Making something habitual means you don’t have to exert willpower:

You spend 40% of every day on autopilot, just performing habits and it’s not exhausting at all.

Here’s Roy again:

The more you follow a routine, plan in advance, or operate on the basis of habit, the less moment-to-moment strain there is, and the less demand for willpower.

Manipulate your environment to make what you should do easy and what you shouldn’t do hard:

You can resist bad habits by avoiding the triggers that make you want to do them. Context is key.

Change your environment so you don’t have to exert self-control. Throw out the donuts. Hide the booze. This has been shown to be very powerful.

Via Habit:

“Whether we’re talking about college students or people in the community, 45% of the behaviors participants listed in their diaries tended to be repeated in the same location almost every day.”

If you can make good habits take 20 seconds less time to perform and bad habits 20 seconds longer, you’ll likely see big changes in your behavior.

Adding things to your environment can be a big help too: Reminders to do the right thing (like signs or even text messages) work.

Added here: http://pandawhale.com/post/378/you-become-what-you-do

If you fall off the wagon, get back on it:

In Richard Wiseman’s study of people who achieved their goals he realized we should:

Expect to revert to your old habits from time to time. Treat any failure as a temporary set-back rather than a reason to give up altogether.

So you say you’re not going to eat cookies. Then you accidentally eat a cookie. That’s not when the diet is blown.

The diet is blown when you eat the one cookie and say “So much for that resolution” — and then devour the rest of the bag.

Don’t get discouraged.

There are so many tools to help you. (“If-then” scenarios are one of the most powerful tools for resisting triggers. Commitment Devices work too.)

Overall, use baby steps, focus on consistency above all else and reward yourself for “small wins“.

Eric's article has MANY links but it is worth a deep dive:

http://www.bakadesuyo.com/2013/12/new-years-resolutions/

I make my resolutions based on what I'm already doing well that I want to keep doing, instead of what I want to stop doing.  Success rate 100%.

The easiest way to get rid of bad habits is to let them die of neglect.