We all know how difficult it is to stick with New Year Resolutions. Psychologists have been writing about this for a long time. Now they are finding that when we stack an intention with already ingrained habits we are more likely to develop the habit of doing it.
It’s called habit stacking. Author James Clear in his book, “Atomic Habits” has a chapter on “The Best Way To Start A Habit”. In this chapter, he sites a good example of how to start a new habit of meditating daily. He says we need to insert the new desired habit next to something we are already doing. If we want to start a daily meditation practice, the best way to do this is insert the meditation habit between 2 things we already are in the habit of doing.
If we are a morning coffee drinker, we start simply by deciding to meditate for 1 to 2 minutes in the morning after we pour a cup of coffee but before we settle into our rountine after we pour the coffee. Nothing much changes in our morning routine except a couple minutes of meditation. He calls this “habit stacking” and presents a compeling reason why we are more likely to succeed with our new habit by stacking it with our already present habits.
Habit stacking works because the new habit gets linked to already present habits and the “linkage” gets ingrained in our routines.
To read more about habit stacking and many other habits that can improve your chances of success you might check out the book “Atomic Habits” by James Clear. Its available in audio, digital and hard copy at Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com.
