How to start a habit... & STICK TO IT!

Make it easy to create positive habits that will actually last

- Amy Hodley

James Clear is a bestselling author, speaker and expert on habits and decision-making. Here, he shares how to rely less on your willpower and more on your everyday behaviour – no more sticky notes or alarms required!

WHAT TO DO

When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behaviour to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behaviour on top. This is called habit stacking.

Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit. This method, which was created by BJ Fogg as part of his Tiny Habits program, can be used to design an obvious cue for nearly any habit. (He refers to this strategy as the “Tiny Habits recipe” but I’ll call it the habit stacking formula.)