How to Build Healthy Habits in 2026 (Without Relying on Willpower)

Coach Alan
10 hours ago
3 min read

Introduction

If your “new year, new me” buzz has already worn off, and the magnetic pull of old, unhelpful habits is luring you back in, this short habit story might help you see things differently.

Not because it promises discipline or motivation, but because it shows how small changes to your environment can quietly reshape behaviour.

This is not a complete habit system, but one principle that quietly makes habits easier to stick to.

Rather than trying to "fix" motivation, this article focuses on one overlooked part of habit formation: the setup.

A Quick Story About Habits

A few years ago, I changed rooms in my house.

Moving from the front room to the back.

Simple enough. Except there was a problem.

Every night, without thinking, my tired and half-asleep self would walk straight into my old room to go to bed.

Only to be reminded, very abruptly, that I no longer slept there.

No bed. No duvet.

Just confusion.

This happened night after night, even though the door to my new room was the first door I saw as I reached the top of my stairs.

The Simplest Habit Hack I Have Ever Used

After about two weeks of this, I came up with a solution that felt almost too simple.

I wrote the word “bedroom” on a piece of paper and stuck it to the door of the new room.

That was it.

And just like that, the problem disappeared overnight.

I did not increase my willpower. I did not “try harder”. I changed the setup.

That small visual cue was enough to interrupt the old habit and guide me into the new one.

This overly-simple "hack" aligns with existing research on habit formation, which highlights the impact that context - my existing routine of walking up the stairs each night, and external triggers - such as the note on my door, can have on our behaviours (Gardner et al., 2012).

The Real Lesson About Habit Formation

This made me realise something important about building habits.

Even habits that feel trivial, like walking to bed, run on autopilot.

Willpower does not.

And autopilot usually wins.

The good news is that habits are highly sensitive to their environment. Change the cue, the friction, or the setup, and behaviour often changes with it.

You stop fighting yourself and start making things easier.

Practical Ways to Build Healthy Habits

So here is the question worth asking:

What is one small change you could make to your environment to support the habit you want?

A few examples:

Improving sleep habits:

Context/existing routine: You make your bed every morning.
New Trigger: Leave your book and journal on your pillow after making the bed each morning. The cue is already waiting for you.

Establishing exercise habits:

Context/existing routine: When you arrive home from work each night, you make a cup of tea and drink it in the backroom
New Trigger: You leave a set of dumbbells and workout gear in the backroom each morning after making your bed
Simplicity: Start with 10 minutes, three times a week. Make the habit easy enough that it feels almost too small to fail.

Making food tracking a habit:

Context/existing routine: You have your dinner every night at 7.00 pm.
New Trigger: Use your dinner plate as the reminder. As soon as it touches your lap, instead of reaching for social media, open your food tracker and log imperfectly for three minutes.

The goal is not perfection. The goal is to increase reminders while reducing friction.

Final Thought

Habits, both helpful and unhelpful ones, gain strength through repetition. To establish a new and healthy habit, therefore, increasing the likelihood of repeating it often is vital. Integrating new habits into already established routines, setting external cues or reminders, and making the habits easy to execute initially can help with this.

Coach Alan, the author of this article on health habits, and the founder of Mind Body Training

About The Author

Coach Alan is a qualified ITEC Level 3 Personal Trainer with over 9 years of coaching experience, and the founder of Mind Body Training, where he works as an online personal trainer in Ireland to help clients achieve sustainable fat loss and long-term behaviour change. He is also a psychotherapist-in-training with the Irish Institute of Counselling and Psychotherapy (IICP). His coaching approach is informed by evidence-based principles from psychology, nutrition, and exercise science, with a strong focus on mindful habit formation and realistic lifestyle change. You can learn more about Coach Alan here.

Mind Body Training provides coaching, education, and personal training services, not personal therapy or clinical counselling. Clients seeking therapeutic support are encouraged to work alongside a different qualified mental health professional where appropriate.