What motivates us to do what we do? And why is it so incredibly difficult to do the right thing, even when we (think we) set our minds to it? Successful behavioural change is still a major challenge for people, both in clinical and non-clinical settings. This lack of flexibility, which often results in maladaptive behaviour of some kind, is what fascinates me and what broadly has been driving my research interest in real-world habits. In this talk, I would like to give you a concise overview of some of the studies I worked on regarding people’s ability to adjust to changes in learnt responses and reward probabilities (reversal learning, two-step task, outcome devaluation) in different target populations (e.g., disordered gambling, diet-induced obesity). Dopamine will be a red thread throughout the talk. Finally, I will discuss the idea that adaptive flexibility requires sufficient stability, and that it may be worth reconsidering the traditional dichotomous thinking in behavioural control research. [mehr]