Habit Stacking: 7 Tips to Help You Build Sustainable Habits

With the New Year upon us, it’s that time where many of us are declaring New Years Resolutions, setting new goals, and working to improve our behaviors and habits.  If you’re like me, you’ve attempted at least a few times throughout your life to build a new habit only to throw up your hands up, give in to defeat, and throw all hope out the window along with any real change.   

There was the time I told myself I would read one new book every other week for a year.  Yeah, that didn’t happen.  

Then, there was the time I was going to get up 30 minutes early every day to stretch but somehow the snooze button kept getting in the way. 

And then, there was the time I was going to join the gym and get there five days a week to workout for at least one hour.  EPIC FAIL.

Apparently, I’m not alone.  According to Inc.com, 80% of people that make a New Years Resolution quit by mid February with January 19th deemed “Quitters Day” thanks to a Strava study that looked at over 800 million user logged activities.  If we look to James Clear, it is reported that between 81% - 91% of New Years Resolutions fail for a variety of reasons. 

As I reflect back on the aforementioned goals I had in mind, I realize that I was looking for a result, a fix, and not in fact a better and sustainable routine.  None of the goals I called out actually fit into my existing routine or aligned in any way with my schedule.  I didn’t break any of them down into bite-sized, achievable action items so they all felt overwhelming from the start.  I had no plan for accountability. Ultimately, I was setting myself up to fail, not to succeed.    

So what if forming a new habit didn’t have to be so tricky?  What if you found a way to do it that worked for you instead of against you?  What if you found a way to make it easier to succeed and make for real, sustainable, positive progress in your life? 

Enter habit stacking.

The term “habit stacking” was originally coined in 2014 by bestselling author S.J. Scott in his book Habit Stacking: 97 Small Life Changes That Take Five Minutes or Less, where he proposes that you "build routines around habits that don't require effort" because "small wins build momentum because they're easy to remember and complete." 

In 2018, James Clear launched Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones, and once again habit stacking was brought to the forefront in a major way.  If you’re looking for one of the best books ever to learn about habit stacking and to help you improve your habits and get 1% better every day, hands down THIS. IS. IT.  

In my own words, habit stacking equates to adding a new habit to your existing routine by stacking it on top of an existing habit.  

Here is an example. 

Several months ago, one of my Coaching clients and I were chatting about implementing new habits into his morning routine.  He shared that he really wanted to drink a full glass of water at the beginning of his day, but was having trouble making it happen.  When I asked him to share with me more about his existing bedtime and morning routines, I learned that every night before bed he would go into the kitchen and turn off a light.  Each morning, he would go back into the kitchen to make his coffee as he started the day.  Based on this information, I made one simple suggestion - that every night when he went into the kitchen to turn off the light, he fill up a glass with water and set it right next to the coffee maker.  This way, every morning when he went back into the kitchen he would see the glass of water as a cue.  While waiting for his coffee to brew, he could drink the glass of water and voila, mission accomplished, full glass of water down the hatch first thing in the morning. 

I checked in with him as I was writing this piece and confirmed that he is still in fact, several months later, drinking his water every morning.

So, if there is a new habit that you want to build in your life ask yourself, “What am I already doing every day that I could “stack” this on to?”

Recently, I was inspired by Consequence of Habit to ask myself this very question. 

Consequence of Habit is a non-profit founded by Joshua Frank, better known as “JT”.  The mission is to empower individuals and communities by bringing awareness to the impact habits have on their mental health, success and the environment. 

In October of 2022, the organization started offering monthly challenges.  The goal of these challenges was to help individuals consistently practice specific activities and behaviors in an effort to build new, positive, sustainable habits.  I personally took part in their journaling challenge and their breath work and meditation challenge and really loved the accountability, consistency, community, and the positive outcomes.  These challenges got me thinking about my own challenge to promote a new habit of my choice. 

You see, my kids and I were at the playground a few months ago and I found that my upper body strength, well, it just wasn’t what it used to be.  So, I made a promise to myself and to my kiddos that by the spring, I would be strong enough to swing across the monkey bars with them.  In an effort to build my strength, I needed to form a new habit.  I decided that habit would be push-ups and I would kick things off with a challenge to myself.

The challenge was this – week one: 25 push-ups a day, week two: 50 push-ups a day, week 3: 75 push-ups a day, and week 4: 100 push-ups a day.  I gave myself one day off of my choice each week.  And most importantly, I asked myself, “What am I already doing that I can stack these push-ups on to?” 

The answer was simple. 

Moving my body is part of my existing morning ritual.  So it made complete sense to me to stack my push-ups on top of my morning workout.

End result?

A lot of work, sweat, thankfully no tears, and 1,500 push-ups completed in the month of December. 

I completed the challenge I set for myself, but most importantly, I began building a new habit of doing push-ups each morning.  I gained momentum around this new behavior.  I did it at a time of day that worked for me.  I broke the daily push-ups into smaller sets so that each day, achieving my goal felt more attainable.  This time around, I made sure to set myself up to succeed instead of fail and succeed I did. 

I should share that I won’t be continually increasing the number of push-ups per day because I want to sustain this habit.  I’m not quite ready for those monkey bars yet (yet being the key word here), but I am well on my way.  Most importantly, push-ups have become a solid part of my morning ritual, a new habit in the making.    

Feeling ready to form your own new habit? 

Here are 7 tips to set you up for success.

1.     Commit to a habit that you truly want to build.  Something that will truly have a positive effect in your life.  If just the thought of this new habit is stressing you out, drop it like it’s hot and find something to get excited about!

2.     Stack those habits.  What are you already doing that you can stack your new habit on to? 

3.     Make it work for you, not against you.  Identify the best place in your day to add in your new habit and then, break it down in to bite-sized achievable action steps if needed.

4.     Consistency is key.  As James Clear says in Atomic Habits, “never miss twice”.  If life happens and you miss a day along the way, don’t beat yourself up.  Just get back at it the next day and keep moving forward. 

5.     Patience is equally as important.  This is not a race.  This is about building a sustainable habit that positively impacts your life.  Go slow and do things that you can sustain. 

6.     Find an accountability partner or a challenge.  There is strength in numbers and having an added layer of support is never a bad thing in the early days, especially when you are working to change behaviors and build a new habit.

7.     Focus on progress, not perfection.  Progress is real. Perfection is bullshit.

See you on the monkey bars!