I’m putting on my psychology hat this week to talk about change. Specifically, changing behavior. This time of year, we all have aspirations: new routines, fresh habits, new hobbies, or ways of living. There’s something pretty amazing about humans—we get a chance to reinvent ourselves every single year.
But sometimes, actually making that change feels… impossible. Even when you want it with every fiber of your being, even when motivation is spilling out of you, it can still feel like you’re stuck. This disconnect always leaves me banging my head against the wall, feeling ashamed, and wondering if I’m simply not the kind of person who can change. What does everyone else have that I don’t? Actually, nothing.
The whole thing really comes down to hijacking your own brain—a bit of a bait‑and‑switch. And honestly? That’s the hardest part. To dive right in, change is deeply tied to reward, but most of us don’t think about it that way. At the core of habit and motivation is your brain’s reward system, a network of regions that drives how we learn from experience, reinforce behaviors, and repeat what feels good.
This system works like a cycle: your brain detects something that might be rewarding, releases dopamine, and then reinforces the behavior that led to that reward so that you’re more likely to do it again. When this loop runs on repeat—sometimes without you even thinking about it—it becomes a habit.
For example, I’m doing Dry January. I wanted to reset my body for the new year, but I was also curious about how tightly my brain and body link certain activities to drinking. Since the new year landed on a weekend, my reward cycle was on full display. Friday night, I usually have wine with my girlfriends or go out to see live music and have a couple of drinks. Just thinking about missing out on these rituals—things I look forward to all week—felt uncomfortable.
And there’s the cycle in action:
Friday night, my body expects alcohol. My brain has learned to associate drinking with fun, which triggers a rush of dopamine. So the craving hits—I want to pour that glass of wine to get the reward. But when I choose not to follow through, the cycle is interrupted. I don’t get the dopamine hit I’m used to, and that craving lingers, sometimes making resisting feel really hard.
Breaking habits isn’t about willpower
First, I want to emphasize that white-knuckling your way through change is not only miserable—it often backfires, at least in my experience. To stick with the drinking analogy, imagine you’re used to having a drink every evening, and suddenly you just stop. You’re expecting yourself to move through each night without the thing your brain associates with reward. You’d likely feel distracted, irritable, maybe even a little low. To actually get ahead of your reward cycle, you have to work simultaneously on replacing the reward you’re letting go of with something new.
For example, if your ritual is pouring a glass of wine while cooking dinner, try pouring a fizzy juice or non-alcoholic drink into the same glass and still sip and stir. Going cold turkey with a sterile glass of water that sits untouched behind you on the counter is only going to exacerbate feelings of deprivation. The brain doesn’t just miss the substance. It misses the ritual, the sensory cues, and the sense of reward that came with it.
Often, when we set big goals for ourselves—like committing to an entirely new routine starting Monday morning—by Wednesday afternoon, we already feel like we’ve “messed up.” But that doesn’t mean you’re lazy or lack discipline. It means you’re up against your brain’s instinct to repeat what’s worked for you in the past.
That said, desire still matters. We can blame our brains to a point, but at the end of the day, you’re the one who has to want the change enough to show up for it. Real change asks you to dig deep and find a level of commitment that can carry you through moments of craving, autopilot behavior, and the unconscious habits you have to catch—and interrupt—in real time.
It’s not about sacrifice—it’s about the upgrade
To get ahead of these sneaky moments you’ll constantly be intercepting, it’s important to reframe. Instead of focusing on what you’re giving up, focus on what you’re gaining. Deprivation is much harder to fight than the excitement of something different.
So instead of thinking, Oh no, I’m going to miss out on a night out with my friends, I reframed it as: How nice it is to read in bed early and wake up to an entire Saturday to myself, well-rested and free to do whatever I want.
I also find it extremely helpful to build a routine around the behavior you’re trying to change to remind you why you’re making the change in the first place. Instead of getting my reward from going out dancing with friends all night, I got up early and journaled, meditated on what I had written about, went on a walk, listened to one of my favorite sober girl podcasts, and then went to the gym. I have to say, this gave me almost as much dopamine as a night out. Even if it wasn’t quite the same, I knew I was working towards the version of myself I envision. That hope can close the reward gap, if you’re open to feeling it.
If you’re trying out a new exercise routine, cooking more meals at home, quitting nicotine, or getting up earlier—this framing still applies. It can help to write it down on paper, to think about what you’re trying to achieve in your mind. But the jump from planning to executing can be bigger than you think.
How many times have we all known deep inside ourselves we need to change, but we put it off until next week, the first of next month, the first of the year? It’s because change is extremely difficult when you’re going up against the pleasure system in your body. It’s a very old part of our brain that doesn’t play by rational rules.
Too much candy in a brain built for scarcity
Our brains evolve very slowly, and the world has never evolved faster. Our minds simply aren’t built to keep up with the pace of change or adapt to it in a healthy way. Take social media—we became addicted to our phones almost instantly because it taps directly into our reward system. The endless scrolling and infinite access to new content is like being a kid in a candy store. It’s pleasure overload, and our more primal brains can’t get enough of it.
“We’ve got an old brain in a new environment,” says Keith Humphreys, PhD, a professor of psychiatry and addiction researcher at Stanford Medicine.
For roughly 99% of human history, survival depended on the drive to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Finding food when we were hungry, seeking shelter when it was cold. Our brains release dopamine as a chemical signal to make us feel good. This reinforced behaviors that keep us alive. This system is incredibly useful when it comes to survival. But in the context of drinking, smoking, social media, and an excess of food, that same “old” brain can’t quite grasp that scarcity is no longer the issue. We don’t actually need to overindulge every single time—our brains just haven’t caught up yet.
This becomes an even bigger issue in our modern world, where we’re offered endless dopamine hits every day. Just to feel “normal,” we end up overconsuming. But our brains weren’t designed for this, so we often feel depressed, unfulfilled, restless, lost, or anxious. Even though the rational part of our brain—the prefrontal cortex—knows we need to adjust our behavior to feel better, it’s hard to override the deeper, primal parts of ourselves that scream when we pull away from pleasure.
Now that I’ve painted a bigger picture, I hope you can give yourself some slack. It’s easy to get stuck wanting to change so badly, only to find yourself back in the same spot just days later. That’s why so many people relapse—stop at a drive-through on the way home, gamble on their phones during lunch, or scroll endlessly in bed instead of reading the book they bought.
Self-compassion matters more than perfection
Expanding beyond the “change” piece I’ve thus far focused on, the mental weighing that comes with this struggle isn’t talked about enough. When we feel like we’ve failed ourselves—or the people around us—we usually feel shame. We start drinking again, gain a few pounds, spend another Sunday doom-scrolling—the disappointment and judgment we heap on ourselves can feel crushing. From there, it’s easy to spiral into depression or anxiety over our perceived failures. The cycle can snowball until we reach a point where we simply give up on ourselves.
Now, this is a grim generalization. But while the resolutions we try to implement are important, how we treat ourselves while pursuing them is just as—if not more—important. Walking ten thousand steps a day? That’s great. But do you force yourself to hit that goal, knowing you’ll beat yourself up if you don’t? Or do you listen to your body, move when it feels right, and allow yourself rest when you need it?
Even if you walk ten thousand steps a day for a year, what happens if you break your leg and are bedridden for two months? If you spend those two months anxious that you can’t walk because you’ve overvalued your daily steps, you haven’t really healed the part of your brain that has control over you. True progress isn’t just in the action itself. It’s in learning to be kind to yourself while building habits that stick.
It’s about being adaptable: finding your footing when things need to change and welcoming it, again and again.
Anytime I’ve broken a promise to myself, I remind myself that the human experience is fluid. Truly finite decisions are rare, so “failing” the first, second, or even tenth time doesn’t have to mean what we think it does. One of the most beautiful things about our lives is that we get a fresh start every single day.
So when I find myself feeling down on myself, I reframe the moment. I ask where I need to adapt my approach, what my body might be telling me about how I’m trying to do this thing—and how I can try again, with a little more compassion and honesty with myself.
So what do we do about any of this?
Sit with it, then move
Intellectualizing is one thing—feeling is another. I can speak from personal experience when I say there’s a big difference between swearing you’ll take a break from drinking when you’re hungover and actually pouring out the bottle the next weekend, sitting with the boredom that follows.
There’s difficulty in waking up anxious and hungover. There’s also difficulty in feeling lonely and unsure of what to do next. Whatever your challenge is, try being brave and choosing the one that actually moves you closer to the person you want to become.
Here comes the therapy talk—I’m waving my green flag! My own work in therapy has helped me get more comfortable sitting with extremely difficult feelings. Sit with it, sit with it, sit with it. When your brain reaches for that next hit of dopamine—sit with it.
Start noticing where you feel it in your body. Want to pick up a drink? Dance for three minutes and move that energy through your body. Going to click “order” on DoorDash? Take a walk around the block first. Scrolled your phone for an hour? Do ten jumping jacks. When we’re struggling with internal conflict, it can all feel very heady. But remember, you have a whole body that can help solve problems too.
So yes, sit with it. Feel the discomfort. Then move.
Human beings are such beautiful, complex creatures. It doesn’t make sense to think an Excel sheet outlining calories could change your relationship with food. A 30-day sober challenge won’t stop cravings—not unless you change something deeper inside yourself, something much more human.
With the start of 2026, don’t make hollow promises you already know you won’t keep. Instead, think about what you’re really trying to change in the context of everything I’ve written here. Get a clear sense of what’s actually happening—what you’re feeling. Where are the reward points you keep tripping on? What can you start to evolve into something more aligned with your better self?
