Why Change is Hard, and What Actually Helps
A mid-year check-in on your goals, and what psychology says about lasting change.
I had the (quite scary) realisation today that we are almost halfway through the year, and it might be a good time to check back in on my new years resolutions. One of my new years resolutions was to put my phone away at 9:30pm every night. You can probably guess how that’s going. If you can relate, before you go beating yourself up, what if I told you that it’s not your fault?
When we set resolutions based on external pressure — the new year, the diet culture noise, social comparison, they don’t hold up. Self-Determination Theory, developed by psychologists Deci and Ryan, found that there’s a big difference between doing something because it genuinely matters to you versus doing something because you feel like you should (Ryan & Deci, 2000). And when we inevitably stumble (because we will, we’re human), we self-criticise. And that’s a quick route to giving up entirely.
So what does drive lasting change?
Kristin Neff has spent decades studying self-compassion, and her research suggests that self-kindness is actually more effective than self-criticism for sustaining motivation and behaviour change. People high in self-compassion are more likely to get back up and try again, take responsibility for mistakes without shame spiralling, and maintain long-term goals (Neff, 2003).
Another thing to consider is how big your goals are. Wendy Wood’s research finds that lasting change is often built through much smaller, more repeatable actions than we think. We tend to approach change with an “all or nothing” mindset: waking up at 5am, going to the gym seven days a week, cutting out sugar forever, meditating for an hour a day. But psychologically, behaviours that are small enough to repeat consistently are often the ones that actually stick.
For example, if I actually want to spend less time on my phone at night, environmental changes like using an app-blocker and putting my phone on the charger out of sight will help me actually get there.
Research also shows that our environment matters far more than we think. In organisational psychology, we know behaviour is heavily shaped by systems, routines, culture, and environment, and the same applies in our personal lives. We often frame behaviour change as a willpower problem when it’s frequently a systems problem.
None of this means change is easy. Human behaviour is messy, inconsistent, emotional, and deeply influenced by stress, habits, environment, and the people around us. But I do think there’s something comforting about knowing that lasting change usually doesn’t come from becoming a completely different person overnight.
More often, it comes from learning how to work with ourselves a little more compassionately and skillfully, one small repeated action at a time.
For Your Kit:
Pick one to try this week:
Revisit one goal with curiosity, not judgment. Think about something you set out to do this year that hasn't happened. Instead of asking why haven't I done this yet, try asking: does this actually matter to me, or did it feel like it should? Sometimes the best we can do is give ourselves permission to let a goal go, or reshape it into something better.
Make one thing smaller. Take a habit or goal you keep abandoning and ask: what's the smallest possible version of this? That's probably closer to where you actually start.
Try a self-compassion check-in. Next time you notice yourself slipping into self-criticism about a habit or goal, pause and ask: what would I say to a friend in this situation? Then try saying that to yourself instead.