Habit stacking – revisit and review

What habits and intentions have you set for this autumn season? And have you tried habit stacking?

Over these past few weeks, I have been musing here about how season changes can prompt a useful reset of intentions and a chance to create new habits that will serve us in the coming months. What worked in the previous season may not be as useful or practical in this new season – days are shorter, it is colder, there is less light apart from anything else.

In Spring and early summer of this year, I had a wonderful habit of going for a brisk early morning walk along the river path local to our house, accompanied by a thermos mug of tea. But in the dark and often dreich autumn mornings, this has lost it’s appeal completely so my morning routine has changed. 

New habits are required. 

Once we have established how this season has changed our needs and priorities, we create habits that work for ourselves. 

But the thing about habits is that there is the potential after a while for them to no longer be as effective. Our interest wanes, or the impact plateaus. 

As with many elements and aspects of life, a regular stock take is required to ensure that what we are doing is serving as well. 

It is a useful exercise to stop, reassess and repurpose the habits that we create so that we continue to move forward. 

I have been reading James Clear’s book Atomic Habits this season. 

It is a sensible book in many ways, and whilst not containing anything particularly revolutionary, serves as a useful framework for creating and sticking to habits.

I like his idea of habit stacking.

It is hard to ascertain whether it was indeed James Clear himself who first coined this term. If you look up Habit Stacking on a search engine, you get about a gazillion results. 

Habit stacking is about using an existing habit to build on as you create a new one.

We choose to do the new thing we want in response to the trigger of an existing habit – rather than a set time of day which is too hard to stick to as there are too many variables. This article desribes it well. 

When I worked as a physiotherapist (physical therapist) I would encourage patients to do their exercises whenever they brushed their teeth (if that was appropriate). It might have required a post it note stuck to the bathroom mirror to remind them the first few times, but brushing teeth is something we do every day, so adding a habit onto that makes sense. 

As physios, we also talk about muscle memory. When you do something so regularly and routinely, that your body knows the movements and actions without much conscious thought or awareness by your brain. Automatic neural pathways have been set up that your brain simply defaults to without conscious thought.

Think about making a cup of tea – you are probably not even conscious half the time of the actions you take to make that tea, your body simply knows what to do and follows that movement sequence automatically. We utilise those established neural pathways to our advantage by adding on a new habit that quickly becomes assimilated into the original one. 

But what happens when your habits become so automatic that they are no longer effective?

That is where review and reflection are important. This is such a key element of coaching – I talk here a lot about awareness, and it is the most important part of the coaching process. We learn to become aware of what we are doing, and why, and the extent to which it is still serving us. 

This is what James Clear has to say on the subject:

Improvement is not just about learning habits, it’s also about fine tuning them. Reflection and review ensures that you spend your time on the right things and make course corrections whenever necessary….You don’t want to keep practicing a habit if it becomes ineffective.” (italics mine)

So as this autumn season continues, I encourage you to stop at the beginning of a new week for a few minutes. Notice what habits you are using, and how well they are working for you. 

What tweaks can you make to improve effectiveness? 

Are there intentions that became habits that, whilst being good intentions, actually are not working in practice?

Where might you need to recommit to habits that you created a few weeks back that have slipped?

If this is something that you would like help with, get in touch for a free taster session. I would love to chat with you about the life you are living currently, the life that you want to be living, and how to create steps to bridge the gap between the two. That might indeed mean new habits and intentions to allow you to live well. 

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