Is Habit Stacking Key To Achieving Your Goals?
I'm just going to say it: We start each new year doing way too much. The writing is usually on the wall early on that we won't follow through with all of our big "new year, new me" jive. Why? Because we want major change as immediately as a blink of an eye, without having any real plan. Think about it: The statement: "I want to lose weight", while a noble goal is also so general that it leaves crucial questions unanswered and almost dooms itself to failure in utero.
What if the best way to make the biggest (and most long-lasting) changes in our lives is not to make big changes at all? When I think about my biggest failures, 99% of the time I did too much too fast with either no plan or a pitiful one, got overwhelmed, and went back to life as usual. Enter, the brilliant method of stacking habits.
Before you get apprehensive, just think of it as a new way to take baby steps toward your goals. According to best-selling author, James Clear:
"Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit."
Through the practice of habit stacking, we become aware of the habits that are already integrated into our lives and use them as foundations on which to build other beneficial habits toward our goals and best outcomes.
If you think about pretty much any huge undertaking: starting a business; writing a book; quitting smoking; or becoming a top-performing athlete – two things are clear: 1) none of it happens in one fell swoop and 2) you're usually either replacing a bad habit with a better one or installing a good habit where there was nothing. There are steps. We don't have to go hard from the jump if we don't know whether or not we can sustain. There are other methods that will help us to maintain our integrity as we commit to being healthier.
Habit stacking builds on those two ideas. It is a strategy that when practiced with integrity, brings you successfully to your desired outcome. And it is not so rigid that you cannot adjust for life changes or new goals. It is essentially attaching a new habit to something you already do without fail.
Let's break it down:
1.Create A Specific Goal
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What is your main goal? Let's say you want to read more. Great! But what does that look like day-to-day? You need to zoom in with specifics. Your goal could go something like this:
"I want to read for at least 10 minutes each day."
Ten minutes of reading each day will bring you to your overall goal of reading more. Now you've got a new habit looking for an old habit to attach itself to!
2.List Your Current Habits
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What are some things that you do everyday without fail?
Here a few examples from my life:
- I check my phone each morning.
- I spend time in prayer.
- I brush my teeth.
- I take my lunch break at work. (Y'all better! Viva la self-care!)
- I have tea before I start my work.
- I scroll social media while watching TV when I get home from work.
- I write out my Mindfulness lists for the next day.
Create a second list of things that happen to you without fail everyday:
For example:
- Social media notifications.
- Red lights.
- The sun rises.
- You receive a text.
- Beyonce comes up in conversation. (Or is that just me?)
3.Decide Where To Place Your New Habit
Exercising with weights at home
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Once you've created your lists, you now have a bunch of mini-foundations on which to build another habit that will serve your big goal.
Now it's time to be honest with yourself about where your new habit will be most effective. If you know you can't focus in the morning before having coffee, trying to read for 10 minutes every morning is basically setting yourself up to fail. Don't play yourself. Be real.
However, if you know that when you get home from work, you spend time unwinding by scrolling through social media, watching television, or checking personal emails, there may be an opportunity to fit in your new habit. And again, BE SPECIFIC.
For example:
"BEFORE I [scroll through social media at the end of my day], I will [read for 10 minutes]."
See how that works? You've assessed which habit is easiest to attach your new habit to and you've given yourself parameters by being specific about the timing. You'll read BEFORE you scroll.
A couple of my personal stacked habits look like this:
BIG GOAL: To get in better shape.
FOCUSED GOAL: To walk 5,000 steps a day.
HABITS STACKED:
- Each time my fitness watch buzzes, I will take 3 laps around the office.
- While my food cooks each night, I will dance salsa for 10 minutes.
In order for these two habits to be successfully integrated into my daily routine, I had to be thoughtful about where in my day they have the best chance of succeeding. I wear my fitness watch faithfully and it always lets me know when I've been sitting for too long. It's a built-in accountability partner. I'm always listening to music while I'm cooking so it makes sense to incorporate salsa.
The goal is to ensure your own success by being specific, and using what is already working in your life as Velcro to which to stick a new habit. Remember to be specific, find the best timing for your new habit to be successful, and keep going! Even if you miss a day, keep going back. If you need to adjust, adjust!
Happy habit stacking!
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Originally published February 6, 2019
Featured image by Getty Images
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Ashley is a storybuilder and storyteller who writes and produces to inform, connect, encourage and evoke. Vibe with her on Twitter/Instagram: @ashleylatruly.
From Heartbreak To Healing: The Multifaceted Journey Of Nazanin Mandi
Nazanin Mandi is never out of options.
About a year ago, the 37-year-old life coach and actress was navigating life after divorce and determined to experience homeownership for the first time as a single woman. She’d been married to the R&B singer Miguel for three years, following a long-term relationship that started when she was 18 years old. But, in 2022, she filed for divorce. It was certainly the most public change she made but, in reality, it was just one of many decisions to refocus and reach her full potential in recent years.
“During my 20s, I was not ready for more. I was living a really crazy life. It was unpredictable. I was helping somebody else grow. It was a lot, and it was intense. I was not pouring into myself the way I should’ve been,” she says in an xoNecole exclusive.
Still, as Mandi worked to get to know herself and her needs during this new phase of life, she realized the home she’d purchased wasn’t a good fit. Overwhelmed by the echoing of her voice in the spacious home, she had a breakdown and called her cousin, who immediately suggested she lease the home and live somewhere else. “I woke up in my house, and I was like, ‘This is not it for me,” she says. “All those years, I had been accustomed to living a certain way [and] in a certain house, so I bought myself a house like [my old home]. But my family was not the same. Waking up in that house by myself, it highlighted the divorce. I was like, ‘Oh, no, we can’t do this. This is not it.’ My life has changed, so my choices need to change.” At that moment, Mandi became open to the idea that there wasn’t one set way to achieve ownership on her own.
“I feel so much better. I’m in a smaller place. My best friend lives a minute from me and I can walk to her house,” she tells me during a Zoom interview from her home one recent afternoon in early February. In the past two years, she hasn’t just been advising other people on varying circumstances, she’s also been healing herself.
"During my 20s, I was not ready for more. I was living a really crazy life. It was unpredictable. I was helping somebody else grow. It was a lot, and it was intense. I was not pouring into myself the way I should’ve been."
Credit: Solmaz Saberi
If supporters began following Nazanin Mandi because of her conventional beauty or the contagious, bright, white smile she often wears in many of her photos, that’s likely not the reason they’ve stuck around. Instead, she’s amassed a following based on her transparency about her own anxiety and depression, along with the encouraging messages of self-acceptance, gratitude, ambition, and humility that are often sprinkled into her social media posts.
In an era where looking at Instagram photos of models can often lead to feelings of self-doubt and insecurity, Nazanin Mandi is determined to be more than eye candy. She’s food for her follower’s souls, too.
Since being recruited to model while dining at an In-N-Out at 10 years old, Mandi has worked in many areas of entertainment. The Valencia, California native has modeled for brands such as Olay, Savage X Fenty, and Good American. As a teen, she sang at Carnegie Hall and auditioned for season 1 of American Idol, making it all the way to Hollywood before producers disqualified her for lying about her age. (Mandi was 15 at the time, and contestants had to be at least 16 years old.) Mandi has acted, too, including appearing on Disney’s That’s So Raven as a teenager and on the BET+ series Games People Play and the Prime series Á La Carte in more recent years.
In recent years, though, she’s also expanded her professional goals outside of entertainment, too. After becoming a certified life coach in 2020, Mandi launched the membership platform You Bloome in 2022 with the hopes of providing wellness services to others, including her self-published gratitude journal. “I wish I had access to something like You Bloome earlier in my own life,” she writes on the company’s website. The actress, who has been forthcoming about her struggles with anxiety and depression, has never had a life coach, but credits therapy as a tool that “really, really saved me and it laid the foundation to who I am becoming.”
Credit: Solmaz Saberi
"I’m trying to find the balance between living life and knowing that whatever is meant for me is going to happen, but also know that I’m doing everything in my power to make those things happen and better myself."
While she’s always had a nurturing personality, Mandi says her interest in becoming a life coach was inspired by the women who would message her for advice on social media. “I would answer them back. It really sparked a fire within myself to help people,” she says.
You Bloome currently has three membership tiers, ranging in price from $2.99 to $39.99 per month. The highest tier offers a motivational text message twice a week, two live, group coaching sessions per month, and more. “We get emotional. We cry. We laugh. It’s really beautiful. I’ve built close relationships with my members through this. It’s been inspiring both ways,” Mandi says of the sessions. Still, the founder says she hopes to take on more motivational and keynote speaking opportunities in the future with the hopes of impacting as many people as possible.
And, she’s hoping to do all of this while continuing to explore a career as an entertainer.
At this point in her life, Mandi says she’s gained enough perspective on modeling, music, and acting to realize what she wants to prioritize moving forward. “We are going full force with acting,” she says, noting her goal is “to book a series regular or a film that impacts my career and the world.” She plans to continue to model, too, but has no desire to pursue music.
“I don’t want any part of that because I know what that life entails,” she says. “I don’t want to tour. I don’t want to do any of that. That is not where my heart is at.”
Credit: Solmaz Saberi
If you ask Mandi, she’ll tell you she feels most comfortable in front of a camera, but she’ll also admit that she’s recently experienced a lot of imposter syndrome when thinking about her acting career. “I think it’s a fear of not succeeding,” she says. If anything, she adds, she’s harder on herself now than she’s ever been. “There were distractions before. There’s no distractions now,” she says. “I’m putting pressure on myself for no reason.”
This is where the life coach’s own personal healing comes into play. Mandi says she’s learning recently that “slow progress is still big progress at the end of the day.”
“Currently, I’m trying to find the balance between living life and knowing that whatever is meant for me is going to happen, but also know that I’m doing everything in my power to make those things happen and better myself,” she adds.
Still, one of Mandi’s strengths is that she doesn’t feel the pressure to limit herself to just one passion. From working as a life coach to pursuing acting, she has given herself grace to explore all other dreams.
“We can be allowed to be many different things in this lifetime,” she says. “As people, our identities are allowed to expand. Don’t put us in a fucking box. I cannot live that way anymore.”
For more of Nazanin, follow her on Instagram @nazaninmandi.
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Featured image by Solmaz Saberi
'Raising Kanan''s Hailey Kilgore Talks Seeing Herself In Jukebox & Broadway Background
Hailey Kilgore, who has brought the character Jukebox to life on Power Book III: Raising Kanan for the past three seasons, was working hard in show business long before landing the role on coveted Starz franchise. She's already a Tony- and Grammy-nominated talent whose credits include the Jennifer Hudson-led Aretha Franklin biopic Respect and the Tony-winning revival of Once on This Island.
Hailey may play a teen on the Mekai Curtis-centered series but she's been training in singing, acting, and performance since the tender age of 9—that's 16 years now. If you take a look at her social media profiles, it will almost make you do a double take as her real personality couldn't be further from what's depicted on the show—proving just how talented she really is. The Broadway veteran, who is gearing up to release her first album, is what many would describe a girl's girl wearing loads of sequins, gowns, and serving face!
This will prompt you to dig a little deeper to find out more about the girl who is a multi-hyphenate and earned two major nominations before even making it on the big screen.
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xoNecole caught up Hailey as season 3 came to an end and was surprised to learn that although they may be completely different people, her real life is mirroring what's going on with Jukebox in Raising Kanan. "I really made the epiphany season 3." She continued, "[Jukebox] just wants to be seen. She works so hard, she's a really sweet girl. She has a beautiful spirit and she just wants people to see her—to see how hard she works. I feel that right now. I'm like, please just see me. I know you love Jukebox...but there's a super cool girl in here and she's got a lot to say. A lot to contribute to the world artistically."
She even delved more into her background, telling us about the extensive training and hard work she's put in to get to this point. "I started training when I was 9. I trained in acting, singing, and performance." She further explained, "I did my first job when I was 12, so I've been doing this for awhile. Performing is what I love. I've always said I wanted to be Beyoncé when I grew up...I'm really blessed to have the resume and the background that I do."
The latest season of Power Book III: Raising Kanan has come to a close but in true fashion, Hailey is still hard at work. Her first single "Drama Queen" is out now and her debut album will be released on May 3. It's safe to say that Hailey is having her moment. One can't deny that she's worked hard for it and we can't wait to see what's next!
Watch the full interview below.
Hailey Kilgore AKA Jukebox on 'Raising Kanan' Talks Broadway Background
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