Creating a Habit

Welcome to the first blog of 2026!  I wound down last year with an observation on kindness and respect.  In our current social climate, it is getting harder and harder to find people who exhibit those basic human attributes.  And in keeping with the theme of the new year, hopefully you are resolving to do something!  If you are like most people, your good intentions will run aground before the end of this month.   

In healthcare especially, there is a quiet pressure to be flawless: flawless documentation, flawless days, flawless attitudes. That same pressure sneaks into how people approach change: “If I cannot do it perfectly every day, what is the point?” The result is a pattern you have probably seen in your own life and in your team—an ambitious January goal, a messy week by midmonth, and then a quiet slide back to the old normal. The problem is not that you missed a day at the gym, skipped your new documentation routine, or lost your patience with a colleague. The problem is the story that says, “I blew it, so I might as well stop.” Research on habit formation and relapse is clear: it is not the interruption that derails you; it is the decision not to come back. 

What can we do? How can we be more successful in creating sustainable change in 2026? Habits are not built by never missing a day; they are built by coming back and never quitting. The most resilient people do not have cleaner calendars than you; they have better recovery systems. They expect life to interrupt their plans—because it always does—and they have a plan for what to do next. Behavioral research shows that brief lapses do not erase progress; how you respond to the lapse matters far more than the lapse itself. Experts even recommend a “never miss twice” mindset: missing once is life, missing twice is a choice. That kind of thinking gives you permission to be human without giving yourself permission to abandon the change. 
 
If you are going to lean into this idea, you need habits that are easy to come back to, especially in a busy clinic setting where your demands are high and the day can be unpredictable.  

• Make it embarrassingly small 
  Aim for changes that still feel doable on your worst clinical day: one note closed before leaving, one workflow improvement per week, one intentional kind interaction per shift. Microhabits are easier to restart because they never feel like a mountain to climb. In training, this looks like short, modular content that staff can complete between patients rather than marathon sessions that fall apart the moment the schedule changes.​ 

• Anchor to something you already do 
  Tie the habit to an existing cue: opening the daily schedule, logging into the EHR, starting your first evaluation, or wrapping up your last treatment. Anchored habits survive interruptions better because the cue keeps coming back, even when your motivation dips.​ 

• Predecide your recovery plan 
  Before the month gets away from you, decide: “When I miss, here is how I will come back.” That might look like the “never twice” rule, a minimum viable version of the habit for highstress days, or a quick checkin with a colleague for accountability. The point is to remove the drama from the miss and make the comeback automatic. 

Maybe your “resolve to do something different” this year is about how you show up with your staff, patients, or referral partners. You plan to pause and check your tone before responding when you are frustrated. Then one afternoon you snap at the front desk. That moment does not make you a hypocrite; it makes you human. The comeback is what matters: circling back with an apology, resetting your intention for the rest of the day, and using the slip as feedback about your stress level instead of a verdict on your character. 

So, as you step into 2026, resist the lure of the flashy, unsustainable resolution—personally and organizationally. In your own life, choose one small, meaningful habit in how you treat people or how you manage your work that you are willing to keep coming back to. In your practice, design training and workflows that expect interruptions and make it easy for staff to reengage without shame or overwhelm. 

Kindness and respect—toward others and toward yourself—are not built by never having a bad day. They are built, one comeback at a time, by refusing to let the bad day define you or derail the change you care about. This year, do not just resolve to start strong; resolve to return, again and again, until the new way of working simply feels like who you are.