How to Make Habits Work for You

Hey, my name is Teresa Hildebrand and this is Organized Chaos. We take a deep dive into living with intentionality, focusing on what's important in our lives so we can truly feel our best. It may feel chaotic at times, but with a little organization, the right mindset and a ton of self-love, we can still thrive. Join me as we talk to other busy moms and experts who will share tips and strategies to help you reach your goals. Hope you enjoy this episode of Organized Chaos. Now on to the show. So let me ask you a question have you ever wished for some type of magic formula to boost your productivity and make your days more efficient? Well, in today's episode, we're going to dive into this idea called habit stacking and you're going to learn how small changes in your routine can lead to big wins in your personal and professional life. This is actually one of the areas I used to struggle with a lot in different areas of my life, whether it was health, whether it was motherhood or in my marriage. And, let's face it, it's hard to create habits, stick with them or even kick bad habits. So I want to talk about this today, because there is a lot of different strategies that you can use to create better habits, but this particular one is something that you can combine different habits and really kind of hack your brain so that you can create those habits, add on to those and then be consistent with them, because that's essentially what we want to do, right? We want to not only just have better habits for a certain period of time, we want to stick with them long term. So, like I said, this is an area that I was struggling with a lot, and the whole idea of a habit stacking, or the strategy of habit stacking, was something that I actually did before. I even knew what it meant and I learned about this more and kind of like the science behind it from the book Atomic Habits. So the idea behind it and why it works so well is, when you've already implemented a habit, coupling it with a new behavior is the easiest way to kind of continue and be consistent with those habits. So one habit automatically leads to another, which is called habit stacking. So your brain is like rewired when you start a new habit, because the way habits work is it's automation. So this is happening in your subconscious mind. You don't even have to think about it. I mean, think of tying your shoes or brushing your teeth or doing anything that you really don't have to think about doing walking, driving sometimes and those are habits that are automatic. Now. They don't take up a lot of brain space because they're kind of like in the part of your brain that is tucked away for automation so that you don't have to think about it, because can you imagine if you had to think about every single thing that you did? It would be way too overwhelming. So what happens is some of the habits that you adopt, those get built into your brain, so to speak, and then you start adding on to those particular habits which make it easier to implement the new habits. So you're really just linking a new habit onto an already strengthened link in your brain. So as you start linking more and more habits, that chain becomes stronger. So that's why the concept of adding small habits or small changes can lead to really big results or really lasting change. So the first step in creating habit stacking or a strategy of habit stacking is to identify some of the core habits that you already have, or maybe you want to start implementing them. So let's say, for example, you want to start writing in your journal daily. Now you're having a hard time trying to do this. You either forget or it just seems like a daunting task. So what you end up doing is you start to find a habit, a core habit that you already have that would make sense to link the new habit of writing your journal. So maybe you think about putting your journal on your nightstand because you think, well, when I wake up I'll see it, or when I go to bed I'll see it and I'll be able to write it in my journal. But let's say that this isn't working. So you try to find another core habit, because the original habit was going to sleep right or going to bed or waking up from bed. That was one of the core habits. However, this isn't working for you, so you try to find another core habit. Let's say you have a habit of making some coffee for yourself every single morning. You love your coffee, so you know that that is a habit. That is going to happen. So what you can do is actually put your journal next to your coffee maker. So now you're linking one habit to another. You know that if you go and make yourself some coffee, you're going to see your journal, so it's going to be a reminder to write in your journal, and it also makes it convenient. This is another thing about stacking habits is that you take advantage of the convenience of having one habit, either physically next to another or just one after the other. So let me give you another example that is more related to, maybe, a professional goal you have. Maybe you've run a business and you want to be able to work on your task for the day and you're having a hard time really focusing and just putting in the work every single day. So one thing you might be able to do is you have a habit of opening up your laptop or going on your computer every morning. Maybe you go in there to read emails or check social media, so the habit is going on to your computer. Now the habit you could stack onto that to make sure that, because your goal is to go through your to-do list or go through your task list for your work, you create a tracker or a list of priorities for your business. So now when you open up your computer, you'll have a list of things to do and you're less likely to get distracted. Another thing you could do if we're, you know, talking about computers, is the idea of having only the tabs that you need open open. I'm guilty of having a million tabs open. I mean, it's very similar to how it feels in my brain. It feels like I have a million tabs open in my brain. But the thing with having a lot of tabs open on your computer is that they're distracting. They don't help you focus. So keeping with the same habit of opening up your computer is you set it up so that you only have the tabs that you need open and then, if you are going to get distracted, you have to physically go and open up another tab, and that'll bring it more to your conscious mind. You'll realize that I have a habit of opening up another tab, so now you can make a conscious decision to not do that. So it's really important to understand that the whole idea of habit stacking is based off of the order and arrangement of the habits. That's what's going to make this most efficient. So one of the things that I learned from atomic habits is this idea of after, before I will. So what he talks about is this is kind of like your announcement or your intention of this new habit that you want to adopt. So what you're gonna write down is either after or before, and then your current habit, followed by I will with the new habit. So, for example, let's go back to the coffee maker thing. So let's say I want to start writing in my journal and I'm gonna put it right next to my coffee maker. So what I can say is, after I turn on the coffee maker because that's the habit, the current habit I will write in my journal. Really simple. So now what you'll be able to do is, while you're waiting for your coffee maker to heat up, you're gonna write in your journal and that'll give you some time to do that and it'll be a much easier way to actually adopt that habit. So you're linking one current habit with a new habit in your brain. Now what I really encourage you to do is to really start small and you wanna gradually add on more habits to this stack, because if not, you're gonna run into some challenges. Now, this is just a strategy, but you're still trying to implement new habits. So that's always hard and again, this strategy works because you're taking advantage of the wiring that's already strengthened in your brain, but it's still hard. You're still adding on new habits, but you're just trying to make it easier for yourself. My best advice to kind of avoid setbacks is really to start small. Don't add on one huge habit onto another the smaller it is, the better it will be and be open to switching it up a bit. If you find that you're trying to stack on a habit and it's just not working, then do something different. Kind of like the example that I gave before is if you were trying to set your journal on your nightstand and that just wasn't working, well, then you try something else. This is all an experiment. Okay, so I wanna leave you with a little assignment and, don't worry, you don't have to report back to me. So just pick a current habit, one that you are just killing it at, and see if you can add on a smaller habit to it. See if you could do some habit stacking, and it could be in any area of your life. All right, well, that's all I have for you today. I hope you have an amazing rest of your day and I will see you next week. R Production.