Why your brain fights every good habit (and how to win)
Biology, resistance, and real solutions
Five years ago, my Monday mornings started with a cigarette, black coffee to kill the hangover, and frantically deleting Saturday night's Instagram stories.
This morning? 6am wake up, a clear head and, well…still black coffee (I am French, after all).
Same person. Same brain. Completely different wiring.
And before you roll your eyes thinking I'm about to preach at you. I'm not.
So if this is you too? Trust me, I get it!!
And look, I know everyone's situation is different. What worked for my cocktail of bad habits might not be the path for yours. This is just one story of change, not the only way.
Because I'm not exaggerating when I say I was the queen of bad habits.
If you'd told hungover 38-year-old me that I'd become 'that' wellness person, I'd have laughed, and probably lit another cigarette.
Like, who am I without my habits??
I wasn't completely self-unaware either. I did try to change. Try to exercise regularly. Try to give up alcohol and cigarettes. Try to meditate.
It's just that nothing worked long term.
But here's what nobody told me during those years of failed attempts to change:It wasn't about willpower or character or discipline or being "good enough".
My brain was doing exactly what it evolved to do: protect me from change that it genuinely believed might kill me.
Your brain's security system is working against you
Let me tell you something that changed how I think about habit change forever.
Your brain is doing exactly what it evolved to do: keep you alive by maintaining the status quo.
Think about it. Your body maintains your temperature at 37°C whether you're in the Sahara or the Arctic. Your blood sugar stays within a tiny range. Your heart rate adjusts constantly to keep oxygen flowing just right.
Your biological thermostat, homeostasis, doesn't just regulate your physical body. It governs your behaviour too.
Research has shown that as behaviours become habitual, the basal ganglia (your brain's autopilot) takes over more of the heavy lifting, while your prefrontal cortex (the thinking brain) takes a back seat. Once a habit is fully formed, you can literally do it without conscious thought.
This isn't just convenient. Your brain considers these automated patterns essential for survival.
Why? Because for millions of years, sudden behavioural changes usually meant danger.
The human who randomly decided to sleep somewhere new or eat something different often didn't live to reproduce.
So our brains evolved to resist change like our lives depend on it.
Which explains why I spent years trying to quit smoking, and every single time, by day four, I'd find myself outside 7-11 at 10pm buying a pack of Marlboro Lights, wondering what happened to all that determination I had on Sunday night?!
Full transparency: I didn't do this alone. Therapy helped me understand what I was running from, and having professional support made all the difference. The brain science I'm sharing? That came after I had dealt with the emotional stuff.
The battle you never knew you were fighting
Here's what actually happens when you try to change:
🧠 Your prediction engine goes haywire
Your brain runs on predictions. It's constantly guessing what's about to happen based on past patterns.
When you do something new, you're literally breaking its prediction model. The result? Your threat detection system lights up like a Christmas tree.
I remember those first Friday nights without wine. My brain kept sending signals that something was OFF.
Not because I physically needed alcohol, but because I'd broken a 20-year pattern.
Friday meant wine. Had meant wine since my early 20s. And suddenly it didn't.
🧠 Your brain's favourite shortcut wins
You know that moment when you fully intend to go to the gym after work, but somehow find yourself at the pub instead?
That's not weakness. That's your established habit loop (cue: yay, end of workday → routine: drinks with colleagues → reward: social connection) overpowering your implementation intention.
45% of our daily behaviours happen in the same location almost every day.
Your brain has carved neural motorways for these patterns.
Your new gym intention? That's a dirt track trying to compete with a German autobahn.
🧠 Your nervous system genuinely thinks you're in danger
Our autonomic nervous system has three states: safe, danger, and life-threat.
Guess what? Significant behaviour change often triggers the danger state.
Your body literally responds as if you're under threat: increased heart rate, stress hormones, the whole lot.
You know when you finally book that gym class after months (okay, years) away?
Your heart starts racing before you even pack your gym bag. That's might not be excitement.
That's your nervous system screaming "DANGER!! This is not what we do around here! Abort mission!"
No wonder we abandon new habits when we're not fully convinced.
We're not fighting laziness. We're fighting our own survival mechanisms.
Working WITH your biology (not against it)
After years of failed attempts to change (including about 1000 "final" cigarettes and countless "Dry Januaries" that ended on January 3rd), I finally learned: you can't willpower your way through biological resistance. You have to be sneakier than your own brain.
1 - Environment Design: Make the right thing the easy thing
When I was quitting smoking, I didn't just bin the cigarettes. I removed everything. Lighters, ashtrays, even the chair I used to smoke in. I made it physically harder to smoke than not to smoke.
Stanford's BJ Fogg calls this "designing for laziness." You're not fighting your tendency toward the path of least resistance. You're using it.
2 - Habit Stacking: Hijack your existing loops
Instead of creating new habits from scratch, attach them to ironclad existing ones.
I'm learning Spanish for our Latin America trip in 2026. Instead of trying to "find time" to practice (spoiler: you never find it), I anchored it to my morning shower. The method I use is all about listening and responding, perfect for shower time.
The shower is my trojan horse that smuggles in the Spanish practice. My brain doesn't resist because showering is non-negotiable. The Spanish just piggybacks on something I'm already doing. Three months in, and I haven't missed a day.
3 - The Minimum Viable Dose: Start so small it's embarrassing
Want to get fit? Don't commit to an hour at the gym. Start with five squats whilst the kettle boils. Want to read more? One page before bed.
I know it sounds ridiculous.
But neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Huberman's research on neuroplasticity shows that consistency matters more than intensity for rewiring neural pathways.
Your brain needs to believe the new behaviour is safe before it'll stop resisting.
My fitness journey? Started with 10 minutes on the arc trainer twice a week at my company's gym.
Now my workouts are pretty intense and happen at least 5 times a week.
But it started small, tiny small.
4 - Identity-Based Change: Become someone else
Here's the real secret weapon, and what scared me most about quitting drinking.
I was terrified that without alcohol, I'd lose my identity. Fun Noemie. Life and soul of the party Noemie. The one everyone wanted at their events.
James Clear's research on identity-based habits shows that we resist change when it threatens our self-concept. And God, I resisted. Who would I be without a glass of wine in my hand?
Turns out, exactly the same person. Just funnier, sharper, and actually remember the hilarious things I said the night before. The identity I was clinging to (the fun one, the social one) was never about the alcohol. It was just me.
That was my experience, anyway. Yours might be different. Some people need to build new social skills, find different friend groups, or get support for social anxiety. That's okay too!
The Truth About Neural Rewiring
Forget the 21-day myth.
Dr. Phillippa Lally’s research found it takes on average 66 days for a habit to become automatic.
Which makes sense, right? Because when I quit smoking, the rewiring didn’t feel instant, but each day was a brick laid in a new pathway.
And here's the thing: the rewiring starts immediately.
Every single repetition, no matter how small, strengthens the neural pathway. You're literally building new brain architecture with each rep.
And about motivation? Dr. Tim Pychyl's procrastination research confirms what I learned the hard way: motivation follows action, not the other way around.
You don't need to feel like doing something to do it. You need to do it to feel like doing it.
That's why I got up at 6am this morning even though Singapore's having those perfect rainy mornings that make your bed feel like the only reasonable place to be. Not because I'm motivated. But because I did it yesterday, and the day before, and now my brain has stopped fighting it.
Your Experiment This Week
Pick ONE thing you want to change. Just one.
Now make it 90% smaller.
If you want to drink less, start by noticing your patterns: when, why, with whom.
If you want to exercise, put your gym kit on. That's it. Just put it on.
Then attach it to something you already do without thinking. Before your morning shower. After you close your laptop. Whilst waiting for the kettle.
Your brain will still resist. That's normal. Expected, even. It's normal to feel that resistance. You're human, and your security system is doing its job.
Trust me, if this former chain-smoking, wine-guzzling party gal can rewire her brain, yours is capable of changing too.
The question is:
What would shift if you stopped fighting your biology and started working with it?
What's the one tiny change you're going to experiment with this week?
Hit reply and tell me. I read every email, and there's something powerful about declaring it to another human who's been exactly where you are!
With love,
Noemie x
P.S. Still can't believe I'm the person who wakes up at 6am by choice. My 38-year-old self would be genuinely concerned. But honestly? Life's never been better. (Though full disclosure: some mornings still suck, and sometimes I hit snooze. We're all human here.)