habits Actually Work

This lesson explains why change is difficult and how understanding habits can help you change your life through small, consistent actions that work with your brain instead of relying on willpower alone.

Science of Habits Explained

If you are like most people, there is a gap between the person you are and the person you wish to be. There are small things you think you should do and big things you feel you ought to achieve, from working out regularly, eating healthily, learning a language, writing your novel, reading more, or finally doing your hobby instead of browsing Reddit. It often feels like to achieve your goals, you need to become a completely different person—someone who is consistent, puts in more effort, and has more discipline and willpower. Maybe you’ve tried to be that person, and it worked for a while, until you slowly slipped back into your old habits.

In the end, repeated failure can leave you feeling frustrated, annoyed, and disappointed with yourself. Hustle culture often tells us that if we fail, it’s entirely our fault—we simply didn’t want success badly enough. But in reality, change is hard, and understanding why makes it easier. Imagine your brain as a dense jungle. Making a decision or starting a new behavior is like trying to move through thick vegetation—it’s difficult and costs energy. Because your brain dislikes spending energy, it develops shortcuts.

Every action you repeat creates a path in your brain. At first, the path is rough and hard to follow. But the more often you repeat the behavior, the clearer the path becomes. Over time, a trail turns into a road, and eventually into a highway that feels effortless and familiar. The more highways your brain builds, the more you rely on them. This is why change becomes especially difficult in adulthood, when your brain is already filled with well-established routes. To understand how these highways form, we need to distinguish between routines and habits. A routine is a sequence of actions you consciously perform because they work well for you. It’s managed by what you can think of as a wise planner—a slow, analytical system that considers the future, evaluates outcomes, and chooses actions even when they’re uncomfortable.

Over time, routines can turn into habits, which feel easier because they’re executed automatically. Habits don’t require motivation or persuasion—you simply do them. This is why habits can feel like running on autopilot. Habits are triggered by context cues, known as triggers. These can be objects, times, places, or situations that signal your brain to start an action. Seeing your phone makes you unlock it. Sitting in a car makes you reach for the seatbelt. Buying coffee makes you grab a cookie—even if you’re not hungry.

Habits are controlled by what you might imagine as an impulsive toddler. This system responds to immediate rewards and ignores long-term goals. It dislikes effort and prefers familiar, rewarding behaviors. Many bad habits began because they felt good at some point. Chocolate tastes good. Scrolling social media is mildly entertaining. These rewarding feelings encourage repetition, eventually forming habits—even when they’re harmful. Despite sounding problematic, the toddler system is essential. It works alongside the wise planner. Outsourcing repetitive tasks to habits saves mental energy, allowing your brain to handle more complex challenges.

If you want to change your behavior, the key is not forcing yourself with willpower, but working with your brain. Focus on small changes, not big transformations. Small improvements compound over time. The goal is to create new routines that can eventually become habits. Your wise planner builds the initial path, and your toddler helps repeat the action effortlessly.

For example, if you want to get fitter, break the goal into small, specific actions. Instead of “work out more,” try doing 10 squats every morning. Make the action easy, clear, and manageable. Next, add clear triggers. Triggers can be visual cues, a specific time, or a particular place. Doing squats in your living room at 8 a.m. while wearing workout clothes creates a strong context for repetition. Repeat the action consistently, ideally every day. Over time, the routine becomes a habit—a trail becomes a highway. The effort remains, but the decision becomes easier.

Not all habits provide instant gratification, which makes them harder to form. To help your brain accept a new habit, try making the activity itself more enjoyable, such as listening to your favorite podcast while exercising. How long it takes to form a habit varies widely. It can take anywhere from 15 to 250 days, depending on the behavior, personality, stress levels, and environment. Starting is easy—continuing is the real challenge. Change doesn’t happen overnight, but it does get easier with repetition. There are no magic solutions, but the science of habits shows that change is possible at any age.

Even small improvements matter. Being a little healthier or more knowledgeable is far better than feeling unhappy and changing nothing. In the end, change is a direction, not a destination. The creators of this lesson developed a habit journal to support personal change through design and science. While optional, it’s designed to help track progress, reflect, and make improvement more sustainable over time. Thank you for watching.