Habit Stacking
This one is about building habits.
Entering into 2025, we start thinking about developing new habits. It’s simple but not easy. Habit stacking is one of the best ways to build new routines into your day/week. I’m going to break it down for you.
1. You probably have very strong habits and connections that you take for granted each day. For example, your brain is probably very efficient at remembering to take a shower each morning or to brew your morning cup of coffee or to open the blinds when the sun rises … or thousands of other daily habits.
You can take advantage of these strong connections to build new habits. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.
For example:
After I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will do Daily CARs.
After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.
After I send an email I will perform 10 squats.
Every time I eat I will have two different vegetables.
After I sit down to dinner, I will say one thing I’m grateful for that happened today.
After I get into bed at night, I will give my partner a kiss.
After I put on my running shoes, I jump rope for 3 minutes.
Again, the reason habit stacking works so well is that your current habits are already built into your brain. You have patterns and behaviors that have been strengthened over years. By linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built into your brain, you make it more likely that you'll stick to the new behavior.
Once you have mastered this basic structure, you can begin to create larger stacks by chaining small habits together. This allows you to take advantage of the natural momentum that comes from one behavior leading into the next.
Think about this as you are considering things that you want to accomplish in this upcoming year. Think about the daily habits that will get you closer to an end result but don’t discourage yourself by only allowing the end result to be your guiding force.
