Ep 95. Habit Stacking

I am Kym Showers, and this is Reinvented After 40, episode number 95: Habit Stacking.

Hey, friends. Welcome to Reinvented After 40, a podcast for all you women in the second half of life who are ready to take responsibility for your own well-being and create a life you love living.

I’m your host, Kym Showers, and after spending the first 40 years of my life people-pleasing and following all the rules, I was exhausted and ready for a change. I reinvented myself. I stopped outsourcing my happiness. And I’ve been brave enough to live a different kind of life.

I’ll be here each week to help you do the same thing. It’s going to be fun. Let’s go.

Hey, my friends, welcome back to the podcast and episode number 95, Habit Stacking. I picked this because I mentioned it yesterday to one of my groups and a client emailed me and said, “Hey, remind me of what habit stacking is.” And so I sent her back a quick email this morning telling her that definitely find it in Atomic Habits by James Clear, the book, Atomic Habits, which I’ve told you guys 100 times about. It is a life changing book. He sends out a life changing email every Thursday. You know I’m obsessed with habits.

And I am a believer and an example of how habits, our habits whether we call them good or bad or in between, we all have them, we all have habits, this is our life. Our life is a culmination of our habits, good or bad or in between. So when I mentioned habit stacking yesterday to my group, I was saying that I can’t even remember the context I was talking about it with. And I don’t even think I fully realized what an intentional habit stacker that I am.

So if you don’t have James Clear’s book, Atomic Habits, get it for sure, get the hardcopy. Have it handy. I would also listen to it on audio, which I have a million times to just keep reminding me and also I just hear a brand new nugget, my brain picks up a brand new nugget every time I read or listen. But chapter five he talks about creating new habits and how to make new habits easier. And this is what he is referring to as habit stacking.

You can also Google, habit stacking. And you can read all kinds of articles and definitions to give you ideas on the benefit, on exactly what it is. And also how useful it is to live a life where you stack your habits. And then I was thinking, the reason I mentioned it yesterday is because I was listening to a podcast this week, I don’t know if you guys have heard of Rich Roll, rich as in Richard, short for Richard or rich as in wealthy and roll as in doing the somersault, R-O-L-L. But he has a phenomenal podcast. I am obsessed with him. I love him.

So I’ve been kind of binging his podcast but he interviewed a real famous basketball player, his name’s Chris Paul. And I only have known about Chris Paul because of my husband and my son. So I just so enjoyed this interview with Chris Paul, but Chris Paul was talking about habit stacking. And that’s how he is so good at what he does. He’s just in the top, I don’t know, 1% of 1% of successful professional basketball players and his habits are phenomenal.

So he mentioned habit stacking and so it reminded me of habit stacking and how powerful it is and how useful it has been for me to line my habits up right so that one habit leads directly to the next habit. And this is all intentional. So I told you recently that I don’t have any bad habits and this is why, because of the way that I stack my habits one next to the other next to the other all day long. It’s just like a gateway, one habit is the gateway to the next good habit.

So for example, I tell you how important it is to go to bed early and at the same time every night and to get up early and at the same time every day. So that’s a stack, that’s a habit stack. So getting to bed early, so I power down in the late afternoon and evenings to set myself up to crawl into bed by eight o’clock. So depending on the time of year, the season, depending on when the sun is going down. So I’m staying up till eight o’clock now because it gets darker later. So I adjusted a little bit. So I stay up a little bit later.

But my goal every night is, I’m a little bit different on the weekends and that’s okay and that’s planned. But Sunday night through Thursday night I am in bed and most of the nights asleep by eight o’clock. So that’s a good habit and because of that habit I wake up early bright eyed and bushy tailed by four or five o’clock. I’m getting a good solid most nights, nine hours of sleep every night. So powering down in the late afternoons and early evenings before bed, I kind of just shut my brain down. So that’s a habit.

And that is stacked next to my going to bed early habit which is stacked next to my getting up early habit. And I actually listen when I’m going to bed, I don’t let my brain wander. I don’t let my brain just go on its own when I’m powering down. So I intentionally focus my brain and think thoughts on purpose and have important discussions and make important decisions from four o’clock, let’s say from four o’clock to four o’clock every day. Those are the 12 hours that my brain is online fired up intentionally. That’s a habit.

That is stacked next to at four o’clock powering down my brain and learning how to manage my brain and not let it run wild from four to four. That’s my quiet brain. I do not let it think from four to four at night. That’s why I get so much good sleep at night. So we’re just stacking one good habit to make the next good habit easy and then that good habit is stacked next to the next habit, that makes that habit easy. Now, all of these habits that I have right now are not new habits, but at one point they were new habits.

This is the whole point is when you are wanting to change, you are wanting to start doing something new like exercise every morning. That’s a new habit and you’ve committed to it. You’re going to make it so much easier to exercise every morning if let’s say you go to bed early and get a good night’s sleep. You’re going to stack that habit and then let’s say before you go to bed you lay out your exercise clothes so they’re super handy. So you’re going to stack that habit next to going to bed early.

And then when you wake up you’re going to go and put the clothes that you laid out for you, you’re going to put those on right away. You’re going to grab your keys that are handy, that you’ve already prepared for. And you’re going to get in the car and you’re going to drive to Orangetheory and you’re going to work out. And it’s not going to be a big deal because you have stacked the habits before it, that make it so easy for you to get up, get your clothes on, get your key, get in the car and get to Orangetheory.

You’re not going to overthink it, you’ve already made the decision. There’s no question that this is all going to happen. And habit stacking makes it happen, it makes it so much easier. So for me I just call it my routine, my intentional power routine every single day. I know what works for me. I know what my goals are. I’m setting myself up by stacking one good habit next to another good habit on top of another good habit. Everything is leading me to where I want to go.

And this day becomes my dream. This day actually is my goal because my habits are all stacked together intentionally. I think about it all ahead of time, I prepare for it all ahead of time just like I tell you the day before, I write down everything I’m going to do for the next day. That’s a habit that is stacked next to the next habit that sets it all up. So every day becomes pretty easy for me, you guys, because it’s just a beautiful day full of intentional actions and thoughts and feelings that I have prepared ahead of time so that I have the exact experience today that I want to have.

So my day never just happens to me, I affect my day because of this habit of habit stacking and because I’ve made it so easy for me to take action, to take the actions that are good for me, that have a backend good result. So every day I’m getting the results that I want to get because of this practice of habit stacking. This is so good, you guys, this is such powerful information for us women in the second half of life. I don’t know that anyone is telling us this specifically for us, for us women in our 40s, our 50s, our 60s. We get to feel however we want to feel all day long every day.

I intentionally have the best day ever every single day because of habit stacking, because I know how to manage my thoughts and my emotions. I know how to harness the feelings that I want to feel every day. I want to feel motivated, inspired, encouraged, productive. Those are my go to feelings and I harness them every morning. That’s a habit of mine of getting up early. That’s a habit of mine stacked next to coming upstairs and making my beautiful cappuccino. That’s stacked next to the habit of drinking my cappuccino and posting my Instagram post.

That’s a habit stacked next to responding to my emails. That’s a habit stacked next to going downstairs and putting on my workout clothes that are all clean and all ready to go. They have already all been decided ahead of time. That’s a habit stacked next to grabbing my keys, grabbing my water, hopping into my car and driving to Orangetheory. That’s a habit stacked next to coming home, taking my shower, taking my bath, putting on a cute outfit and coming upstairs and making my green juice and getting my raw nuts.

That’s a habit stacked next to whatever work, whatever agenda I have already planned for the day. There is nothing on my day that I don’t know what I’m going to do. I always have a plan, an intentional plan. So intentionality is part of my habits, of my stacking of my habits that create everything that I want to create for my day. There is never a day where I say I didn’t do what I wanted to do today because I make it so easy to do what I planned to do today. I don’t make it hard on myself. I set myself up for everything on my list to be easy for me.

While I’m emptying my dishwasher before I have my green juice, I’m putting together my Omega juice presser, all the parts that have been run through the dishwasher the night before. So that’s part of my habit stacking. I empty my dishwasher, I put together my Omega juicer, I go to my lemon tree, I pick my two lemons, I grab my kale, my carrots, my celery out of my garage fridge, coming back in. I start chopping it up, I put it through the juicer. It’s all so easy for me.

I go to trader Joe’s at least two to three times every single week. So I always have plenty of what I need to make my green juice. Now, that is all called habit stacking. So that’s how it works, it is remarkable. If we let our brain run the show and talk us out of things that we really want then we are not going to get what we want. But if we intentionally write down every day what we want, we’re super clear about it and then we take action on setting up exactly what it is we need to be successful. That’s how we habit stack.

That’s how we get exactly what we want every day, getting the results that we want, having the feelings that we want, of productivity, of being excited about our life, being proud of ourselves, being empowered by the actions that we’re taking, being very confident that we’re headed in a direction of our dreams and it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing or what anyone else is thinking about us. That is irrelevant to us. We know why we’re doing what we’re doing. We like why we’re doing what we’re doing.

We have all the evidence to prove it true that it works and then we just keep generating all of these habits and just keep stacking them one on top of the other until we have this beautiful, amazing life that we love getting up every single morning to live, we’re never in doubt and confusion about it. We know what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. This is the power of habit stacking.

So get the book, Atomic Habits, for sure if you haven’t already or if you have it, open it up to chapter five. Remind yourself maybe or for the first time read about habit stacking, the way he is presenting it. And be inspired by that, and then give yourself, give your days, give yourself a good look at to see how you are stacking your habits. Are you stacking up a bunch of un-useful habits that you don’t like the results of? And if so, you can change those and set it up to where your good habits become so easy to take action on.

That’s the beauty of habit stacking, that is so useful and I promise you from my own life, I have the most gorgeous life because this is what I do. This is so possible for you my friend. Alright, that’s what I have for you today. I love you so much. Practice stacking up some good habits. Make your life easier but make it more fun and beautiful and productive and satisfying by stacking all your good habits together.

And if you haven’t already, go to my website and join my August 1st group. Do not miss this my friend. You want to be in this room with these amazing women. You will not only change your habits, you will change everything about the trajectory of your life, your future self will thank you for it. We’re going to have so much fun and if you join this week you will get so many extra bonuses. So you want to take advantage of it right now. Don’t wait till the last minute, join this week and I will contact you immediately and we’ll get to work on your life and in your life.

You will love coaching so much and you’ll especially love this group. This is going to be a very special six months and a very special group of women. Alright, okay, I will talk to you next Thursday, I cannot wait.

Thanks for listening to Reinvented After 40. If you want more information or resources from the podcast, please visit KymShowersLifeCoach.com.