By: Cally Reed
We’ve all been there. You start a new wellness routine with the best intentions—morning meditation, regular workouts, healthier eating. For a few weeks, everything goes according to plan. Then life happens. A work crisis demands overtime. A family emergency arises. Your routine crumbles, and suddenly you’re back where you started, wondering how to change your habits in a way that actually lasts.
Here’s what I’ve discovered through my work with successful women at Gradual Shifts: the difference between habits that stick and those that don’t isn’t about willpower, perfect planning, or even motivation. It’s about something much deeper—your ability to honor your humanity while maintaining your commitment to yourself.
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Most advice on how to change your habits focuses on the mechanics: start small, stack habits, track your progress. While these strategies matter, they miss the crucial element that determines long-term success: honoring your humanity during challenging times. Harvard Medical School research shows that our ability to manage stress with compassion directly impacts our capacity to maintain healthy behaviors.
Think about it. When was the last time you abandoned a healthy habit during a calm, organized period of your life? Probably never. It’s during stressful times—when work demands intensify, relationships get challenging, or unexpected events occur—that our carefully constructed routines fall apart.
This is where honoring your humanity becomes your secret weapon for learning how to change your habits in a way that sticks. It’s not about eliminating stress (impossible) or pushing through everything (unsustainable). It’s about building the resilience to navigate challenges while staying connected to your values and treating yourself with compassion.
Honoring your humanity isn’t about lowering standards or making excuses. Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child defines resilience as “the ability to cope with manageable threats” and emphasizes that this capacity can be strengthened at any age through supportive relationships and self-compassion.
For our purposes, honoring your humanity in habit formation means:
When we’re stressed, our bodies activate what Mayo Clinic research describes as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, releasing cortisol and other stress hormones. This physiological response is designed to help us handle immediate threats, but it also impairs our executive function—the very brain processes we need for maintaining habits.
During stress, your brain essentially goes into survival mode, prioritizing immediate concerns over long-term goals. This is why that morning yoga practice feels impossible when you’re worried about a presentation, or why meal planning goes out the window during a family crisis.
Understanding this isn’t about making excuses—it’s about working with your biology rather than against it.
The first step in honoring your humanity is recognizing your personal stress signals with curiosity rather than judgment. Common early warning signs include:
Practice: Set three random phone alarms during your day. When they go off, quickly scan your body and mind with kindness. Rate your stress level from 1-10 and notice what’s contributing to it—without trying to fix or change anything, just noticing
Instead of letting stress hijack your habits, build a toolkit of responses that help you navigate challenges while honoring your human needs. Harvard research identifies five core skills for building resilience: cognitive restructuring, behavioral activation, problem-solving, mindfulness, and social connection.
Your toolkit might include:
When stress levels rise, we often make decisions from fear, guilt, or external pressure rather than from our authentic values. Heart-aligned action means pausing to ask: “What would someone who truly loves and respects themselves do in this situation?”
This isn’t about perfect choices—it’s about staying connected to your deeper “why” while honoring your current capacity. Maybe that means doing five minutes of movement instead of skipping exercise entirely, or having a simple healthy meal instead of abandoning nutrition altogether.
One of the most important aspects of honoring your humanity is knowing when to rest rather than push through. This isn’t giving up—it’s strategic recovery that prevents complete burnout and habit abandonment.
Questions to ask yourself with compassion:
Behavior scientist BJ Fogg’s research reveals that celebration is what actually wires habits into our brains. When you honor your humanity by adapting a habit during stress or restarting after a break, take a moment to genuinely celebrate. This isn’t about achieving perfection—it’s about acknowledging every moment you choose to care for yourself.
Ways to celebrate:
Perhaps the most crucial skill is learning to restart quickly after disruptions with kindness rather than criticism. Research from Harvard Business School shows that resilient people aren’t those who never get knocked off track—they’re those who can get back on track quickly and compassionately.
When you notice you’ve paused a healthy habit:
Every meaningful habit will be tested by life’s inevitable challenges. The question isn’t whether stress will come—it’s whether you’ll have the compassion and tools to navigate it while honoring your humanity and maintaining your commitment to yourself.
I see this with my clients repeatedly. The women who create lasting change aren’t those who never face stress or setbacks. They’re the ones who develop the capacity to bend without breaking, to adapt without abandoning, and to restart without self-criticism.
They understand that honoring your humanity is like tending a garden—it requires patience, gentle attention, and the wisdom to know what each season requires. Each time you navigate stress while maintaining some version of your healthy habits, you’re strengthening this crucial capacity for self-compassion and resilience.
During stressful times, it’s easy to lose sight of why you started these habits in the first place. This is where connecting to your long-term vision becomes essential. Whether you want to feel energetic and strong in your 60s, model healthy behaviors for your children, or simply feel at peace in your own body, keeping this bigger picture in mind helps you weather temporary storms.
Your vision isn’t about perfection—it’s about the person you’re becoming through your choices, especially the challenging ones.
There’s something profoundly empowering about taking action that aligns with your values, especially during difficult times. When you choose to care for yourself even when it’s hard, you’re not just maintaining a habit—you’re proving to yourself that you can be trusted to honor your commitments regardless of circumstances.
This self-trust becomes the foundation for all future change. Each time you choose your wellbeing during stress, you strengthen your belief in your own capacity for transformation.
Start by identifying one current habit that often gets abandoned during stressful times. Instead of trying to make it stress-proof, focus on making it humanity-honoring:
At Gradual Shifts, I work with women to develop this crucial capacity for honoring their humanity alongside their wellness goals. Because the truth is, lasting change isn’t about perfect conditions—it’s about imperfect persistence guided by deep self-compassion and unwavering commitment to your wellbeing.
Ultimately, maintaining habits during stressful times isn’t about discipline or willpower—it’s about self-love. It’s about treating yourself as someone worthy of care, especially when life gets challenging. Every time you honor your humanity while staying connected to your commitments, you’re building both resilience and self-trust.
This is the essential key that makes habits stick: not the absence of struggle, but the presence of tools, wisdom, and boundless self-compassion to navigate whatever comes while staying true to your path.
Your future self—the one who feels strong, grounded, and capable regardless of external circumstances—is counting on the choices you make today, especially the gentle, human ones.
Ready to learn how to change your habits by honoring your humanity and building resilience that lasts? I specialize in helping accomplished women develop the resilience and self-compassion needed to maintain healthy habits through life’s inevitable challenges. Together, we’ll create a personalized approach that celebrates both your ambitions and your beautiful humanity.
Schedule a complimentary clarity call to discover how gentle persistence and self-compassion can create the lasting transformation you’re seeking.
Cally Reed is a National Board Certified Health Coach (NBC-HWC) specializing in helping busy professionals create sustainable wellbeing practices. Through her practice, Gradual Shifts, she helps clients reconnect with their body’s wisdom to prevent burnout and build resilience that lasts.
Hi, I'm Kayla Brugger. Certified Pilates Instructor & Minnesota Mama of 2.
