Module 6 · Environment & context · Research-supported

When life moves, habits move

A new home, job or term disrupts old habits — a window to build new ones.

6 min read · Level: Intermediate · Free — no account needed to read

The problem it solves

Why is a big life change a good moment to start a habit?

The concept

When your context changes — moving home, starting a job, a new term, a new baby — many of your old cues disappear. Old habits are disrupted, and for a while your intentions have more influence over what you do.

Researchers call this the habit discontinuity hypothesis. In one field study, people who had recently moved home responded more strongly to an intervention promoting sustainable habits than people who hadn’t.

Smaller fresh starts also help: a new week, a new month, a birthday. They don’t change your cues, but they seem to give people a boost to begin.

Why it matters

Using these windows on purpose means building new habits while the old ones are loosest — and being careful, because unwanted habits can form in the same windows.

Research-supported: Good studies support it, but there are fewer of them, the effects are modest, or they come from a narrow set of situations.

See it happen

Zoe is moving to a new flat and dreads losing her gym routine near her old home.

The ordinary first approach

The move will ruin her habits for months.

With the idea

She plans her first week in advance: a morning walk from the new front door, and a new gym near her commute starting day two.

What changed

She used the move as a chance to design habits into the new place from the start.

Easy to get wrong

• Waiting until life settles before choosing new habits.
• Letting unwanted habits form by default in a new place.
• Relying on fresh-start energy to keep a habit going long term.

Try it now: Plan for your next change

1. Think of a change coming up — big (a move) or small (a new month).
2. Pick one habit you want to start then.
3. Write its cue in the new context.

Apply it to one of your habits

For one of your habits, is there an upcoming change you could use to strengthen or restart it?

Reflect

• Which of your past life changes reshaped your habits the most?

Go deeper — evidence & sources

• Verplanken & Roy (2016). Empowering interventions to promote sustainable lifestyles: Testing the habit discontinuity hypothesis in a field experiment. Journal of Environmental Psychology. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2015.11.008
• Wood, Tam & Witt (2005). Changing circumstances, disrupting habits. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.918
• Dai, Milkman & Riis (2014). The Fresh Start Effect: Temporal Landmarks Motivate Aspirational Behavior. Management Science. doi:10.1287/mnsc.2014.1901