The Power of Habit Change: Small Steps, Big Impact
Have you thought about your goal and perhaps given it more thought to if it is reasonable and achievable by planning, preparing, and prioritizing? Good! Let’s start with good habits in your life to start supporting those goals.
Now it’s time to add to that and start to build a good foundation and base by working on habit change, tips, tricks, and tools. Last, add habit stacking to start creating routines that serve you and your goals.
Incorporating Atomic Habits: Insights from James Clear
We underestimate the power of small daily changes. Have you ever heard the expression “How do you eat an elephant?
Habits can create space and time in your day because they are pre-made decisions that allow your willpower to be used elsewhere and reduce decision-making fatigue. Our brains like habits and creating pathways in our brain… good or bad. Changing them is hard because they become ingrained.
When I found the book Atomic Habits by James Clear, it took a lot of the anxiety out of habit change and replaced it with systematic logic.
He said our deepest thoughts about ourselves affect our habits and that self-image needs to change to be successful. If you don’t perceive yourself as fit and strong then you won’t be. If you want to be fit, see yourself through a “fit person” lens. Behaviors are a reflection of our identity.
You have to become the person you want to be before you are that person and make habits change. We tell ourselves stories like I can’t exercise early in the morning because “I’m just not a morning person.” We tell ourselves stories like this to the point that we believe them. What stories do you tell yourself, and are they getting in the way of you being successful and reaching your goals?
Right now you have proof of the way you can be, only because you have repeated a behavior enough times it has become a good or a bad habit. The more times you repeat a behavior the more you identify with it and it becomes you.
Discovering Habit Stacking: The Key to Effortless Routines
To start habit stacking you simply piggyback a habit onto another one that has a very definite cue that is easy, actionable, and consistent. For example:
In the morning after I brush my teeth, I’ll drink a glass of water.
Before every meal, I’ll drink a glass of water.
With every meal, I will eat a fruit and a vegetable.
When I get home and set my work stuff down, I’ll put on my workout clothes, to go work out.
When I have finished my meal, I will enter my calories on my tracker.
After I clean my dinner plate, I will pack my lunch for the morning.
Every Sunday after I change out of my church clothes I will plan out my meals for the week and grocery list.
Stack one every week and when it starts to become automatic, add another. Remember to have them align with your life.
Stacking habits onto things you do consistently.
It needs to serve you and your lifestyle.
Make it simple and definite.
Start change at the beginning of the week month, or a new year because those habits and cues are different.
Become the person you want to be before you are ever that person.
Change is hard and the more that you can set yourself up for success by automating habits, the easier you can make change!
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