Habit Stacking

I was enjoying a little “girl time” this weekend with some friends while camping.  We left the guys to entertain the small posse of children while we took the dog and did a little hike.  No one whined!  It was amazing!  

On the ride to the coffee shop afterwards (cause … no kids!), the topic of health habits came up. I was asked to chime in regarding their questions regarding some different tactics they had tried.  None of them were bad ideas really, but none of them had stuck.  It felt to me like everything they had tried was a little on the extreme side.  As an example, one woman talked about how difficult it was for her to make two different meals to satisfy the different dietary needs of the family. 

So, that all led to a little discussion about habit stacking.  I encouraged them to consider making one smallish change.  One that doesn’t rock their world and feels very doable long term.  Over time, that change will become a little bit more normal.  Then it’s time to choose the next small change.  Rinse and repeat.  It’s not a quick fix, but by golly, over time you may just find you have done a major overhaul of your health habits by taking one small do-able step at a time!  

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