While a healthy diet accounts for about 80 percent of the benefits you reap from a healthy lifestyle, exercise is the leverage that allows all of those benefits to be maximized.

You simply cannot be optimally healthy without regular physical movement—and this includes both non-exercise movement throughout the day, and a more vigorous exercise regimen.

Those who succeed at maintaining good health into old age typically have one thing in common: a healthy diet and regular exercise is part of their day-to-day lifestyle. It’s not an on-and-off proposition to fit into a particular garment for a special occasion.

Building new habits can be challenging however, especially when you’re trying to fit a new block of activity into an already packed schedule. So what’s the best way to get into the habit of exercising, and stick with it long-term?

Building Habits Around Cues

A recent study¹ sought to find the answer to that question, and what they discovered was quite interesting. As reported by Time magazine:²

“The most consistent exercisers… were those who made exercise into a specific type of habit — one triggered by a cue, like hearing your morning alarm and going to the gym without even thinking about it, or getting stressed and immediately deciding to exercise.

‘It’s not something you have to deliberate about; you don’t have to consider the pros and cons of going to the gym after work,’ explains L. Alison Phillips, PhD… Instead, it’s an automatic decision instigated by your own internal or environmental cue.”

This kind of habit is referred to as “an instigation habit,” and it was found to provide people with the most consistent results. In fact, the strength of a person’s instigation habit was the only factor able to predict a person’s ability to maintain an exercise regimen over the long-term.

The idea that a habit is formed by doing the same thing over and over again is well-accepted, but when it comes to forming exercise habits, forcing yourself to repeat the same specific exercise “to get into the habit of doing it” may actually be counterproductive.

Instead, decide what your trigger cue will be, and then just follow through by going to the gym (or wherever you do your exercise) when the cue is triggered. The specific exercises performed once you get there is far less important, in terms of actually cementing your exercise habit.

The idea is to hinge the habit around a recurring cue, so that you head for the gym without actually having to consciously decide to do so each time.