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 behavior on top - 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.
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The cue triggers a craving, which motivates a response, which provides a reward, which satisfies the craving and, ultimately, becomes associated with the cue.
Together, these four steps form a neurological feedback loop—cue, craving, response, reward; cue, craving, response, reward—that ultimately allows you to create automatic habits.
- Start with an incredibly small habit, one that is easy enough that you don't need motivation to do it
- Increase your habit in very small ways - start small and gradually improve
- As you build up, break habits into chunks
- When you slip, get back on track quickly.
Habit stacking means adding new habits onto existing ones - to the things you already automatically do every day.
After waking up in the morning, you might put on a cup of coffee. When you visit the bathroom, you wash your hands. And before you go to bed, you brush your teeth. Throughout the day, we have lots of such behaviours that we perform automatically, and we can take advantage of them to establish new habits.