Habit Stacking: 127 Small Actions That Take Five Minutes or Less

by S.J. Scott

2. Be Specific: Take time to clearly describe why you’re grateful for a person, event, or item. Saying, “I am grateful for my wife” doesn’t do the trick. You need to come up with a new example from the last couple of days, such as, “I am grateful for my wife, who got up last night to take care of the baby and let me sleep.” Th...

3. Share your thoughts: Being grateful to yourself is only half of the job. If you really want to maximize this habit, then express this gratitude to the people who made it happen, like your spouse, boss, friend, coworker, or family member. Saying to your wife, “I appreciate you taking care of the baby last ...

4. Find the good in the bad: Not everything in life will be puppies and rainbows, which is why gratitude is important. Instead of looking for the negative in a situation, you can use this habit to look for...

Practice Deep Breathing

Simply follow this nine-step process to get started: Schedule uninterrupted time where you ignore your cell phone or other types of technology. Pick a specific time each day (or a specific stack) where you’ll practice deep breathing. Set an alarm for a specific time (like three to five minutes).

Sit on a pillow on the floor, in a comfortable chair, or on your couch. Find a comfortable position with your feet on the floor, straighten your back, and rest your hands at your sides. Inhale slowly through your nose until your lungs are filled to capacity. After inhaling as much as possible, hold your breath for a full two seconds.

Slowly exhale, in a steady and even manner. If you desire, envision exhaling all your negative emotions. Take a two-second pause. Return to step 5 to repeat this cycle u...

Practice Progressive Relaxation

With progressive relaxation, your: Heart rate slows Breathing becomes deeper Blood pressure stabilizes Muscles relax Circulation improves

Whenever you feel stressed and need a quick way to relax, try this six-step process:

Get comfortable by loosening your clothing. Take a minute to take some slow, deep breaths. Turn your attention to your left f...

Slowly tense the muscles in your left foot as tightly as you can and hold this for ten seconds before relaxing the foot. Pay close attention to the release of tension and how your fo...

When you’re ready, do this same sequence of tension and relaxation for each area of muscle throughout the body, but don’...

Description: To help you develop more self-confidence in whatever area of your life it is lacking, follow these five steps to visualize your goal:

Set the mood. Find a positive and relaxing area. This may involve going for a quiet walk in a peaceful setting or soaking in your bath—whatever you find to be calming. Once you are relaxed, get comfortable and make sure you are away from any possible disturbances. The longer you can do creative visualization, the better. Try to enter a meditative state before you start by clearing your mind and taking some slow, deep breaths.

Visualize your goal. Once you feel calm, create an image of what you want, with as much detail as you would like to include. For example, if you are waiting for an acceptance letter to graduate school, imagine yourself opening that letter at home and visualize the reactions of the people arou...

Keep those positive feelings. You are more likely to achieve your goals if you let your visualization experiences influence the other parts of your day. Continue to hold onto the positive feelings of happiness, pride, confidence...

Make this a habit. Take the time to incorporate creative visualization into your daily routine. Many find it helpful to schedule a specific time to stop what they are doin...

Continue to work hard. Keep that visualization as a constant motivator to continue going after what you want. The more you get yourself used to this type of positi...

Napoleon Hill once wrote, “Whatever the mind can conceive and beli...

Make sure you like what you wear. If necessary, spend a little bit more to purchase truly high-end clothing that you know you’ll continue to wear. This is far preferable to cheaper clothing you’re less fond of, which is more likely to get worn out quickly.

Purchase clothes that fit. Even if a suit is your color, it’s not going to look any good if it’s too tight or too loose on you. If necessary, visit a tailor so he or she can make the proper alterations.

Iron your clothes. A nice shirt or pants doesn’t look nearly as nice if it’s smothered with wrinkles. Take time to iron your clothes in the morning. You should also bring your...

I feel like I don’t want to run about 50% of the time. Yet, I force myself to get started by doing a little bit of “creative lying.” Whenever I feel a lack of motivation, I tell myself to “just run a mile or two, then see how you feel.”

When people try to change, they usually try to get amped up for the change, but no matter how badly you want the change, you haven’t changed yet! As motivation wanes, so does progress. You don’t need more motivation, you need a strategy that can leverage the abilities of the current you into a better you.

the simplest, most effective way to create a lasting change is to create a goal that might seem too easy to complete but is also so easy that you can do it on a consistent basis.

Daily exercise in small amounts is far more powerful than single, intense workout sessions. The former can become habit and destroy your resistance over time, while the latter makes you really sore for a few days and that’s about it. When my resistance to exercise had been whittled down, I began my current streak of going to the gym 3–6x a week. I haven’t looked back.

There are five reasons why the mini habits concept can help you stick with a habit stacking routine:

Your success will lead to more success. It’s easy to get discouraged when you fail repeatedly. On the other hand, a mini habit will create a sense of excitement because you’re achieving an important daily goal. Trust me—when you have a thirty-day streak...

You will avoid the guilt trip. It’s fun to have a streak of consecutive days where you work at something new. This is the exact opposite of what happens when you miss a day or two. There is nothing to be gained by setting an overly ambitious goal. All this does is c...

You increase the desire to build the habit. It’s easy to procrastinate when you know that every day you “must” spend hours on a task. In fact, you’ll quickly learn to dread this activity. But by setting an achievable goal, you push past that ...

You’ll do more than planned. A strange thing happens once you overcome your initial inertia and get started. What usually happens is you convince yourself to keep going and do way more than you’d planned. You’re using the power of self-deception to trick yourself into getting started. This creates ...

You’ll form a habit. Consistency is more important for building habits than hitting a specific metric. At first, an external cue will trigger your routine, like an alarm on your phone. But eventually, you’ll simply remember to work at your skill at a specific time each d...

For instance, you create a mini habit goal like: Completing just the first small action Telling yourself that you’ll only do half the habits Reducing the time for the longer habits Skipping the habits that you truly dread Telling yourself you’ll quit when you get bored

There are numerous strategies you can use to prevent distractions from derailing your habit stacking efforts. Here are seven ideas:

Wake up before anyone else and complete the routine first thing in the morning. Most people won’t be up, so this virtually eliminates all potential people distractions.

Understand your bad triggers, which cause you to procrastinate or make you feel unmotivated. Keeping track of your negative habits will help you identify those moments of wea...

Create an “if-then plan” related to your biggest distractions. For instance, if you know your husband often interrupts your routine, then create a strategy o...

Complete the routine in a part of your home that family members don’t typically u...

Avoid all forms of technology in the 15 minutes before the routine (i.e., cell phone, laptop, and TV), because this will remove the temptatio...

Make a promise that you’ll “treat yourself” to a reward right after ...

Schedule this habit into your day like an appointment. Let friends, family, and coworkers know that this is a sacred time that shouldn’t b...