Lose weight. Exercise more. Learn a new skill. Quit smoking. Save money.
These are some of the most common New Year’s resolutions; perhaps you’ve done a few of them yourself.
But while New Year’s resolutions are common, sticking to them is not. Only 9% of those who make New Year’s resolutions actually keep them for longer than a few weeks.
If something’s not working, it’s time to toss it, right? That’s why this year, instead of making more resolutions we won’t keep, we’re taking the easy route to change: habit stacking.
How we build habits
New Year’s resolutions usually fail because changing our habits is hard. You’ve probably heard the theory that it takes 21 days to form a habit, but in reality, it’s not an exact science. Some may develop a habit in 21 days, whereas for others it takes much longer. In fact, one study found that the time it took for behavior to become automatic ranged from 18 to 254 days.
So, habit building looks different for everyone. One thing is clear, though: the more you do something, the easier it is to keep doing it. Practice makes perfect, and all that.
Which brings us back to our original conundrum: changing our habits is hard. But if you add new habits to current ones, it gets a lot easier.
How habit stacking works
Habit stacking involves adding a new behavior to a current one, aka, stacking one habit on top of another.
For example, you already brush your teeth every day. It’s been a part of your routine forever and you don’t have to think about it. Since you’re going to brush your teeth anyway, you’re more likely to remember to incorporate a new habit alongside it.
Say you want to drink more water. Before or after you brush your teeth, you would drink a glass of water. No special effort required, just a step effortlessly added to your regular teeth-brushing routine.
The habit stacking formula is simple:
Before/after [current habit], I will [new habit]
A few examples:
Before I take a shower, I will think of three things I’m grateful for.
After I eat breakfast, I will prep a healthy lunch.
Before I get the mail, I will go for a short walk.
After I finish working, I will meditate for five minutes.
Habit stacking is your built-in reminder to do that thing you want to do more of. Over time, it becomes a habit that sticks around on its own—and you get to reap the benefits of a job well done with a fraction of the effort.
Feel Great: Your habit stacking ally
Some habits are easier to incorporate into habit stacking than others. Feel Great is one of the easy ones.
The Feel Great program also has a simple formula:
2 products + 1 practice = feeling great
The two products are Balance and Unimate. Balance is a pre-meal drink designed to slow carbohydrate absorption (so you stay fuller for longer) and promote proper digestion and cholesterol absorption. Unimate is a highly concentrated yerba mate drink that helps to improve mood, heighten mental clarity, and boost energy.
The practice? That’s intermittent fasting, where you eat all your meals during an 8–10-hour period each day and fast for the rest.
The Feel Great approach is designed to bridge the gap between where you are and where you want to be, simply by making it easier to achieve your goals so you don’t have to rely so much on willpower.
Even better, the Feel Great program is easy to incorporate into your regular routine. Habit stacking with Feel Great is so easy you might not even notice you’re doing it.
What Feel Great habit stacking looks like
Let’s work Feel Great into the habit stacking formula.
Before/after I [current habit], I will [new habit]
Your day would look something like this:
Before I start my day, I will drink Unimate.
10–15 minutes before meals, I will take Balance.
After I need a pick-me-up, I will drink Unimate.
For more tips on habit stacking with Feel Great, check out this video.
Simple as that! A few small adjustments to your day and you’re on your way to new habits that will make a big difference in your life.
The resolution that doesn’t feel like a resolution
Feel Great touches a lot of the top resolutions we make year after year. Because at the end of the day, most of us want to feel better in some way. Feel Great makes those commonly-failed-at resolutions not only achievable, but easy—especially when you incorporate it into your life using the habit stacking formula.
Skip the resolutions this year and try something that works instead—habit stacking with Feel Great.