Habit Stacking (in real life)
We have talked about habit stacking many times before
Specifically we’ve touched on it in this blog post from 2021 and I chat about this with my clients a lot when we strategize adding in a new habit.
Habit stacking is a process used to help integrate a new task/habit into your life in an easier way.
Here’s what you do:
Identify new habit you want to form
Identify habit you’ve already built into your life
Connect these two habits so you perform the new desired habit along with the already formed habit
The name really says it all; you stack two habits onto one another.
This can be a great strategy for a lot of reasons, one being that it’s so simple.
All of us have habits built into the day. These habits (contrary to what the internet would have you believe) don’t have to be fancy or deep or require a lot of time. It can be as simple and mundane as brushing your teeth in the morning or putting your car keys in the tray when you get home.
When want to form a new habit, first find one of those already formed & mundane things you do. Then find a way that they work together.
“When I do X, I’ll also do Y.”
I started putting this into action earlier this week on Wednesday.
Historically I’ve struggled with taking creatine daily. I would take it for a few days and then before I realized a month goes by without realizing & there’s barely a dent in my creatine supply 😓
So this week I decided I would start taking creatine as I wait for my coffee to brew - something I know, without a doubt, I will be doing every single morning.
Even better is that there is built-in “down” time since my coffee takes ~2 minutes to brew. Usually I’m just standing around waiting for it to be done but now it gives me enough time to remember to take my creatine & actually take it.
So far I’m 5 days in & happy to say this is the most consistent I’ve been with taking creatine in… at least a year 😂
Habit stacking can be a great strategy to incorporate new tasks into your day/life. Have you ever tried habit stacking?