When my reflexology clients first visit my treatment room in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, they often share they would like to make a number of well-being changes, but feel overwhelmed and don’t know how to begin implementing them.
If you can connect with this and you too would love to implement some new well-being habits into your daily routine, then habit stacking could be for you.
What is Habit Stacking?
Habit stacking is a useful technique popularised by author James Clear in his book Atomic Habits.
It involves adding a small, new habit to a current daily routine, that you already do. Doing this will help you to be consistent and stick with it.
You can use habit stacking to achieve both professional and personal goals, and it is the perfect tool for introducing new well-being habits.
How Does Habit Stacking Work?
When looking to add a new well-being habit to your daily routine you can follow the below pattern.
Method – Carry out you current, daily habit, and follow it with your new well-being habit.
For example, if you want to begin meditating each day to help release stress, you could add this to your current daily habit of enjoying a cup of tea after work.
Your new routine would therefore be, enjoy a cup of tea after work followed by a ten-minute guided meditation using an app.
Doing this will help you to feel less overwhelmed and you will soon be able to add more well-being changes.
What Are the Benefits of Habit Stacking?
(1) It Feels More Natural
By attaching a new well-being habit to a current daily routine, it will feel like less mental effort is required and more like a natural extension to your routine. It will certainly help you to feel less overwhelmed.
(2) Increased Consistency
As you add a new well-being habit to an existing daily routine, it will help you to be more consistent and you will be more likely to stick with it and achieve your goals.
(3) You Will Experience More Wins
Each day that you complete your habit stack, you will experience the positive feelings of a small win. This will encourage you to continue with the positive changes you would like to make and even add more.
Top Tips to Begin Habit Stacking
When working with my reflexology clients, I always recommend they follow the below steps to help them achieve their goals.
(1) Start Small
Try just adding one new well-being habit to a current daily habit and don’t try to do too many things at once. You can then add more as you build confidence. Starting small will also help you to avoid feelings of overwhelm.
(2) Be Specific
When setting your new well-being habit, be specific about what you would like to achieve, so it is clear. This will help you to action the activity.
For example, instead of saying, ‘after work, I will exercise’, you could say, ‘after work I will exercise for fifteen minutes and I will complete an online yoga class’.
Clearly identifying what action you are going to take, will help you to add this habit and well-being change to your day.
(3) Track Your Progress and Celebrate
As you complete your new well-being habit each day, make a note in your diary, a well-being journal, or on your phone, so that you can monitor and celebrate your progress. You could even use a habit tracker app and many of these are available on the App Store.
Recording and monitoring your progress will help you to see your success, which will act as a great motivator to continue and to add more well-being habits.
You can then reflect and celebrate your successes!
Habit stacking is a useful tool that can be used to help you achieve your well-being goals and build lasting habits. I have used it personally and it has helped me to implement a number of small changes that have helped me to reduce my stress, improve my sleep and more.
What new well-being habits would you like to implement?
Article Photograph Credit: Annie Sprat via Unsplash.
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