Habit audit: find out why a habit isn't sticking

A habit audit helps you work out why a habit isn't sticking by rating it against James Clear's four laws of behaviour change: is the cue obvious, is the habit attractive, is it easy to do, and is the reward satisfying? The weakest of the four is usually where the trouble lies, and that's where to focus. It's a kinder and more useful approach than simply trying harder, which only helps when the real problem is that the habit is difficult.

Why does trying harder make so little difference?

Let's say you want to get to the gym three mornings a week, and for some reason it just isn't happening. The natural response is to decide you need more discipline, so you set two alarms, give yourself a stern talking-to and manage a good week or so.

Then it slips again, and you're left feeling slightly worse about yourself than when you started.

The trouble is that "try harder" is one fix for one kind of problem. If your gym kit lives at the back of the wardrobe under a pile of jumpers, or if, deep down, you don't actually enjoy the gym very much, no amount of willpower is going to change that. It's a bit like trying to fix a flat tyre by pressing harder on the accelerator, and most of us have been doing exactly that with our habits for years.

What are the four laws of behaviour change?

James Clear set out four laws in Atomic Habits, published in 2018. They build on the loop of cue, craving, response and reward that behavioural psychology has described for decades, and which Charles Duhigg popularised as "the habit loop" in his 2012 book The Power of Habit.

Clear's version turns that loop into four practical questions. Is the cue obvious, so that you actually notice when it's time? Is the habit attractive, so that you genuinely want to do it? Is it easy, with as little friction as possible standing in the way? And is it satisfying, with some kind of reward you can feel?

Each law points to a different kind of fix. An obvious cue might mean leaving your trainers by the door, while a more attractive habit might mean walking with a friend or saving a favourite podcast for the treadmill. That's the real value of an audit, because it stops you reaching for the wrong solution and wondering why it hasn't worked.

How does Habit Audit work in PiViva?

You run it on a habit you're already trying to keep, usually when it has started to stall and you can't quite work out why. You rate each of the four laws, and the weakest one comes back with a specific suggestion for that law.

It's worth being especially honest about how attractive the habit really is to you. Plenty of habits fail because we feel we ought to want them, and if that's the case, no amount of planning will rescue them. You might find a version you'd genuinely enjoy, or you could connect the habit to a goal you care about using Positive Habits, which often gives it the pull it was missing.

The result stays attached to that habit, so later on you can see what you changed and when, which is surprisingly encouraging when you look back after a few months.

What if the audit says everything is fine?

Then it may simply be a question of time. Phillippa Lally's research found that some habits take months to become automatic, with a median of 66 days, so you may just be a little earlier in the process than you'd like, and the best thing to do is keep going a while longer.

Keep ticking it off in your Habit Tracker. If you do change something, give the habit a couple of weeks to settle before you audit it again, so you can see whether the change made a difference.

And if this habit is one of a long list of things you've been meaning to do, a New Habits review can help you decide which ones are really worth carrying. Sometimes the kindest thing you can do for a struggling habit is to give it a bit more room by letting go of something else.