Systems to Make Habits Sticky & Fun
When we don't follow through on a habit we want to adopt, the story we tell ourselves is usually the same.
We are not disciplined enough.
But what if that story is wrong? What if the system was never designed to help us succeed in the first place?
From financial wellbeing to healthcare, we've built systems that expect people to make the "right" choice through sheer willpower, then blame them when they don't. It's a narrative that's not only unhelpful. It gets in the way of the real work: designing systems that actually work for people.
Habits are not just personal. They are the product of environments, structures, and feedback loops that shape what's easy, what's visible, and what feels possible.
When a system is broken, individual effort will not fix it.
In this Season 2 conversation, Vishal George sits down with Jacqui Nortje, PhD researcher in gamification and goal setting and product owner in the wellness industry, to explore what it looks like to redesign the system rather than blame the person.
First Half Interview — Deep into the Habit System
Using the iceberg model from systems thinking, our conversation will walk you beneath the surface of habit change to explore the structures that make certain behaviours easy for some and nearly impossible for others.
✔️ Events and Patterns — The visible signs that individual behaviour change is not working: what are we actually seeing in the wellness industry, and what does it tell us?
✔️ Underlying Structures and Systems — Why habits need to be understood as a system. What lessons are designers, researchers and product teams still learning about building for lasting behaviour change.
✔️ Mental Models and Leverage Points — The seductive myth of individual responsibility. The risks of "habit maxxing" when optimising every routine takes the joy out of the process. And why making it fun, not just compliance and efficiency, might be the most important leverage point of all.
Second Half Participation — Live Audience Q&A
Bring your questions and reflections. The second half of this live interview is an open conversation about what it means to redesign systems so that good choices are not just possible, but genuinely supported.
About Jacqui Nortje
Jacqui Nortje helps people do the things they say they want to do. With a PhD in gamification and goal setting, she blends behavioural science with practical design to make habits stick, motivation last, and systems feel human. By day, she is a product owner in the wellness industry. Outside of work, she explores behaviour change through writing, conversation, and everyday experiments, asking better questions, challenging assumptions, and making science usable (and maybe even fun).
About the Interview Series
People Who Think in SYSTEMS is a live interview series hosted by Vishal George, Founding Member of the School of Systems Thinking NZ. Each conversation shares stories from change-makers tackling some of the most complex challenges of our time.
👉🏾 Read the previous interviews here: https://schoolofsystemsthinking.co.nz