Why Good Intentions Aren’t Enough: Understanding the Real Barriers to Health Change
You start the week with the best intentions: you’ll prep your meals, get to the gym, take a walk at lunch. Your goals feel genuine, even exciting. But then life happens. A sick child, a demanding workday, an unexpected phone call, and suddenly, your plans are off track again. Sound familiar?
One of my clients recently logged off our coaching call buzzing with motivation and a clear action plan. Yet a week later, little had changed. Was she lazy? Unmotivated? Not at all. Like many busy professionals, she was full of good intentions, but that’s not the same as follow-through.
The Myth of Motivation
We often believe that if we really want something, we’ll make it happen. But research shows that motivation is fleeting. According to psychologist Dr BJ Fogg, creator of the Behaviour Model, action doesn’t stem from motivation alone, but from the intersection of motivation, ability, and prompts at the right moment (Fogg, 2009). Without the right structure or support, even the strongest intentions fizzle out.
The Invisible Load
When we dig deeper, the reasons people don’t start, or stop soon after, often come down to one thing: life. We underestimate how overloaded our days are. Competing priorities, poor planning, emotional stressors, and a lack of buffer time can derail even the best-laid plans. This isn’t a matter of willpower, it’s a matter of capacity.
In fact, research by Kross et al. (2014) found that emotional and cognitive overload directly impairs our ability to follow through on intentions. And for women, especially those navigating midlife or caregiving roles, the mental load is often even heavier (Daminger, 2019). Those small daily stresses like getting stuck in traffic, forgetting your child’s blazer, that call from a family member can have a impact on our cognitive function as drunk driving!
Planning for the Real World
That’s why I’ve shifted my approach, both in my own life and with clients, from trying to push harder to planning smarter. I now ask: What’s likely to get in the way? Rather than chasing perfect routines, we look at how to reduce friction, remove unnecessary stressors, and build buffer time.
Mo Gawdat, former Google X executive and author of Solve for Happy, talks about improving wellbeing not by adding more, but by removing the sources of suffering. This minimalist approach to health change resonates with my coaching philosophy: don’t pile more pressure on—strip back, simplify, and safeguard what matters most.
How to Apply This
If you’ve ever said, “I really want to be healthier, but I just can’t seem to stick to it,” consider these practical shifts:
- Pre-plan for obstacles: Expect disruptions. Build in backup options and buffer time.
- Reduce decision fatigue: Automate meals or workouts where possible. Simpler equals more sustainable.
- Focus on systems, not goals: As James Clear writes in Atomic Habits, “You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
- Look at what you can remove: What commitments, habits, or thought patterns are making it harder?
Ultimately, your success doesn’t hinge on wanting it badly enough. It depends on designing a life that makes it easier to follow through—especially when the unexpected shows up.
References:
- Fogg, B.J. (2009). A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design. Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology. https://doi.org/10.1145/1541948.1541999
- Kross, E., et al. (2014). Self-Talk as a Regulatory Mechanism: How You Do It Matters. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106(2), 304–324.
- Daminger, A. (2019). The Cognitive Dimension of Household Labor. American Sociological Review, 84(4), 609–633.
- Clear, J. (2018). Atomic Habits. Penguin Random House.
- Gawdat, M. (2017). Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy. Bluebird.
