This made my life so much better 🥹
There's a book that always caught my eye, and loads of people always talk about it. It wasn't until recently that I actually read it that I understood why it was so popular.
Before I had even gotten halfway through the book, I was already making small changes that significantly improved my life.
It helped me to shift my mindset and make tasks that I should do every day or at least regularly, into habits so that I do them and don't make excuses.
But there was one nugget in particular that was shared in the book that really made this thought of habits really stick, and it's what the author calls 'Habit Stacking'.
How this changed my mindset
The first way I implemented habit stacking was by changing my habits around getting fit. Instead of making it a habit to not go to the gym (continuously telling myself that I didn't have time), I made it a habit to go to the gym, by stacking that habit on top of an existing habit that I absolutely have to do every day, which is taking the little ones to school/nursery.
When I look at it like that, it's a no-brainer!
So for the past month, I've been going to the gym every morning Monday-Friday and it's now just become a habit. And stacking another habit on top of that was to read and respond to my emails or video comments whilst I was on the treadmill.
Overall, it made opening up my emails or comment notifications less overwhelming because I get so many of each every day. Instead, I gave myself a specific part of the day to do this, and it also made the boring time spent on the treadmill fly by!
I've also applied habit stacking to my content creation process:
As soon as I film my talking head in my studio, I offload the footage and then I edit the talking head straight away. (Eliminating procrastination)
When I get home from a shoot I offload my footage, whilst that's doing that, I unpack my gear and put all batteries to charge. (Eliminating the excuse to not film at a later date because my batteries are dead)
Little by little, day by day I'm adding more small habits and it's just having a really positive impact on my life.
So, if you've got something that you struggle to do consistently, or there's something that you want to start doing but you've been making every excuse to put it off, give habit stacking a go.
And, I highly recommend reading the book, Atomic Habits by James Clear. There are so many more nuggets of wisdom and tips in there that I'm sure you'll find as useful as I do.
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