The Gap Between Knowing & Doing: How To Build Healthy Habits That Last A Lifetime (Episode #50)

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 Knowing what to do and actually doing it consistently are two very different things. 

In this episode, Jess gets into why habits are hard to build and easy to break — and what actually makes them stick. Using her own complicated relationship with exercise as the throughline, she covers the mindset shifts and practical strategies that have made the difference for her personally. This one is less about information and more about the internal work of becoming someone who shows up for their own health.

 In this episode, Jess discusses:

• Why habits are hard — how the brain resists new behaviors, the all-or-nothing trap, and why waiting for motivation is a losing strategy
• Jess's personal arc with exercise — high school athlete to yo-yo weight lifter in college to completely sedentary through law school, and what going without physical activity actually did to her health and anxiety
• Why identity matters more than outcomes — the shift from "I'm trying to exercise" to "I am someone who exercises"
• The agency mindset — why people have far more power over their health habits than they're led to believe, and how to start operating from that belief
• Starting smaller than feels necessary, removing friction, designing your environment, and why consistency always beats intensity
• Considering the alternative — the most durable form of motivation Jess has found

You have more agency over this than you think. Every time you make the choice to show up, you are building something.

Connect with Jess:

• Instagram: @vitalbalancewithjess 
• Website: jessicatrone.com
• Email: vitalbalancewithjess@gmail.com

DISCLAIMER: The content shared in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only, is not a substitute for the advice of medical doctors or practitioners and should not be used to prevent, diagnose, or treat any condition. Consult with a physician prior to beginning any fitness, health, or wellness regimen or routine.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to Vital Balance with Jess, the podcast for women who want real life strategy, no BS conversations about women's health. I'm your host, Jess. While building my career as an attorney, I struggled with hormone imbalances, anxiety, metabolic dysfunction, and a healthcare system that left me with more questions than answers. So I took matters into my own hands. And here's what I discovered. The real magic happens when you get curious, start asking questions, and listening to your body like it actually knows what it's doing. This podcast isn't about weight loss, physical appearance, or rigid wellness routines. It's about agency. I want you to know just how much control you have over your everyday well-being. And I want you to experience stable energy, predictable moods, a sharp yet calm mind, and a body you can trust. Because when women are well, our homes and communities thrive too. Let's get started. Welcome to Vital Balance. I'm Jess. I want to talk today about habits, specifically how to actually build them and make them stick. Because I think this is one of those topics that sounds straightforward until you're actually trying to do it, and then it feels a lot harder than it should. I think a very common example of this is exercise. A lot of people struggle to either start an exercise regimen, or if they do, they quit after a few months or even weeks. It's common to have a yo-yo relationship with it, and that includes myself, at least when I view exercise throughout the trajectory of my life. I was a high school athlete, so during those years, exercise was just a part of my life. It wasn't something I had to think about or motivate myself to do. It was just built into my schedule and it was part of who I was. Now, when I say exercise, I don't mean a specific gym program or an exercise class. I just mean that I played sports, so I was naturally very active. I moved my body a lot. And then I went to college and that structure disappeared. I exercised off and on, but inconsistently. My exercise usually depended upon how I felt about my body. If I started to feel sluggish or maybe like I was gaining weight, I would go to the gym. But I never made real progress because I wasn't consistent with it. As frustrating as it is, the results seen from exercise and really, really most habits when it comes to our health truly depend upon consistency. And the results don't appear overnight and they give up. And the problem is that many people don't stick with an exercise program or whatever health habit it is, they don't stick with it long enough to see results. They get frustrated that it's not more immediate and they give up. And they don't typically come back to it until they feel even worse in their body than they did before. So obviously, this is a complete lack of consistency. And that is what I did throughout all of college. Then I got a job and was very busy with that and my new relationship with my husband, who was my boyfriend at the time. We did a lot of hiking and physically active activities, but I don't recall exercising really at all that year. And then the following year, I went to law school. And that was three years of sitting at a desk or on the couch while studying and reading case law. So I was very sedentary and I was stressed out all the time, and I never exercised. And I can tell you now, viewing it in hindsight, and everything I know about the benefits of exercise, not just for physical health, but mental health too, that going through law school without being physically active was genuinely terrible for me. My anxiety was through the roof during those three years, worse than it had ever been. And it caused my hormonal issues to worsen. Looking back, I think the combination of chronic stress and physical inactivity during that period either contributed directly to the development of my chronic conditions or made existing ones significantly worse. Obviously, I wasn't making that connection at the time. I just thought I was stressed because law school is stressful. But the sedentary piece was making everything harder than it needed to be. When I started my health journey after getting those three diagnoses at the age of 26, exercise was one of the first things I changed. I incorporated it into my life consistently. I made it a non-negotiable. And the difference it made to my mental health specifically was quite dramatic and amazing. Once you have experienced what consistent exercise does for your anxiety, your mood, your energy, your sleep, I think it's hard to go back. And despite some hiccups throughout my pregnancies and postpartum periods, I have been consistent ever since. And I don't exercise because I love exercising. I don't. I mean, it depends on the type of exercise, but I exercise because I know with absolute certainty what happens when I don't do it. And that certainty, not motivation, not discipline, not willpower, but that certainty of the alternative is what makes a habit stick long term. And that's what I want to get into today. What actually makes habits stick, why most people struggle with them, and the mindset shifts that I think make all the difference. Let's start with why habits are hard to implement in the first place. The brain is wired for efficiency, it wants to automate as much as possible, which is why habits exist. They are the brain's way of reducing the cognitive load of repetitive decision making. Once a behavior becomes truly habitual, you don't have to think about it anymore. It just kind of happens, right? But getting to that point requires a period of deliberate, effortful repetition that the brain actively resists because deliberate effort is more challenging and more uncertain. Your brain would rather you kept doing what you've always done. This is why the beginning of any new habit is difficult. You're fighting against the pull of existing neural pathways in your brain, patterns that have been reinforced over years and that feel automatic and comfortable. The new behavior feels effortful and unnatural by comparison. And when life gets busy or stressful, which it always does, the path of least resistance typically wins. You fall back on what's familiar, and then you feel like you failed, which makes it even harder to start again. There's also the problem of how people typically approach habit building, which is all or nothing. Either I'm doing the full workout program five days a week, I'm gonna meal prep and cook every Sunday evening, I'm gonna be in bed no later than 10 p.m. It's all or nothing. And then if they fall off the wagon because they couldn't achieve all of that at one time, they just say, okay, I'm done. I'm not doing any of it now. And that binary thinking is one of the most common reasons people never build lasting habits. Because life always will at some point interrupt the perfect version. And if the perfect version is the only version you've allowed yourself, any disruption feels like total failure. And then there's the motivation myth. Most people wait to feel motivated before they act. They think motivation is the prerequisite to the habit, that once they feel ready or inspired or energized enough, then they'll start. But that's backwards. Motivation follows action far more reliably than action follows motivation. You very rarely feel like doing the thing. You do the thing anyway, and then you feel better, and that feeling is what generates the motivation to do it again. Waiting to feel ready is a very effective way of never starting. So, what separates the habits that stick from the ones that don't? In my experience, it comes down to a few things. The habits that stick are the ones that become connected to identity rather than outcome. There is a real difference between I am trying to exercise more and I am someone who exercises. The first is a goal. The second is a description of who you are as a person. And when a behavior is part of how you see yourself, it becomes much harder to abandon. Because abandoning it means you're abandoning your identity, which the brain resists perhaps more strongly than it resists effort. The habits that stick are also the ones where the person has genuinely internalized why it matters. The why is important. Why are you doing something? And I don't mean in a vague way like I'm gonna exercise because I know exercise is good for me. Yes, that's a why, but it needs to be more personal and more non-negotiable. For me, that came from experiencing the mental health difference firsthand. Nobody told me exercise would decrease my anxiety that dramatically. I felt it. And once I felt it, the why became unshakable. That kind of why is very hard to argue yourself out of on a day when you don't feel like showing up. I also know that if I don't do it, I feel guilt and shame for letting myself and my family down because I chose to not do something that would have made life better for all of us. And also, the habits that stick are almost always the ones that have been made sustainable, meaning they fit into a real life, not an ideal one. A habit you can only maintain when everything is going perfectly isn't actually a habit. Sustainable habits are the ones you can show up for imperfectly, sometimes inconsistently, in a modified form during a hard season of life. And honestly, that is true of most health habits, including exercise. I don't always have time or the capacity for a one-hour lifting session three to four days a week, which is what I strive for typically, but I do what I can, right? Life happens. 20 minutes of weightlifting is far better than doing nothing. Again, I keep coming back to consistency. Consistency is key. So what actually works when it comes to building habits around health? So I've broken this down into five strategies, and they actually kind of take a lot of what I just talked about, but breaking it down in a more digestible way, I think. So number one is start smaller than you think you need to. This one runs counter to the way most people approach building new habits, which is to go all in from day one. Oh, it's a new year. I see this great new exercise program. I'm gonna start it, I'm gonna do it seven days a week, I'm gonna totally change my diet, right? It's like a complete overhaul of your life. And it works for a couple of weeks until real life happens and motivation dwindles and then the whole thing collapses. Starting small is not about low ambition. Many people have this go big or go home mentality. But would you rather go all out and completely stop after a few weeks or start at a more manageable pace and remain consistent for potentially years to come? Consider thinking about it in terms of beginning to build those new neural pathways I mentioned before you layer on intensity or complexity. If you want to build a consistent exercise habit, the goal is the first few weeks to not have the best workout of your life. The goal is to show up, even if that means 10 minutes, even if it means just taking a walk. The showing up is the habit. The quality and intensity can build from there once the showing up is automatic. The woman who commits to 10 minutes of movement a day and actually does it consistently for a month builds something far more durable than the woman who commits to an hour five days a week and burns out by the end of week two. Small and consistent beats large and sporadic every single time. Number two, shift your mindset around agency. I talked about agency a lot in last week's episode, and I want to come back to it here because I think it is one of the most underutilized tools when it comes to habit building, and one of the most important things I try to convey in my coaching practice. Most people, when it comes to their health habits, operate from a place of low agency. They feel like their circumstances dictate what's possible. I don't have time, I'm too tired, I don't know how, my life is too chaotic right now. And some of those things are genuinely true constraints. But most of the time they are stories. Stories that feel true, but that are actually just the brain defaulting to the path of least resistance and providing a narrative to justify it. Agency is the recognition that you have more power over your choices than you give yourself credit for. That within your actual life there are choices available to you. And those choices, made consistently, add up to something significant over time. This is not about willpower. Willpower is a finite resource and relying on it is a losing strategy. Agency is different because agency is a belief system, a fundamental orientation towards your life as something you are shaping rather than something that is happening to you. And when you operate from that belief, the internal conversation around habits changes. People have far more agency over their health than they are led to believe. Whether it's a medical system that often presents conditions as fixed or permanent, and genetics or bad luck as the cause or reason for those conditions, or a wellness industry that profits from dependence and confusion, and the pharmaceutical industry that wants to keep you on medications for the rest of your life. But the truth is that we are not powerless. We have choices. Number three, build identity around the habit. I touched on this in the why section, but I want to get a little more practical about it here. How do you actually shift from I'm trying to exercise to I am someone who exercises? And it's very simple and it starts with language. The way you talk about your habits to yourself and to other people shapes how you see yourself in relation to them. I'm working on being more consistent with exercise. That keeps you in the trying category. In contrast, saying I exercise, stating that simply as a fact, that starts to build the identity. It sounds like a small thing, but it's not. Every time you show up, even imperfectly, even for a shorter or easier version than you initially planned, you are casting a vote for that identity. You are giving your brain evidence that you are the kind of person who does this. And evidence accumulates. One workout doesn't make you an athlete, but 50 workouts start to shift how you see yourself. And how you see yourself determines what feels natural. I think about it this way: I am someone who exercises. This is just who I am now. It has been long enough and consistent enough that it doesn't feel like a habit I maintain. It feels like an expression of my identity. And on the days I don't want to do it, and trust me, I have those days. I will often have an internal dialogue with myself and perhaps come up with excuses for why I don't need to do it. Or what circumstances are preventing me from doing it. But 9.5 times out of 10, I do it because if I don't, it feels like I am going against who I am. Number four, remove friction. Friction is anything that makes the habit harder to execute. And reducing that, even in small ways, has a big impact on consistency. Because remember, you are fighting against the brain's preference for the familiar and the easy. Every additional step between you and the habit is an opportunity for the brain to talk you out of it. Practically, this looks different for every habit. For exercise, it might mean sleeping in your workout clothes on days when you exercise first thing in the morning, or maybe having those exercise clothes on your nightstand right next to you when you wake up, or having your gym bag packed and ready, laying right by the front door. Choosing a gym that is on your way to work rather than out of the way. Scheduling your workouts into your calendar the same way you would a meeting that you can't miss. These things sound very simple to the point you might wonder whether they actually make a difference, but they do, trust me. For nutrition habits, it might mean keeping the foods you want to eat consistently stocked and visible, and making the foods you want to eat less frequently less accessible. Environment design is one of the most powerful and most underused tools in habit building. You are not going to willpower your way through a kitchen that is stocked with food in a way that works against you and your goals. Design the environment to support the behavior you want. And lastly, number five, consistency over intensity. And consider the alternative. This is also something that I've already addressed, but I want to address it again because it's that important. Consistency beats intensity every single time. A moderate workout done three to four times a week for a year produces far better results physically, mentally, hormonally, than an intense program done perfectly for four to six weeks and then abandoned. This is true for nutrition, for sleep habits, for stress management, for pretty much everything. The compounding effect of consistent sustainable action over time is one of the most powerful forces in health. And it is available to everyone, regardless of how much time they have or how optimal their circumstances are. Remember those two mindset shifts we just discussed. Start small and build from there. Don't go into it with an all or nothing mindset. And then also remember you have agency. Imperfect consistency is still consistency, right? So what does that mean? A shorter workout than planned is still a workout. A mostly healthy day that included a less ideal meal is still a mostly healthy day, right? The goal is not perfection. That's really what I'm trying to stress here, especially for those high-achieving women who have a hard time settling for anything less than the perfect picture they've built up in their mind. And when I am struggling to show up, when I genuinely do not want to do the thing, I come back to what I talked about last week. Well, and this week too. I consider the alternative. How do I feel when I don't exercise consistently? I know exactly how I feel. My anxiety increases, my sleep gets worse, my mood is less stable, my energy throughout the day isn't as high. My body doesn't feel like mine. And I have enough personal data at this point to know with certainty what the alternative costs me. And that cost is always higher than the cost of showing up and doing the thing. Building habits is not about finding the perfect system or having unlimited willpower or waiting until your life is in the quote right place before you start. Because that might not ever happen, right? It's about starting small, thinking about who you want to be, making it as easy as possible to show up and doing it consistently enough that it stops feeling like a habit and starts feeling like you. You have more agency over this than you think. That is true whether you are starting from scratch or rebuilding after a hard season. The choice is always available to you. And every time you make it, you are building something important. Hopefully, a healthy habit that will last you a lifetime. If you want support building the specific health habits that are going to move the needle for your body, your health, figuring out where to start and what is actually going to make the most difference for your hormonal and metabolic health, a free hormone clarity call is a great place to begin. That conversation. I would genuinely love to connect with you. The link to schedule that call is in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. Until next time.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave my mommy a five-star review. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Thanks so much for tuning in to Vital Balance with Jess. If you loved this episode, it would mean the world if you would leave a review, share it with a friend, or hit subscribe so you never miss a dose of real talk on women's health. Remember, you have more control over your health than you've been told, and sustainable change is possible. Keep listening to your body and showing up for yourself. I'll see you next time.