The Truth About Habits: What Influencers Get Wrong

There's something I've been seeing across social media that I can’t keep my mouth shut about anymore... Influencers are consistently misrepresenting what habits actually are, and it's doing more harm than good for their audiences.

What a Habit Actually Is

Let's get this straight once and for all: a habit is NOT a goal or an outcome. A habit is a specific, automatic behavior that's triggered by a consistent cue in your environment or routine.

For example:

• "Drink 80oz of water daily" is NOT a habit—it's an outcome you want to achieve.

• "Drinking a glass of water before your morning coffee" IS a habit—it's a specific action tied to a specific trigger.

This distinction isn't just semantic—it's the difference between lasting change and perpetual frustration. Your brain forms habits through consistent cue-response pairings that eventually become automatic, requiring almost no willpower or decision-making.

Take a moment to reflect on the habits you currently have. These might be beneficial routines like brushing your teeth or less desirable ones like automatically reaching for your phone when you wake up. Notice how these behaviors have become almost unconscious responses to specific situations or cues.

Why Traditional "Habit Setting" Sets You Up for Failure

When my clients struggle with consistency, I often discover they're not actually struggling with habits at all—they're struggling with poorly designed behavior systems:

1. The Mental Load Problem

Without clear cue-action pairings, your brain must constantly decide when, where, and how to perform behaviors. This decision fatigue rapidly depletes your mental energy.

2. The Intention-Action Gap

This is the space between knowing what to do and actually doing it. Proper habit design bridges this gap by removing decision points that create friction.

3. The Motivation Fallacy

When you frame outcomes as habits, you depend on fluctuating motivation rather than stable environmental cues. Motivation is hugely important, but when relied on, especially in external ways, it’s unreliable as a long-term behavior driver.

4. The Self-Blame Cycle

When the real issue is poor habit design, you might attribute failure to personal shortcomings, creating a negative cycle. This shows up in thoughts like: "I'm just not good at this" or "I should be able to do this."

How to Design Habits That Actually Stick

After years of coaching clients through behavior change, I've developed a framework that actually works:

1. Identify a Specific Trigger

What reliable cue in your day will spark your habit? Make it something that already happens consistently. The more specific and reliable the cue, the better.

2. Define a Micro-Action

What is the smallest possible version of the behavior you can do? Make it so easy it feels almost ridiculous. You're aiming for the minimum effective dose, not the optimal amount.

3. Create Immediate Satisfaction

How can you make this behavior immediately rewarding? When the feeling of accomplishment right away, it’s more likely to increase the likelihood of repetition.

Real-World Examples That Work

Here are some habit structures that have worked for my most successful clients:

• Protein intake: When ordering food at a restaurant (cue), order a protein-rich meal and eat a bite of the protein first (behavior)

• Exercise preparation: When you finish the last task of your work day (cue), put on your workout clothes (behavior)

• Sleep hygiene: When your nighttime phone alarm goes off (cue), immediately plug your phone in for the night and start winding down for bed (behavior)

Rethinking Your Approach to Change

Remember: habits are the foundation that supports your goals, not the goals themselves.

If you want to "move more," don't think of that as your habit. Instead, design specific habit triggers like "When I see my sneakers by the door (placed there the night before), I'll put them on and step outside for a quick walk."

By focusing on these small, specific behavior-trigger pairs rather than ambitious (or...ahem...unrealistic) outcomes, you'll finally close the gap between knowing what you want to do and actually doing it.

Give this framework a try and let me know what happens. The results might surprise you.

What habit have you been trying to establish, and how could you redesign it using this framework? Share in the comments or email me and let me know!