Struggling to maintain a morning routine, I stumbled upon a game-changer: habit layering. As I share in this episode, attaching new routines to existing ones has set off a chain reaction of positive change in my life. Inspired by James Clear's "Atomic Habits," I dive into the nitty-gritty of making small but mighty adjustments that stick. Whether it's meditating post-coffee or slipping into workout gear right after work, I reveal how these simple shifts are not just reshaping my days, but rewiring my brain for success. You'll walk away with actionable steps to craft your own layered habits and the motivation to become the best version of yourself.
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Struggling to maintain a morning routine, I stumbled upon a game-changer: habit layering. As I share in this episode, attaching new routines to existing ones has set off a chain reaction of positive change in my life. Inspired by James Clear's "Atomic Habits," I dive into the nitty-gritty of making small but mighty adjustments that stick. Whether it's meditating post-coffee or slipping into workout gear right after work, I reveal how these simple shifts are not just reshaping my days, but rewiring my brain for success. You'll walk away with actionable steps to craft your own layered habits and the motivation to become the best version of yourself.
Want more? Find and follow Bree on
www.bodybybree.com
Instagram
Pinterest
YouTube
Blog
Are you looking for a space where you will learn to improve your mental strength, emotional health and heal your insecurities from the inside out? Take the first step to living a more meaningful life with the Better Me with Body by Breed podcast. I'm your host, bree. I'm a certified personal trainer, entrepreneur and mother of three. I've helped empower thousands of women to take action through fitness, nutrition, meditation and mental development and aligning thoughts with action. This podcast is for those who are ready to feel inspired and motivated to live a more purposeful life. Let's grow together. If you struggle to commit to new goals you set for yourself and you feel like you are constantly sliding into old habits that don't serve you, I want you to listen to this podcast. This one tool helped me to be more consistent with my goals, gain more confidence and rewire my neural pathways, so I don't slide back into old habits. In this podcast, I will teach you what habit layering is, why it's so effective and how to implement it into your daily routine to become the highest, best version of yourself. Let's learn together. If you are constantly setting goals but not following through with them, it's probably because you don't have a system to go with your goals. You have these goals, but you have no way to implement long term. So when it gets hard or you lose motivation, you'll start to slowly fall off track and lose confidence in your ability to follow through with what you say you'll do. Something that I teach my clients that has had a huge impact on them is habit layering, or also known as habit stacking. I learned this concept from the book Atomic Habits from James Clear, and this one important tool helped me to become so much more consistent and successful with every single goal that I set for myself. So one of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit that you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top of what you're already doing, and this is called habit stacking or habit layering. So I want to give you an example of how I used this in my life in the last few months and how it's really helped me.
Speaker 1:I really wanted to get into the habit of waking up early and having a morning routine, but my goals were a little too big. So I was going to have the plan that I was going to wake up an hour early, I was going to meditate and then I was going to read my scriptures or my Bible, and then I was going to go for a little walk and I like had this big plan right, and I was good for like a week or two. And then, when I went to bed too late, I decided to sleep through my alarm, and then the next day, instead of waking up an hour early, I woke up 30 minutes early, and then the next day I was like, oh, I'm too tired, I'll just wake up 15 minutes early. And then it slowly just fizzled out, right, because an hour seemed like a very big goal to do every day and it was really hard to commit to. So instead, what I decided to do was I was going to set my alarm just 20 minutes early, 20 minutes early so I would. When I wake up and brush my teeth, I was going to then go to my desk and study my Bible or my Meditation or whatever I was doing for my morning Uplift morning routine time, right. So I decided 20 minutes is doable. That's something that I can do consistently, no matter what, because even if I go to bed Too late, if I'm waking up 20 minutes earlier, it's not like that's gonna really impact my day either way on the sleep, but it will impact me on feeling more calm and feeling more peaceful and Connecting with my spirituality, and that will pay off, even if it's just 20 minutes. So what I started doing was I started layering this habit with brushing my teeth, so I would wake up, I'd brush my teeth, so I was awake, and then I would sit at my desk and study.
Speaker 1:What happened was super interesting in the fact that I started showing up consistently, where I started reaping the benefits of this habit? Because I realized how much better I felt when I was consistently Having a morning routine, even if it was just 20 minutes. I was starting my day with a meditation and reading my scriptures and I just felt on top of the world. And because it was a small, small Investment in the beginning, it wasn't too overwhelming and so I was able to show up for myself. And the goal here I guess the lesson here is that you have to start with something small that you can be consistent with, and Then what you do is you train your brain to for to see new neural pathways by showing up every day in the same way. It doesn't matter if it's five minutes or an hour. You're being consistent and Consistency is the goal, and you're literally rewiring your brain for new neural pathways.
Speaker 1:So now, when I wake up and I brush my teeth, I associate brushing my teeth with my morning routine, like that's just what I do. I wake up, I brush my teeth, I say my prayers, I study, I meditate and then I go right, it's a 20 minute, quick thing. But when I brush my teeth, my brain is signaling now it's time to do your studying, because I've tacked it on to that habit. That's already super easy for me, right? Brushing my teeth is already super easy. So I'm gonna give you a couple examples of what a habit layer could look like. Let's say, after I pour my cup of coffee each morning, I will meditate for one minute. After I take off my shoes from work, I will immediately change into my workout clothes. Um, after I sit down to dinner, I will say one thing I'm grateful for that happened today. After I get into bed at night, I will give my partner a kiss. After I put in my running shoes, I will text a friend or family.
Speaker 1:So, again, the reason that have habit layering or habit stacking works so well is that your current habits are already built into your brain you have patterns and behaviors that have been strengthened over years. So by linking your new habits to a cycle that is already built into your brain, you make it more likely that you'll stick to that new behavior. And then, once you've mastered this like the basic structure of it, you can begin to create larger stacks by chaining these small habits together, and this allows you to take advantage of the natural momentum that comes from one behavior leading to the next. So if you were to take my example, I Would wake up early, hit my alarm, brush my teeth, say my prayer, do my morning study, and then I would go downstairs and meal prep breakfast. Okay, so then I'm just kind of adding to this little stack of good behaviors that will now become second nature. Right, you don't even think about taking a shower or brushing your teeth at second nature, because you know that that's a habit that you need to do. So, overall habit stacking allows you to create a set of simple rules that will guide your future behavior. So it's almost like you always have a game plan for which action should come next, and once you get comfortable with this approach, you can develop general habit stacks to guide you whenever the situation is appropriate.
Speaker 1:So, for example, when I see a set of stairs, I'll take them instead of using the elevator For social skills. When I walk into a party, I'll introduce myself to one person that I don't know. When I want to buy something over $100, I will wait 24 hours before purchasing. Let's see eating healthy. When I serve myself a meal, I will always put veggies first on my plate. When I buy a new item, I will give one away. When the phone rings, I will take a deep breath and I will smile before answering so little things like this.
Speaker 1:No matter how you use the strategy, the secret to creating a successful habit stack is selecting the right cue that kicks things off. So I love the thought of if you work out after work taking your shoes off, you immediately put your workout clothes on because it's like nope. It's like you're giving your brain an out from having decision fatigue, like you don't have to keep making the decision or making the right decision to implement. So there is so much power to your mind, or to training your mind, to show up over and over and over again, even if it's a short period of time. I wanna give you one more example that has always stuck with me.
Speaker 1:This guy had a problem being consistent going to the gym. He really wanted to go to the gym, but he just could not get himself to show up more than like a week or two at a time without quitting. So his coach said I want you to simply make the habit of driving to the gym, whether you go in or not, like whether you even feel like working out or not. You're just gonna drive to the gym and you're just gonna sit in your car. And he's like what the heck? Why would I do that? I'm starting to do anything. And he's like we need to build into your brain the habit of driving to the gym every day at the same time. Whether you feel like going in or not, you're still creating the habit.
Speaker 1:Then eventually he's like okay, well, I'm driving to the gym every day and I'm sitting in the parking lot. I might as well go in. So then he's like okay, once you've become successful at driving to the gym every day, I'm going to go in for 10 minutes. I'm going to go in, stretch, walk a lap and then, if you don't feel like staying, you can go home. But at least do that. And he's like okay, I can easily do that, right. Well then he's like, well, I mean, I'm here, like I might as well work out a little bit.
Speaker 1:And so eventually you can see how this chain of events trains his brain that every day at 8.30, he drives to the gym and he gets his workout in. And he said, now it's become such a part of his life he doesn't even think about it. It's just like brushing your teeth or taking a shower Every day. That's his routine and that's where you want to get to right With any habit, any goal, anything that you want to improve. It's getting to that point. But the only way to do that is to strengthen the neural pathways in your brain and show up consistently for a long period of time. Now, technically, people say it takes 21 days to form a new habit. I think it takes longer than that, but this is the best, easiest, greatest tool that you can start with to start making progress.
Speaker 1:Now, if this is intriguing to you and you like learning about these mindfulness habits or habit coaching, this is the type of stuff that we teach in my training programs. So when I take on a client, I'm not just trying to teach them how to get a six pack, I really don't care, like it's amazing to have a six pack. I love when my clients feel so confident on the outside, but what I love more is when my clients morph into the best version of themselves and they show up as that person. They gain confidence in themselves. The cool thing is like when you start implementing these types of habit coaching, then you start realizing wait, I can do hard things Like I can go get that job that I've always wanted. I can be a more patient, loving mother. I can run that marathon that I've been wanting to do. I can go out of my comfort zone and I can make that friend that I've been wanting to talk to because you have confidence.
Speaker 1:And so what my goal is in training my clients is not just to help them get healthier and be fit and confident and strong and fuel their body with nutrients and learn how to eat for their body. It's also to learn these mental exercises so that you can feel successful in your life. A lot of the reasons why people feel like a failure is just because they don't have the knowledge to know how to set goals or know how to deal with failures or know how to Break through the plateaus. That's what a coach is for and that's what I'm here to help you do. I feel like my programs are more of a life coaching program because we go so deep and we have these like mental health challenges that we do and behavioral change challenges throughout each of the eight weeks so that you're really honing in on your why and you're like building your relationship with your body and healing your relationship with food and you're just truly transforming from the inside out. So if you're interested in that, all of our programs are on bodybibrycom.
Speaker 1:I'm here to help. You can always find me at BodyBibry Fitness and let me know what questions you have, because I am here to help. It is my calling in life. I love it so much. I love helping women learn how to transform from the inside out. I will talk to you guys later. Have such a great week.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us in today's episode. If you liked the content and want to hear more, remember to hit that subscribe button and write a review. As a small business owner, I appreciate it more than you know. If you are looking for a program to help with self-confidence, to lose weight, get in shape and work on your mental, physical and emotional health. Check out my training programs on wwwbodybibrycom. My team and I helped to hold you accountable through the BodyBibry app, where you log in to see all your workouts, custom meal plan made specifically for you and your needs, and communication through the Messenger. You are never alone when you're on the BodyBibry training program. Click the link in the show notes to get more information on how to transform your life from the inside out. Thank you.