If you want to lure yourself into doing a new habit , it ’ s sometimes best to start out with baby steps instead of setting yourself up for failure with lofty goals that require major changes .

For example ...

Do three push-ups in the morning . Finito . As time passes , you can keep making small improvements . Perhaps add an extra pushup every day or so . Keep that up for a few months and you may find yourself doing one hundred push-ups every morning .

Try setting up reminders with an app — so you lovingly nudge yourself to do your new habit .

For example ...

WISDOM & SELF-GROWTH

BJ Fogg , head of the Stanford Behavior Design Lab , says that if you want to create a new habit , it helps if you simplify it first . You should make the new habit ridiculously easy and quick to do . If you make the habit too difficult , you ’ re more likely to get discouraged and stop doing it .

The goal is to find a way to make the habit both appealing and conquerable , so you ’ ll want to do it consistently .

If you want to drink more water , set alarms to remind yourself to get a glass every few hours .

If you want to walk more , keep track of how many steps you take in a day — and get competitive with yourself about improvement .

Research shows that technological nagging works ! In a study in the Management Science journal , a group of economists tested this with banks in Bolivia , Peru , and the Philippines . They sent one group of bank customers a series of texts to motivate them