As we enter into February, a month has passed since we all decided to make healthier changes to our lifestyle by implementing new habits. Some of us may have already given up, while others are just about hanging on by the skin of their teeth.
Let me introduce you to technique I personally have found useful for myself and with my clients, it goes by the name of 'habit stacking'.
What is habit stacking?
Habit stacking is when you decide on a new habit you would like to implement into your lifestyle and add it to a current habit you all ready do. Current daily habits we already do are often done subconsciously, for instance; brushing our teeth in the morning, having a coffee with our breakfast, checking our mobile phones before getting out of bed.
For example, if your goal is to lose or maintain weight and you want to monitor your weight more regularly , it is best to weigh daily, first thing in the morning and take the average weight across the week. A current habit you already follow could be that the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning is go to the bathroom and clean your teeth. Therefore you could stack your new habit 'weigh daily' with your existing habit 'clean teeth'.
It could look something like this;
'In the morning after I wake up
I will weigh myself on the scales before I brush my teeth'.
I first became aware of this technique when reading the book 'Atomic Habit' by James Clear (if you have not already read this book I highly recommend it). James gives credit for this particular method to BJ Fogg who is the author of 'Tiny Habits'. Instead of calling it 'habit stacking', he calls the method 'anchoring'. Either way, the name of the method doesn't really matter, but the strategy itself can be very useful.
Conclusion
If you are currently finding your existing new habits hard to maintain or you are thinking about adding a new one, just give this method a try. As you begin to master your new habit you can even begin to stack another habit on top of this. Suddenly before you know it those first 10 minutes of the day have become very productive for you!
If you would like more information about this particular topic or have any other questions, please just drop me an email and I will be happy to help.
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