Attain Your Goals On Auto-Pilot with Habit Stacking
Remember the old word association game Password?
I say “bread,” you say “butter.”
I say “dog,” you say “cat.”
I say “drink,” you say “whiskey.” Or is that just me?
Our Brains Love to Make Connections and Associations
A smell conjures up a memory. Your chocolate craving helps you remember to add milk to your grocery list. Putting your floss on the counter instead of hiding in the medicine cabinet keeps your pearly whites clean.
We can use our brain’s affinity for making connections in our quest to form long-lasting habits.
As a business owner, that’s a good thing, especially the further from January 1st you get.
A new year provides the nudge we all need to evaluate where we were, where we are, and where we want to go.
But as we get further and further into the year, enthusiasm begins to wane.
Like operating on a wish and a prayer, just setting an intention to create a new habit won’t get the job done.
Unless you’ve established habits that will help you keep your resolutions and reach your goals, you’re likely to slide back into old habits.
That’s very easy to do. Unless…
Putting New Habits On Auto-Pilot
You’ve got a goal in mind and you know what habits you must create in order to meet it. That’s the first step.
You may feel trepidation; “I’ve tried to get in the habit of daily meditation but I never seem to get it to stick.” Remembering all the times in the past you’ve slid back into old ways can leave you feeling defeated and frustrated.
Habit stacking is going to dissipate that trepidation and frustration like the fog gives way to the sunshine.
What is Habit Stacking?
The concept of Habit Stacking originated with S.J. Scott in his book “Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes that take Five Minutes or Less.”
Habit stacking taps into our brain’s affinity for making connections by clustering new habits with actions we’ve already set to auto-pilot. Rather than trying to force a new habit into your day, you tie it to something you are already going to do. This “stacking” helps activate the part of your brain that handles the “automatic” tasks, making the new habit more effortless, long-lasting, routine.
For example, let’s say you’d like to develop the habit of taking a daily walk or jog.
Your current evening routine might be:
Brush and floss your teeth
Read in bed until you’re sleepy
Turn off the light and sleep
To remind yourself that you want to run in the morning, you can stack a new habit into the old mix:
Brush and floss your teeth
Put your running gear in a prominent spot where you’ll see it when you wake
Read in bed until you’re sleepy
Turn off the light and sleep
Simply by adding one new habit to your familiar routine, you’ll trigger yourself to remember to put on your running shoes and head out the door in the morning.
The beauty of habit stacking is that it leans on existing, tried-and-true habits that you will certainly do, either because you have to (like waking up or going to bed) or because you’ve already incorporated that habit into your life (like brushing your teeth twice a day).
As a personal example, my gratitude journal is on my nightstand so I see it every night when I go to bed. I’ve set myself up for success because the journal and pen are there, ready to go, and now I just need to take 5 minutes to make my entry before I read my book and go to sleep. I feel more successful because I’m actually making the entries in my journal. The habit has become so effortless and automatic that it’s become an ingrained habit for two years now.
Habit Stacking Relieves Stress
We’ve all tried introducing new habits - drink more water, floss regularly, reach out to your business leads consistently, keep your to-do list updated, etc. - but the way we have tried to introduce them has been forced, leading them to be unsuccessful.
Techniques like setting a timer to remember to drink a glass of water every hour, or blocking 60 minutes of “lead follow-up time” in your calendar are abrupt. They break up your natural flow, so they become annoying and easy to ignore.
Pretty soon, you’re back to your old ways of never drinking water and not filling up your business pipeline with leads.
You are frustrated with yourself, your health and your business may suffer, and you’re on a downward spiral away from success.
Like with anything, getting started the first few days and weeks takes some energy and thought, but after 4-6 weeks, your brain clusters that new activity together with an existing one. I don’t feel like “I have to write in my gratitude journal,” it’s just a thing I do before I read my book at bedtime now.
No more wasted energy lamenting over remembering to do the new habit, no more frustration with myself for giving up on the new habit after a few days or weeks.
Habit Stacking Tips
After you’ve decided upon the goal you want to reach and the habit you need to develop in order to reach it be sure to:
Identify a solid “anchor habit” to stack with the new habit. Success comes from stacking a new habit with an existing one that you do consistently. If you want to practice yoga every day but are inconsistent with going to the gym daily, it might be best for you to stack practicing yoga with something you do every day (like waking up in the morning) instead of “after I go to the gym.”
Keep new habits small in nature and number. Don’t finish reading this and immediately start stacking every new habit you’ve ever wanted to create throughout your day! As with anything, starting small is the key - add one or two habits to different parts of your day and try that for a few weeks until they become automatic, then add more.
I am a huge proponent of starting small and building on that success. I encourage my clients to try one new habit and update me weekly on how that is going, what’s working and what isn’t. The regular accountability is helpful for my clients because I am genuinely interested in their progress, and I understand that there will be minor tweaks that need to be made along the way to success.
If you’d like help in determining which business goals to set to move you forward and which habits will get you there, reach out for a free consultation. I’d love to help you set yourself up for success!