Google research says successfully forming a lifelong habit comes down to 1 word

"Unsurprisingly, getting paid to exercise worked a treat: People in the "routine" and the "flexible" groups worked out more often than those in the control group. More surprisingly, after four weeks-when the exercise habit was theoretically established, and the researchers stopped paying participants-the flexible group (the people who followed a plan) were more than twice as likely to keep working out than the strict group (the people who had established a rigid routine)."

"Problem is, routines are great until something disrupts that routine. In fact, the more rigid your routine, the more likely your routine will occasionally get disrupted. Something comes up, and you have to miss today's 6 p.m. workout? There goes your routine for the day-and since habits are a lot easier to break than form, tomorrow's workout is also in peril."

A workplace experiment assigned employees to a strict two-hour daily routine with pay, a flexible pay-supported plan, or an encouraged control group. Paid participants exercised more than the control group while incentives were active. Once payments stopped after four weeks, the flexible-plan participants were more than twice as likely to continue exercising compared with those who had followed a rigid routine. Rigid routines are vulnerable to disruption: missing a scheduled session can cascade into missed subsequent sessions. Flexible plans allow substitution and timing shifts, creating more resilient, sustainable exercise habits.

Read at Fast Company