Habit stacking provides your new, desired habit with an obvious cue. Whether you have 2 or 10 things you want to accomplish in a day, it can be easy for them to slip your mind or to push them ‘till tomorrow.
Adding a new habit into your already-ingrained habit cycle makes it more likely that you’ll stick to the new habit. Basically, you’re taking advantage of the solid foundation you’ve already built for your other daily ritual.
Have you ever noticed that once you’re up and being productive, it’s easier to continue than to take a break and return to work afterwards? That’s the natural momentum that habit stacking takes advantage of.
How To Implement It
Here is how you can get started today:
1. Choose a new habit you want to implement (meditating).
2. Choose a well-established habit to stack it on to (exercising).
Formula: “After [exercising], I will [meditate].”
Since you’ve already ingrained exercise into your daily routine, remembering to meditate will come easy now that they go hand-in-hand, without increasing your cognitive load.
Once you’ve ingrained a new stack, you can start stacking a few or even several habits together to create the ultimate morning and nighttime routines.
As a note, it’s still important to ensure that your new habit is realistic. Just because you stack meditation onto your well-established workout routine, it doesn’t mean that you’ll magically start to meditate for 30 minutes. Start slow.
I want to hear your favourite stacks. Tell us here.
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