If you’re ready to make real, lasting changes in your life, it’s not about what you do every once in a while. It’s about how you show up to each day, every day. No flashy trends, no life hacks. Just simple, steady shifts to your lifestyle that actually make a difference.
About 43% of your actions each day are completely habitual–meaning most of us go through almost half our day on autopilot. This saves us precious bandwidth, keeps us safe. In some ways, it’s kind of a superpower; in others, a massive liability.
Expensive, yet efficient
Our brains are extravagant spenders, using 20% of your body’s daily energy, even though it only accounts for 2% of your body’s total weight. To free up mental energy for bigger and more important things, it likes to automate the tasks we tend to repeat.
When we automate certain positive behaviors, like going to the gym at a certain time every day or brushing your teeth before bed, these habits take us where we want to go without us having to consciously make decisions. They help us stay consistent and build momentum, without costing us any extra mental energy.
Unfortunately, other habits may be the reason you feel like you’re not going anywhere, or worse, taking you in the opposite direction of where you want to go–and unless you can unlearn them, they will continue to serve as roadblocks to change, keeping you from setting the behaviors you do want in place.
Fortunately, our brains are highly plastic.
This means it maintains the ability to adapt and change across your lifetime. Your brain molds to consistent pressure, and when you understand this, you understand that making changes equates to applying the right pressure.
Think of it like treading a path in a meadow. The first time you walk through it, you spend a lot of energy beating down the grass. But if you continue to walk that path, over time, the grass dies and there will be a dirt trail in its place that’s as easy to walk down as a sidewalk.
Riding the Habit Loop
Habits form in a three step process, called a habit loop.
- The cue. The trigger. The thing that tells your brain it’s time to do this other thing. This could be a current routine or a time of day. It’s morning and you’ve just made your coffee.
- The behavior that follows the cue. This is sitting down in front of the T.V. to watch the morning news.
- The reward! This part is key: it’s when your brain releases dopamine in response to the action, rewarding and reinforcing the behavior.
And this is where bad habits can be so challenging to break–because when you break an old habit, you’re not just removing a behavior; you also have this well-worn pathway that triggers the behavior. You’re not just starting from scratch; you’re trying to grow grass on a dead patch of dirt.
The key is not to fight the existing system, but to leverage it.
We’ve discussed how our brains thrives on patterns and automatically fires established neural pathways for routines like brushing teeth. Habit stacking is a tool used to attach a new behavior to a well-worn path, making it easier and faster to adopt than building a new, weak neural pathway from scratch.
By triggering a new action with an existing, consistent behavior, you remove the need for willpower and planning, reducing decision fatigue. The trigger for the new behavior is built into your daily routine.
Through synaptic pruning and potentiation (there’s a five dollar word!) the brain strengthens neural connections (long-term potentiation) through repetition, which is key to making the new “stacked” habit automatic.
How to Implement It
- Identify Current Habits: Choose habits you perform automatically every day (brewing coffee, brushing teeth, driving home).
- Choose 1, I repeat 1, new action: Make it small, specific, and actionable. (e.g., “do 5 pushups,” not “get fit”). Pour all of your effort into that single habit for several weeks rather than try to create several new habits at once, until it becomes second nature.
- Create the Formula: “After I [Current Habit], I will [New Habit]”. For example:”After I brew my morning coffee, I will do five pushups”.
- Leverage Momentum: Once a new habit is established, stack another on top of it, creating a “chain” or “lasagna” of habits. “After I brew my morning coffee, I will do 5 pushups and go for a 10-minute walk.”
Why It Works
The technique, popularized by James Clear, turns the brain’s natural tendency for efficiency into a tool for self-improvement. Habit stacking lowers the barrier to entry for new behaviors.
By reducing the mental effort required to start a new action, the behavior becomes easier and eventually automatic. It will no longer be something you do; it will become who you are.
So what habit will you stack today?