What if the reason you can’t stick to your habits has nothing to do with willpower, motivation, or discipline? What if the methods you’ve been handed were never designed for the life you’re actually living? For so many of us, habit advice arrives in the same shape: wake at five, follow the routine, repeat daily, never miss. And when it inevitably falls apart, we blame ourselves rather than the model.
In this powerful episode, habits and identity coach Monica Packer reveals what’s actually getting in the way: the invisible labour you carry, the perfectionism dressed up as ambition, and the shame voice quietly running the show.
The Recovering Perfectionist
Monica didn’t arrive at her work through theory. She lived it. At 20, she was the stereotypical overachiever: scholarship kid, full-ride tuition, straight As, every honour society. From the outside, her life looked perfectly assembled. From the inside, she was quietly breaking down through suicidal ideation, multiple eating disorders, panic attacks, and silent nervous breakdowns. Nobody around her knew. “Because I had so long held on to that shame voice inside me,” she shares.
A decade later, on the brink of turning 30, she realised she’d spent the previous ten years on the sidelines of her own life, paralysed by the same shame that once drove her achievements. That moment changed everything.
Why Habit Advice Was Never Built for You
“A lot of the books and the bestsellers written out there are by men,” Monica points out. “Very few of the examples use women, and very little of the research is done on women.”
The issue isn’t that those methods are bad. It’s that they ignore the invisible load so many people carry: the mental gymnastics of running households, anticipating everyone’s needs, remembering everything for everyone. That load steals the time, energy, and headspace required to follow rigid habit prescriptions. Trying to fit your habits into a model designed for someone with none of that weight is, in Monica’s words, like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
The Three Shifts That Change Everything
Monica’s framework rests on three powerful reframes.
Habits are not requirements; they’re supportive. Their only job is to serve you, not to score you. That gives you permission to choose how a habit fits your season, not the other way around.
Habits are not routines; they’re small and simple. Most “habits” people set are actually eight habits stacked together. Instead, start with a baseline: the smallest, simplest version of the habit you could do on your worst day. One paragraph of journaling. Five minutes of movement. Baselines build toward the ideal, and sometimes the baseline is all you need.
Habits are not rigid; they’re flexible. Redefine consistency as doing your best most of the time over time. Flexibility isn’t the enemy of consistency. It’s what makes consistency possible.
Meet Sharon: The Voice in Your Head
For one of Monica’s clients, the inner shame voice had become so loud that they decided to name it. They called her Sharon, a blend of “shame” and “Karen.” The act of naming created separation. Suddenly, there was the client, and there was Sharon, and they were not the same person.
“Shame does not lead to sustainable change,” Monica says. “It simply does not work.” Compassion does. The work begins with awareness, then labelling, then learning to speak back to that voice as your wisest, most compassionate self. It feels foreign at first. It changes everything.
The Do Something List
Six months before turning 30, Monica wrote a list of 30 things she wanted to do before her birthday. Not a bucket list. Not goals. Just things she’d long wanted to try, with one rule: do them poorly. “I want to do 30 things really poorly,” she remembers. That permission to be mediocre is what cracked her life open. Writing, painting, reading and even the podcast that didn’t make the original list. It all began with one small, badly done thing.
About Monica Packer
Monica Packer is a writer, podcaster, and certified habits and identity coach. She hosts the top-rated About Progress podcast and has guided thousands of women toward sustainable growth through her progress-over-perfection philosophy. She’s a mum of five, a former middle school teacher, and a sourdough obsessor.
Key Takeaway
The reason your habits keep falling apart isn’t a character flaw. It’s a system mismatch. When you stop forcing yourself into rigid prescriptions and start designing habits that flex around your real life, consistency becomes possible. When you name the shame voice instead of obeying it, you reclaim the driver’s seat. And when you give yourself permission to do things poorly, you finally start doing them at all.
Watch the full conversation on YouTube
Find Out More About Monica Packer
Website: aboutprogress.com
Follow on Instagram: @aboutprogress
YouTube Channel @aboutprogress