I love a good way to make my life easier, a way to make instill good habits easier. Enter Habit Stacking!
Habit stacking is a powerful technique that can help you develop new habits by anchoring them to existing ones. You know – stacking. It involves combining a new habit with an existing one, making it easier to integrate into your daily routine. This practice has been proven over and over to be effective in helping people develop new habits that stick, especially when you are working towards creating a healthy routine. By stacking one habit on top of another, changes do not feel as overwhelming as changing everything all at one time.
I love habit stacking. The easiest time for me to stick to a routine is bedtime. If you know me, I like an early bedtime. Around 9 pm, I start winding down the devices. I use the “do not disturb” timer so that I do not get any notifications that will make me stay up later than I should. I get out my Gratitude Journal and reflect on my day, writing things that were good. Then, I wash my face and brush my teeth, and crawl into bed with my book. Habit stacking has made bedtime something I look forward to while giving me a routine that is easy to follow, all good habits to assist in giving me good, quality sleep.
Not sure where to start? Here are some steps to help you get started with habit stacking:
Identify an existing habit: The first step is to identify an existing habit that you already do every day. This could be anything from brushing your teeth in the morning to making your bed. The important thing is that it is an existing habit that you can anchor your new habit to.- Identify a new habit: Once you have identified an existing habit, the next step is to identify a new habit that you want to develop. This could be anything from reading for 15 minutes every day to doing 10 push-ups every morning.
- Link the habits together: The next step is to link the two habits together. This means that you will do your new habit immediately after your existing habit. For example, if you want to read for 15 minutes every day, you could do it right after you brush your teeth in the morning.
- Repeat the process: Repeat this process every day until the new habit becomes a part of your daily routine. Once the new habit has become a part of your routine, you can start to add new habits to your routine using the same technique.
There are several benefits to using habit stacking:
- It makes it easier to develop new habits: By linking a new habit to an existing habit, you are leveraging the power of an existing habit to help you develop a new one. This makes it easier to integrate the new habit into your daily routine.
- It helps you save time: Habit stacking can help you save time by combining two habits into one. For example, if you want to listen to an audiobook every day, you could do it while you are exercising.
- It helps you stay consistent: By linking a new habit to an existing habit, you are creating a trigger that reminds you to do the new habit every day. This makes it easier to stay consistent and develop the habit over time.
Habit stacking can help when you want to create a healthier lifestyle but don’t know where to start. When you begin, habit stacking can be a simple but effective technique that can help you develop new habits that can lead to measurable change.
By building on something you are already doing, adding one habit at a time makes changing less intimidating. Start by linking a new habit to an existing habit, one at a time, then you activate the power of the existing habit to help you develop a new one. If you wanting to create meaningful change in your routine, try using habit stacking to make it easier and more effective, allowing those changes to stick around forever.