Habit Rehab

To Make a New Habit Stick, Science Says You Should Aim Small

This is part of a five-day Habit Rehab to help you start the year off right

Illustrations: Kieran Blakey

Day 1:

Experts who study the science of new habit formation often talk about “implementation intentions.” In a nutshell, these refer to a person’s strategies or game plan for adopting a new habit. According to the authors of a 2011 study in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, “Implementation intentions are simple action plans stipulating where, when, and how one will perform an intended behavior.”

“A good implementation intention needs to be really specific,” says Phillippa Lally, a psychologist and senior research fellow at University College London. Lally says “I’m going to eat more fruits and…