Habits need competence

Over the past two weeks, we focused on habits, with these two essays: “Incentives amplify behavior, but habits decide it” and “How great managers shape habits: repetition, feedback, and consistent reinforcement”. Today, we complete this three-part series with an article on the missing ingredient in habit formation: competence.

Why competence is a prerequisite for consistent habit formation

Imagine you’re trying to build a habit of going to the gym, but you do not know how to lift weights properly. It’s going to be an awkward and uncomfortable experience. And no awkward and uncomfortable experience can become a habit. Not until it becomes pleasant or useful, and that often requires a minimum level of competence.

Or consider a salesperson who is told to improve conversion by asking questions during sales calls. During the sales training, everything seemed clear, but now that she’s making the first call, she realizes that she doesn’t really know what questions to ask. So, she feels awkward and uncomfortable. And because of that, she asks poor questions in an uncertain voice. It cannot go well. And when something goes badly and feels uncomfortable, it does not become a habit.

This is why competence is a prerequisite for habit formation.

The problem with attempting to start habits before achieving a minimum level of competence

This is why so many of us struggle to build new habits, even when we want to. We jump straight into doing before achieving a basic level of competence.

We do that because we think habits are about repetition, but habits are not just about repetition: they are about repeatable good experiences. And good experiences require a baseline level of skill. If every attempt feels clumsy, confusing, or slightly humiliating, the brain resists repeating it, not because of laziness, but because the experience itself is aversive.

This is also why many well-intentioned interventions fail. Managers ask for new behaviors. Individuals set new routines. Incentives are adjusted. But the underlying competence is lacking, so each attempt reinforces failure or wasted time rather than progress. And what gets reinforced is not the desired habit, but avoidance.

Competence, in this sense, is what makes repetition viable. It turns friction into flow, hesitation into confidence, and effort into something that at least feels manageable.

What this means in practice

If you want to build a habit, ask a different question. Not “how do I do this more often?”, but “how do I make this easier to do well?”

Of course, this does not apply to all habits. Some habits require almost no competence to start, such as brushing teeth.

But for most habits, where the outcome and experience depend at least partly on competence, this usually means:

• increasing guidance and structure,
• learning the principles behind the behavior,
• lowering the difficulty of the first repetitions,
• limiting the number of factors to keep in mind,
• and ensuring early feedback is immediate and useful.

A beginner at the gym does not need more motivation; they need to understand what should happen during an exercise for it to be effective and efficient. And they need to properly interpret feedback (for example, muscles failing after 8-10 repetitions aren’t signs of weakness but of effectiveness).

Similarly, a salesperson does not need more pressure; they need better scripts and more concrete examples. And perhaps a few roleplays before the first real call.

Once competence crosses a certain threshold, repetition becomes natural. And only then can a habit take root.

Until then, pushing harder rarely works. It just makes the experience worse, and therefore less repeatable.