Behavior change often fails because immediate costs outweigh the rewards—it's math, not willpower.

Our relationships can unconsciously reinforce old behaviors and punish new ones, sabotaging our goals.

Reinforcement is more effective than punishment for lasting change.

Flexible responses to changing situations are healthier than rigid habits that solved yesterday's problems.

How many times have we made resolutions to adopt healthier habits or vowed to never engage in unhelpful ones ever again, only to chastise ourselves for failing?

Then the waves of guilt and shame that arise from not meeting these expectations lead us to engage even more in the unhealthy behavior in attempts to soothe away the distress (what’s known as the abstinence violation effect).

While changing behaviors can offer fast results, there’s never an easy fix to complex challenges. Sometimes, our best efforts at progress backfire because they have unintended consequences on the larger systems we inhabit.

While we often blame ourselves when we can’t stick to our ideal behaviors, we aren’t bad or lazy. We’re often suffering from the simple math of the immediate rewards not outweighing the costs.

One stumbling block with behavior change is that we usually don’t feel like doing it. Our emotions are designed to motivate us to address the short-term threats and rewards in front of us, not the nuances of each action’s long-term consequences within the complex systems we inhabit.

So much of the time, our behaviors are reinforced by things that we aren’t even aware of, because we’re entangled in many complex systems where our individual behaviors create cascades in multiple relationships and feedback loops.

For example, when we try to assert boundaries, prioritize balance, or advocate for justice and equity, these changes may affect other people in our system who may try to push us back to the status quo. Or when we choose healthier behaviors, our partners or families may feel envy, jealousy, or guilt because they haven’t changed their behaviors in the same way or don’t like that we’re spending more time away from them. We might not consciously link this new tension in our relationships to our new behaviors, but we’re still unconsciously registering them as costs of behavior change.

Behaviors may be positively reinforced by rewarding us with more positive things (such as improving the sense of connection in our communities). Or they can be negatively reinforced by removing negative things (such as feeling less anxiety or having less tension in a relationship). Behavior can also be punished by taking away rewards (such as stopping contact with someone) or adding cost (such as criticizing them).

Psychology research shows that reinforcement is more effective, faster, and more enduring than punishment, because it’s more motivating and keeps us out of the shame, blame, resentment, and revenge that punishment often induces. Intermittent rewards—such as with gambling—are the most reinforcing. So, if you can’t figure out why you keep going back to that slot machine of an avoidant ex who only shows you love once in a while, the power of intermittent reinforcement may be to blame.

We can extinguish a behavior when a response is no longer reinforced (for example, if we don’t react to someone’s acts of affection or antagonism, we no longer reinforce these behaviors, and they will typically cease). But first, we usually notice an extinction burst, where the behavior actually gets bigger in attempts to achieve the previously reinforced reaction.

For example, when my kids react to each other’s taunting, they reinforce the behavior, so they’re more likely to repeat it. However, if one ignores the other’s taunts, the other may first escalate his behavior (the extinction burst) to try to get the old reaction. But if he continues to ignore (and not reinforce) the taunting, the other will usually stop the unhelpful behavior because there’s no longer a reward for doing it. This strategy only works when there isn’t egregious harm that needs to be stopped immediately with firmer actions.

When we’re struggling to follow through with our goals, we can write down all the costs and benefits of changing our behavior versus staying the same. We can pay particular attention to the subtle reinforcement or punishment patterns, with both short-term and long-term impacts.

A lot of the time, this exercise validates that there are a lot of costs to behavior change, so we don’t have to blame or shame ourselves for struggling to follow through. Perhaps it’s not the right time and place, or perhaps it’s not in alignment with your own values.

If you do want to change the behavior to align with your chosen direction, you can look at changing your reinforcement patterns so there are more benefits and fewer costs. Until that balance is in the behavior’s favor, it will be unsustainable to continue.

For example, you may want to increase your physical activity because health is a value to you. But if starting an exercise routine is making you more isolated and removed from your loved ones, and connection is your core value, is there a way to adapt how you exercise to make it an activity done with those you love?

Or if you’re trying to commit more time to a community movement, but your partner is upset that you’re not home enough anymore, can you explore options of having them join in, or offer higher-quality time when you are together?

Life is a constant practice of trial and error. What worked yesterday may no longer work for the new world we’ve arrived in today. As every part of our system keeps changing, and each change impacts every other part of our system, no one has it all figured out. Tomorrow will offer a completely new world to adapt to once again.

If you haven’t yet cemented perfect habits despite trying desperately for decades, maybe you’re healthier than you think. We’re functioning best when we have flexible responses to meet each new situation, not fixed and narrow habits that solved the challenges of yesterday—or 1984. Yes, consistency is helpful for offering a taste of certainty in our constantly shifting world. And also, we can learn to pay attention to the evolving needs of our environments so that we can stay fast on our feet to meet its challenges.

© Psychology Today