June 28, 2026
EP 058 Habit Stacking | Build Self-Improvement Habits Without Willpower
Most habits fail because we rely on willpower—not because the habit is flawed. In this episode, we decode BJ Fogg's habit stacking research: how linking tiny new behaviors to existing automatic routines (coffee, bedtime, commute) creates self-improvement habits that stick without burnout. Discover why successful entrepreneurs use existing anchors to hijack decision-making and build productivity habits on autopilot. Your morning coffee is about to become your most powerful tool for success. https://YourSuccessDNA.com
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If you struggle to stick to
new routines, you are probably
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relying too much on willpower.
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In 2012, Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg
discovered something that fundamentally
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changes how habits actually work.
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And in this episode, you will learn how
to build habits on autopilot using a
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psychological trick called habit stacking.
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You've probably quit way more
habits in the past two years
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than you've actually kept, right?
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Some of you are like, "Yeah, sure
have, Tracy." And that number I
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don't think is a personal failure.
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It is really proof that you're
using a method that contradicts
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just how your brain is wired.
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And the moment you decide to build a new
habit, he says there, quotes, your nervous
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system launches into a specific sequence.
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It begins to allocate attention
to something unfamiliar.
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It treats novelty like a treat,
and it burns through a finite
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resource that you wake up with only
so much of every day, willpower or
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discipline or whatever you call it.
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By day 47, that resource
is completely depleted.
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By day 51, you're not doing that habit
anymore, and it's not because you're
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lazy, and it's not because you're broken.
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It's because you've just been
following the same script
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That makes most people quit.
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But here's what almost nobody talks about.
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Most folks don't even know it.
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The science of habit formation
changed back in twenty twelve.
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A behavioral psychologist named BJ Fogg
at Stanford ran a study that seemed
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almost absurdly simple on the surface.
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He had people link tiny new behaviors,
you know, like doing one or two pushups
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after they poured their morning coffee,
to their existing routines that were
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already automated in their life.
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The results weren't incremental.
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The people who tried to build willpower
quit this habit by day nineteen.
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People who stacked new habits
alongside existing ones kept going
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for over eight months, not because
they had more willpower, not because
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they had more d- discipline, but
because they never needed it.
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This is the core mechanic that you might
be missing, and once you understand it,
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every failed habit is gonna make sense.
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Your brain doesn't create
habits in isolation.
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It creates them in chains.
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When you brush your teeth, something
else is happening inside your body.
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A specific neural pathway is lighting up.
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The time of day is signaling your
system, and an environmental cue
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triggering the whole sequence.
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The pathway already exists.
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It's already automated.
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It doesn't require conscious
decision-making anymore.
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That's what makes it a habit, right?
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You with me so far?
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Okay, good.
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What researchers call the cue routine
reward loop is operating underneath all
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of this, and the habit stacking works
precisely because it hijacks the cue.
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Instead of building a new loop
from scratch, you're borrowing
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a trigger from the one that's
already running automatically.
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Charles Duhigg mapped this framework in
the book The Power of Habit, and it's
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the same mechanism BJ Fogg's method
exploits at a neurological level.
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When you try to build a brand-new habit
from scratch, you're asking your brain
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to carve out an entirely new pathway
while you're also busy raising your kids,
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managing a career, navigating relationship
stress, trying to start a side hustle,
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and processing hundreds of other decisions
that you need to make before lunchtime.
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It's not that the habit is too hard.
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It's that you're asking for neural
real estate from your brain that
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it doesn't really have available.
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Habit stacking, sometimes called
implementation intentions, a term
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coined by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer,
it works completely differently.
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Instead of creating a new pathway, you're
gonna hook into one that already exists.
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Maybe it's your coffee ritual,
which already has neural
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real estate inside your head.
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Maybe it's your shower
routine that you already do.
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Maybe it's your commute, your
lunch break, your bedtime.
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Whatever it is, these aren't arbitrary
moments, they're anchors, which you
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could call points of automaticity,
where your brain has already
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outsourced most of the decision-making.
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You just go into bedtime mode, or
you go into lunchtime mode, and all
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decisions are kind of already made.
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Here's the mechanism.
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When you attach a new behavior to
an existing anchor, then you're
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not building from ground zero.
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You're creating a branch on a tree
that's already growing, and more
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importantly, you're eliminating
that decision fatigue that kills
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most people's habits By day three.
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Let me show you how this look,
might look in practice, because
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the abstraction is useless without
a little bit of texture, right?
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You with me?
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I mean, I get what you're saying,
Tracy, but really, show me.
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Here, let me show you.
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Someone with ambitions to write
a novel could say something
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like, "I'm going to write 1,000
words a day starting tomorrow."
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That, my friends, is a new pathway.
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That is gonna require willpower, and by
week two, life gets in the way, a bad
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meeting, a sick kid, a moment where your
motivation is really lower than usual.
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We all get them.
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And the whole structure,
it's like a house of cards.
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It collapses on itself because
it was never really rooted in
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your existing nervous system.
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If that very same person says, "After
I pour my cup of coffee, before
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I take that first sip, I'm gonna
write for eight minutes," something
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biochemically different happens.
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The coffee ritual triggers the
neural sequence automatically.
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Your brain doesn't need to ask
whether you feel like writing today.
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The coffee is already raising its
hand and signaling, "Hey, over here."
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Now, and eight minutes is specific
enough to feel doable, which means
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you will actually show up on the
days when motivation doesn't exist.
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Okay?
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You with me?
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So, and this is the part that
most people nod along and they
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s- immediately think, "But that's
so small. I need something more
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aggressive." That instinct right there
is exactly where your failure begins.
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The ambition isn't wrong, but the
velocity is, and velocity is where the
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science gets a little uncomfortable
because it reveals that most
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motivational advice is built on a lie.
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Yep, you know we don't pull any
punches around here, and it's true.
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When someone tells you to commit 100%,
or give it everything you've got, or
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build the discipline to change your
life, they're selling you a narrative
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that makes them sound credible and that
makes you feel energized in that moment.
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But what they're not telling you is that
100% commitment for 48 hours followed by
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zero commitment for 363 days, yeah, that
equals failure, and that equals burnout.
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Burnout is not what happens when you
work too hard on the right thing.
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No.
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Stick with me here.
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Burnout is what happens when you
use willpower to override your
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nervous system's baseline capacity
over an extended period of time.
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You can sprint at ninety-five
percent for three weeks.
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Your body will let you.
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Your dopamine will even reward you for it.
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But on week four,
something is gonna shift.
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Your reserves are gonna be empty,
and instead of returning to a, a
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sustainable habit, you're gonna collapse
entirely, and you're gonna quit.
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This is why habit stacking
prevents burnout where other
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methods tend to accelerate it.
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When you anchor a new behavior
to an existing ritual, the effort
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ceiling is lower from day one.
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You're not trying to become
a different person overnight.
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You're just adding two minutes
of something to yourâ¦
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what you're already doing.
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That means your nervous system never
goes into overdrive, your willpower
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reserves never deplete, and by month
four, when your life gets hard,
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not if, when, and it does, with me?
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Yes?
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Okay.
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The habit survives because it never
demanded more of you than you had to give.
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And now here's where most people are
gonna mess this up, and it's not what
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you expect, so stick with me here.
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There's something deeper here,
something that I think gets glossed
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over in the productivity culture we
all tend to read and see in the videos.
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The people who fail at habits
aren't failing because they're weak.
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They're failing because they fundamentally
misunderstood what a habit is.
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A habit isn't a choice
that you make every day.
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A habit is something your
nervous system does automatically
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without conscious intervention.
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The entire goal of habit stacking is
to move a behavior from the conscious,
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the effortful part of your brain, the
prefrontal cortex, to the automatic
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part, that basal ganglia you've heard
me talk about a couple of times on
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recent shows, specifically to a region
called the dorsolateral striatum, right?
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Which is⦠This is where your
brain actually encodes repeated
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behaviors into automatic sequences.
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That is the part that runs your
circadian rhythm like you're breathing.
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You, you with me?
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Okay.
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Most habit building advice keeps
the behavior in the conscious zone.
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It says things like, "Every
day choose to do this.
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Commit.
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Stay disciplined.
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Don't break the chain." Yeah?
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You, you've heard that, right?
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Okay, good.
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That's asking you to make an active
decision 365 times, and humans, I'm sorry
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to say this, are bad at active decisions.
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We are built to automate.
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You could say we're our own version of AI.
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Habit stacking moves
the finish line, right?
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Instead of trying to automatize through
sheer willpower and repetition, you're
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hijacking a system that's already
automated, and your brain can handle that.
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It's built for it.
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It is designed for it.
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This is why the method works for different
people in completely different contexts.
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A parent with two kids and a demanding
job can stack two minutes of meditation
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after I sit down at my desk, and
they can actually maintain that.
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An entrepreneur can stack five minutes
of journaling after my morning coffee.
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Yeah?
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You feel me?
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A teenager can stack 10
pushups after they pee.
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I know it's funny, but it's true.
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The mechanism is identical in each case.
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The anchor already exists
for each one of those people.
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The nervous system, it's already there.
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Another variation worth knowing
is what BJ Fogg calls temptation
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building, pairing a behavior that
you need to do With one you actually
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do, like listening to your favorite
podcast, but only during a workout.
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Except for mine.
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You wanna listen to mine all the time.
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It's a, it's a cousin of habit
stacking, and it operates on the
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same cue hijacking principle.
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Some people will find it easier
to do because the reward is
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immediate and it's obvious.
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The false floor is where people
miss the actual value, though.
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Because here's what happens when
you successfully use habit stacking.
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The habit isn't actually the point.
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You stack a five-minute writing session
right after you pour your first cup
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of coffee, and by month two, you've
written roughly 2,400 words, not
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because you magically became a writer
or because you had some mystical
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motivational breakthrough, but because
the mechanism you built was write.
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By month four, you've
written over 10,000 words.
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By month eight, you're at 40,000 words.
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You are deep into whatever it
is you're wanting to write.
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At that point, something has shifted.
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The behavior has created
an identity shift.
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You're no longer someone
that's trying to write.
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You're someone who actually writes.
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And that identity shift is what people
think they need to build habits.
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But actually, identity follows
consistent action, not the other
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way around, and I mentioned this
in a previous episode as well.
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This is why so much motivational
advice is actually bass ackwards.
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It says, "First, believe in yourself.
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First, see yourself as the person
who does the thing, then the habits
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will follow." But neuroscience
shows the inverse to be true.
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Identity follows behavior.
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When you constantly show up, even
in tiny doses, your self-image
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updates to match the pattern.
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You don't need to believe you're
a writer before you write.
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You become a writer by writing reliably,
even when you don't feel like writing.
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And that's only possible when
the habit doesn't require you
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to feel like anything, right?
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When it's just attached to your coffee,
when it's just attached to your nervous
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system's current infrastructure.
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But here's where the trap kind of
tightens, because this method works so
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well that people will often overuse it.
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They learn about habit stacking.
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They get excited.
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They identify 15 e- existing anchors
inside their day, and they decide
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to stack a new behavior on each one.
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The morning coffee gets the writing.
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After breakfast gets a meditation habit.
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Shower gets a cold plunge.
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Lunch break gets a side project.
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Commute, the commute gets a podcast, and
dinner gets the family time protocol.
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And then finally,
bedtime gets the reading.
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On paper, that all seems reasonable.
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Even after listening to this episode
so far, you might be like, "Well, that
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sounds reasonable, right, Tracy?" No,
they're just adding⦠Because let's
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be honest, they're just adding small
behaviors to the existing moments.
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That's what you told us, Tracy.
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But here's what's happening in reality.
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You've just created 15 new decision
points, 15 micro-commitments, and 15
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opportunities for that entire structure to
fail the moment one anchor gets disrupted.
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And this is where, uh, this is
where people often burn out using
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the right method because they don't
understand the underlying principle.
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Habit stacking works because you removed
decision fatigue, but only if you
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actually remove the decision fatigue.
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If you stack too many behaviors onto
too many anchors, you've created the
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same problem that you started with.
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Now, instead of one big willpower
decision, I'm gonna exercise for 45
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minutes, for example, you now have 15
little ones, and 15 is worse than one.
254
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It's bigger than one, right?
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Right.
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This, which way is that little
greater than, less than sign, right?
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15 is worse than one because the cognitive
load is distributed throughout your
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day, not in that one time that you were
gonna work on the other, the old way.
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The real science-backed approach to
habit stacking is ruthlessly minimal.
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One anchor, one small
behavior, and give it 66 days.
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That, my friends, is the actual
length of time it takes for a
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stacked behavior to become automatic.
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Not 21 days like everyone
is out there quoting you.
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Sorry.
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Researcher Phillipe Lally at UCL ran
the study that established the real
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number, 66 days on average, with a
range of 18 to 254, depending on the
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person and depending on the behavior.
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After 66 days, the behavior
has generally moved from the
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conscious effort into automatic.
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Then, and only then, can you add another
behavior onto a different anchor.
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This is slower than your
ambition tells you to do it.
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I get it, and it's⦠And that, my
friends, is exactly why it works.
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Because by the time you've successfully
automated one behavior, something
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has already shifted neurologically.
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Your dopamine response
to progress is different.
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Your identity has absorbed the change, and
now the next behavior that you stack lands
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on a slightly different psychological
terrain than you started with 66 days ago.
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You're not a person
trying to change anymore.
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You're a person who has changed,
and you're adding to that change.
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That's a completely different
nervous system state entirely.
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What James Clear calls keystone habits in
this space points to the same phenomena.
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Certain behaviors, once automated,
create ripple effects that make
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adjacent behaviors easier to adopt.
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The first stacked habit that
you successfully automate often
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functions as that keystone.
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It doesn't just add one behavior,
it shifts the entire baseline.
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That is the actual promise of
habit stacking, and it's more
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00:14:48,532 --> 00:14:49,663
radical than people realize.
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It's not a shortcut to a faster change.
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00:14:52,245 --> 00:14:56,315
It's a method for sustainable change
that doesn't require you to become a
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00:14:56,315 --> 00:15:00,123
different person overnight, and that
actually prevents the burnout that
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00:15:00,123 --> 00:15:02,410
kills most people's growth trajectories.
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The people who understand this
aren't the ones that are crushing
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it with 47 simultaneous habits.
295
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No, sorry, just not happening.
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They're the ones who build one
sustainable habit and who, in two
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00:15:13,428 --> 00:15:18,810
years, have accumulated seven or eight
of them, each stacked one upon the
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00:15:18,810 --> 00:15:23,882
other, each one automated, each one
requiring zero willpower to maintain.
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00:15:24,029 --> 00:15:27,534
I know that's not as sexy as
transform your life in 90 days,
300
00:15:27,629 --> 00:15:29,299
but it's what actually happens.
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00:15:29,456 --> 00:15:33,490
The trap is believing that
sustainability is boring, okay?
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00:15:33,725 --> 00:15:36,647
And hey, if this is hitting home
for you the right way, and if you're
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00:15:36,647 --> 00:15:39,769
sitting there thinking, "I've been doing
this wrong the whole time," then you
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00:15:39,777 --> 00:15:42,847
need to be in my corner every single
week where I put out the newsletter
305
00:15:42,847 --> 00:15:44,664
called Unleashing Your Success DNA.
306
00:15:44,673 --> 00:15:45,456
It's not fluff.
307
00:15:45,490 --> 00:15:49,438
It's not another five tips to more
productivity email that you delete
308
00:15:49,438 --> 00:15:50,447
before you finish your coffee.
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00:15:50,638 --> 00:15:54,873
Every issue is a mindset shift, it's a
habit upgrade, and it's all filled in
310
00:15:54,873 --> 00:15:57,986
with that dose of rebellion that you love
and enjoy from this whiskered fellow.
311
00:15:58,247 --> 00:16:01,995
And they're all designed specifically
for people like you, aspiring folks that
312
00:16:01,995 --> 00:16:05,925
wanna do better, wanna be better, who
want to build something but quiteâ¦
313
00:16:06,125 --> 00:16:07,734
can't quite pull that trigger yet.
314
00:16:07,743 --> 00:16:10,508
Each week I'm gonna hand
you a mirror and a shovel.
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00:16:10,664 --> 00:16:13,873
And if you like that idea, go ahead
and head on over to yoursuccessdna.com
316
00:16:14,169 --> 00:16:17,108
because the world doesn't need
another person who almost did it.
317
00:16:17,212 --> 00:16:17,456
Okay?
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00:16:17,516 --> 00:16:21,325
So now let's, let's zoom out for a second,
and I wanna give you the whiskered wisdom
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00:16:21,325 --> 00:16:22,699
I want you to walk away with today.
320
00:16:22,882 --> 00:16:24,290
You don't need more willpower.
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00:16:24,464 --> 00:16:25,995
You need a better address.
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00:16:26,038 --> 00:16:29,586
Every habit you've ever quit
didn't fail because you're weak,
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00:16:29,716 --> 00:16:31,047
didn't fail because you're broken.
324
00:16:31,186 --> 00:16:33,308
It failed because it didn't have a home.
325
00:16:33,403 --> 00:16:37,586
It was floating out there in the
ether, in the open, exposed to every
326
00:16:37,586 --> 00:16:41,969
bad day, and every distraction, and
every moment that your motivation
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00:16:41,977 --> 00:16:44,395
dipped below the standard line, right?
328
00:16:44,543 --> 00:16:47,125
Habit stacking gives
your new behavior a home.
329
00:16:47,256 --> 00:16:50,647
It moves in next door to something
your brain already trusts,
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00:16:50,769 --> 00:16:52,377
and that changes everything.
331
00:16:52,621 --> 00:16:55,346
You don't need more willpower
You need a better address.
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00:16:55,503 --> 00:16:57,050
Habit stacking isn't a shortcut.
333
00:16:57,172 --> 00:17:00,372
It's the science your motivation
really never told you about.
334
00:17:00,468 --> 00:17:01,494
So here's your one action.
335
00:17:01,503 --> 00:17:04,894
Do this today, not tomorrow,
not next week, today.
336
00:17:05,068 --> 00:17:08,242
Grab yourself a piece of paper or open
up the Notes app on your phone right now
337
00:17:08,329 --> 00:17:11,929
and write down three things you do every
single day without even thinking about it.
338
00:17:12,129 --> 00:17:14,963
Maybe it's your morning coffee, maybe
it's brushing your teeth, maybe it
339
00:17:14,963 --> 00:17:16,824
could just be sitting down at your desk.
340
00:17:16,972 --> 00:17:18,016
Just three anchors.
341
00:17:18,181 --> 00:17:23,624
And then pick one, just one, and write
next to it the single smallest version of
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00:17:23,624 --> 00:17:25,068
a habit that you've been trying to build.
343
00:17:25,242 --> 00:17:29,329
Maybe it's two pushups, write one
paragraph, take three deep breaths,
344
00:17:29,372 --> 00:17:30,859
write one sentence in a journal.
345
00:17:30,859 --> 00:17:34,198
Whatever it is, write the smallest version
of that new habit you're trying to build.
346
00:17:34,259 --> 00:17:34,737
That's it.
347
00:17:34,929 --> 00:17:36,294
That's your whole stack right there.
348
00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:40,389
Start that tomorrow morning, and then
do not add another one for how long?
349
00:17:40,668 --> 00:17:42,268
That's right, 66 days.
350
00:17:42,398 --> 00:17:44,476
That's not a challenge,
that's a prescription.
351
00:17:44,581 --> 00:17:44,946
Okay?
352
00:17:45,137 --> 00:17:45,598
Uh, all right.
353
00:17:45,607 --> 00:17:46,798
So let's, let's bring this all home.
354
00:17:47,007 --> 00:17:50,146
Today, we cracked open the real reason
your habits have been dying on the
355
00:17:50,146 --> 00:17:52,468
vine, and it's not you, it's the method.
356
00:17:52,685 --> 00:17:56,103
Willpower is a finite resource,
and you've just been spending
357
00:17:56,103 --> 00:17:57,433
it like it was unlimited, right?
358
00:17:57,433 --> 00:17:58,876
What happens when you do
that with your bank account?
359
00:17:59,016 --> 00:17:59,685
Yeah, right.
360
00:17:59,789 --> 00:18:00,859
Checks bouncing everywhere.
361
00:18:01,085 --> 00:18:04,485
But now you know better, and you've got
the science, and you know how to stack.
362
00:18:04,572 --> 00:18:07,563
One anchor, one tiny behavior, 66 days.
363
00:18:07,685 --> 00:18:09,763
That, my friends, is the
entirety of the game.
364
00:18:09,946 --> 00:18:12,537
Remember, identity doesn't
come before action.
365
00:18:12,694 --> 00:18:14,650
Identity follows action.
366
00:18:14,850 --> 00:18:17,642
You don't become the person
first and then do the thing.
367
00:18:17,789 --> 00:18:22,129
You do the thing consistently, quietly,
even when no one's watching, and
368
00:18:22,129 --> 00:18:26,163
then one day you're gonna look up
and realize you already became the
369
00:18:26,163 --> 00:18:27,494
person you were hoping to become.
370
00:18:27,703 --> 00:18:29,572
So stop waiting to feel ready.
371
00:18:29,746 --> 00:18:31,311
Stop waiting for the perfect moment.
372
00:18:31,459 --> 00:18:32,807
The coffee is already brewing.
373
00:18:32,955 --> 00:18:34,303
The anchor is already there.
374
00:18:34,346 --> 00:18:36,424
All you have to do now is show up.
375
00:18:36,633 --> 00:18:39,772
And if this episode lit something
up inside of you, maybe go ahead
376
00:18:39,772 --> 00:18:42,929
and share it with someone else who's
been getting ready for way too long.
377
00:18:43,207 --> 00:18:45,711
They need this maybe
more than you know, okay?
378
00:18:45,746 --> 00:18:48,537
And as always, think
successfully and take action.
00:00:00,012 --> 00:00:03,020
If you struggle to stick to
new routines, you are probably
2
00:00:03,020 --> 00:00:05,038
relying too much on willpower.
3
00:00:05,081 --> 00:00:09,873
In 2012, Stanford psychologist BJ Fogg
discovered something that fundamentally
4
00:00:09,881 --> 00:00:12,446
changes how habits actually work.
5
00:00:12,481 --> 00:00:16,273
And in this episode, you will learn how
to build habits on autopilot using a
6
00:00:16,281 --> 00:00:18,803
psychological trick called habit stacking.
7
00:00:24,471 --> 00:00:27,680
You've probably quit way more
habits in the past two years
8
00:00:27,880 --> 00:00:29,497
than you've actually kept, right?
9
00:00:29,497 --> 00:00:32,428
Some of you are like, "Yeah, sure
have, Tracy." And that number I
10
00:00:32,428 --> 00:00:33,636
don't think is a personal failure.
11
00:00:33,767 --> 00:00:37,436
It is really proof that you're
using a method that contradicts
12
00:00:37,558 --> 00:00:38,967
just how your brain is wired.
13
00:00:39,175 --> 00:00:42,967
And the moment you decide to build a new
habit, he says there, quotes, your nervous
14
00:00:42,967 --> 00:00:45,480
system launches into a specific sequence.
15
00:00:45,532 --> 00:00:48,775
It begins to allocate attention
to something unfamiliar.
16
00:00:48,915 --> 00:00:52,758
It treats novelty like a treat,
and it burns through a finite
17
00:00:52,784 --> 00:00:57,758
resource that you wake up with only
so much of every day, willpower or
18
00:00:57,758 --> 00:00:59,888
discipline or whatever you call it.
19
00:01:00,115 --> 00:01:03,828
By day 47, that resource
is completely depleted.
20
00:01:03,828 --> 00:01:07,915
By day 51, you're not doing that habit
anymore, and it's not because you're
21
00:01:07,915 --> 00:01:09,662
lazy, and it's not because you're broken.
22
00:01:09,706 --> 00:01:12,419
It's because you've just been
following the same script
23
00:01:12,666 --> 00:01:14,014
That makes most people quit.
24
00:01:14,188 --> 00:01:16,570
But here's what almost nobody talks about.
25
00:01:16,640 --> 00:01:17,909
Most folks don't even know it.
26
00:01:18,266 --> 00:01:21,362
The science of habit formation
changed back in twenty twelve.
27
00:01:21,422 --> 00:01:25,779
A behavioral psychologist named BJ Fogg
at Stanford ran a study that seemed
28
00:01:25,796 --> 00:01:28,396
almost absurdly simple on the surface.
29
00:01:28,422 --> 00:01:32,970
He had people link tiny new behaviors,
you know, like doing one or two pushups
30
00:01:32,970 --> 00:01:36,996
after they poured their morning coffee,
to their existing routines that were
31
00:01:36,996 --> 00:01:38,501
already automated in their life.
32
00:01:38,544 --> 00:01:40,501
The results weren't incremental.
33
00:01:40,701 --> 00:01:45,457
The people who tried to build willpower
quit this habit by day nineteen.
34
00:01:45,692 --> 00:01:50,214
People who stacked new habits
alongside existing ones kept going
35
00:01:50,214 --> 00:01:53,640
for over eight months, not because
they had more willpower, not because
36
00:01:53,640 --> 00:01:56,335
they had more d- discipline, but
because they never needed it.
37
00:01:56,396 --> 00:02:00,188
This is the core mechanic that you might
be missing, and once you understand it,
38
00:02:00,214 --> 00:02:02,840
every failed habit is gonna make sense.
39
00:02:02,866 --> 00:02:05,405
Your brain doesn't create
habits in isolation.
40
00:02:05,596 --> 00:02:07,631
It creates them in chains.
41
00:02:07,657 --> 00:02:11,118
When you brush your teeth, something
else is happening inside your body.
42
00:02:11,309 --> 00:02:13,570
A specific neural pathway is lighting up.
43
00:02:13,762 --> 00:02:17,153
The time of day is signaling your
system, and an environmental cue
44
00:02:17,153 --> 00:02:19,005
triggering the whole sequence.
45
00:02:19,092 --> 00:02:20,935
The pathway already exists.
46
00:02:21,040 --> 00:02:22,144
It's already automated.
47
00:02:22,353 --> 00:02:25,092
It doesn't require conscious
decision-making anymore.
48
00:02:25,222 --> 00:02:27,135
That's what makes it a habit, right?
49
00:02:27,179 --> 00:02:27,796
You with me so far?
50
00:02:27,831 --> 00:02:28,231
Okay, good.
51
00:02:28,301 --> 00:02:33,892
What researchers call the cue routine
reward loop is operating underneath all
52
00:02:33,892 --> 00:02:39,614
of this, and the habit stacking works
precisely because it hijacks the cue.
53
00:02:39,805 --> 00:02:42,944
Instead of building a new loop
from scratch, you're borrowing
54
00:02:42,944 --> 00:02:45,709
a trigger from the one that's
already running automatically.
55
00:02:45,892 --> 00:02:49,648
Charles Duhigg mapped this framework in
the book The Power of Habit, and it's
56
00:02:49,657 --> 00:02:53,814
the same mechanism BJ Fogg's method
exploits at a neurological level.
57
00:02:53,892 --> 00:02:57,544
When you try to build a brand-new habit
from scratch, you're asking your brain
58
00:02:57,544 --> 00:03:01,962
to carve out an entirely new pathway
while you're also busy raising your kids,
59
00:03:01,962 --> 00:03:05,935
managing a career, navigating relationship
stress, trying to start a side hustle,
60
00:03:06,083 --> 00:03:10,196
and processing hundreds of other decisions
that you need to make before lunchtime.
61
00:03:10,283 --> 00:03:12,483
It's not that the habit is too hard.
62
00:03:12,631 --> 00:03:15,927
It's that you're asking for neural
real estate from your brain that
63
00:03:15,927 --> 00:03:17,448
it doesn't really have available.
64
00:03:17,622 --> 00:03:21,248
Habit stacking, sometimes called
implementation intentions, a term
65
00:03:21,248 --> 00:03:24,657
coined by psychologist Peter Gollwitzer,
it works completely differently.
66
00:03:24,868 --> 00:03:29,372
Instead of creating a new pathway, you're
gonna hook into one that already exists.
67
00:03:29,520 --> 00:03:32,050
Maybe it's your coffee ritual,
which already has neural
68
00:03:32,050 --> 00:03:33,355
real estate inside your head.
69
00:03:33,572 --> 00:03:36,450
Maybe it's your shower
routine that you already do.
70
00:03:36,624 --> 00:03:39,102
Maybe it's your commute, your
lunch break, your bedtime.
71
00:03:39,102 --> 00:03:43,311
Whatever it is, these aren't arbitrary
moments, they're anchors, which you
72
00:03:43,311 --> 00:03:47,520
could call points of automaticity,
where your brain has already
73
00:03:47,572 --> 00:03:49,711
outsourced most of the decision-making.
74
00:03:49,711 --> 00:03:53,259
You just go into bedtime mode, or
you go into lunchtime mode, and all
75
00:03:53,259 --> 00:03:54,694
decisions are kind of already made.
76
00:03:54,789 --> 00:03:55,607
Here's the mechanism.
77
00:03:55,798 --> 00:03:59,528
When you attach a new behavior to
an existing anchor, then you're
78
00:03:59,528 --> 00:04:00,668
not building from ground zero.
79
00:04:00,842 --> 00:04:04,998
You're creating a branch on a tree
that's already growing, and more
80
00:04:04,998 --> 00:04:08,537
importantly, you're eliminating
that decision fatigue that kills
81
00:04:08,711 --> 00:04:10,715
most people's habits By day three.
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00:04:10,949 --> 00:04:13,697
Let me show you how this look,
might look in practice, because
83
00:04:13,810 --> 00:04:16,854
the abstraction is useless without
a little bit of texture, right?
84
00:04:16,854 --> 00:04:17,367
You with me?
85
00:04:17,375 --> 00:04:20,045
I mean, I get what you're saying,
Tracy, but really, show me.
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00:04:20,315 --> 00:04:21,062
Here, let me show you.
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Someone with ambitions to write
a novel could say something
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like, "I'm going to write 1,000
words a day starting tomorrow."
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That, my friends, is a new pathway.
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That is gonna require willpower, and by
week two, life gets in the way, a bad
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meeting, a sick kid, a moment where your
motivation is really lower than usual.
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We all get them.
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And the whole structure,
it's like a house of cards.
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It collapses on itself because
it was never really rooted in
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00:04:44,923 --> 00:04:46,480
your existing nervous system.
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00:04:46,854 --> 00:04:50,471
If that very same person says, "After
I pour my cup of coffee, before
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I take that first sip, I'm gonna
write for eight minutes," something
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biochemically different happens.
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The coffee ritual triggers the
neural sequence automatically.
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Your brain doesn't need to ask
whether you feel like writing today.
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The coffee is already raising its
hand and signaling, "Hey, over here."
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Now, and eight minutes is specific
enough to feel doable, which means
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you will actually show up on the
days when motivation doesn't exist.
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Okay?
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You with me?
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So, and this is the part that
most people nod along and they
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s- immediately think, "But that's
so small. I need something more
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00:05:23,349 --> 00:05:28,932
aggressive." That instinct right there
is exactly where your failure begins.
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00:05:29,045 --> 00:05:33,010
The ambition isn't wrong, but the
velocity is, and velocity is where the
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00:05:33,010 --> 00:05:36,967
science gets a little uncomfortable
because it reveals that most
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motivational advice is built on a lie.
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Yep, you know we don't pull any
punches around here, and it's true.
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When someone tells you to commit 100%,
or give it everything you've got, or
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build the discipline to change your
life, they're selling you a narrative
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that makes them sound credible and that
makes you feel energized in that moment.
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But what they're not telling you is that
100% commitment for 48 hours followed by
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zero commitment for 363 days, yeah, that
equals failure, and that equals burnout.
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Burnout is not what happens when you
work too hard on the right thing.
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No.
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Stick with me here.
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Burnout is what happens when you
use willpower to override your
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nervous system's baseline capacity
over an extended period of time.
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You can sprint at ninety-five
percent for three weeks.
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Your body will let you.
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Your dopamine will even reward you for it.
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But on week four,
something is gonna shift.
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Your reserves are gonna be empty,
and instead of returning to a, a
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00:06:32,927 --> 00:06:36,709
sustainable habit, you're gonna collapse
entirely, and you're gonna quit.
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This is why habit stacking
prevents burnout where other
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00:06:39,857 --> 00:06:41,683
methods tend to accelerate it.
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00:06:41,822 --> 00:06:46,301
When you anchor a new behavior
to an existing ritual, the effort
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ceiling is lower from day one.
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You're not trying to become
a different person overnight.
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You're just adding two minutes
of something to yourâ¦
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00:06:53,596 --> 00:06:54,770
what you're already doing.
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00:06:54,840 --> 00:06:58,718
That means your nervous system never
goes into overdrive, your willpower
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00:06:58,718 --> 00:07:03,257
reserves never deplete, and by month
four, when your life gets hard,
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00:07:03,448 --> 00:07:06,240
not if, when, and it does, with me?
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00:07:06,301 --> 00:07:06,622
Yes?
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00:07:06,657 --> 00:07:07,075
Okay.
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00:07:07,309 --> 00:07:12,040
The habit survives because it never
demanded more of you than you had to give.
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00:07:12,153 --> 00:07:15,883
And now here's where most people are
gonna mess this up, and it's not what
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you expect, so stick with me here.
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00:07:17,266 --> 00:07:20,318
There's something deeper here,
something that I think gets glossed
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00:07:20,318 --> 00:07:24,162
over in the productivity culture we
all tend to read and see in the videos.
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The people who fail at habits
aren't failing because they're weak.
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They're failing because they fundamentally
misunderstood what a habit is.
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A habit isn't a choice
that you make every day.
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00:07:35,605 --> 00:07:39,388
A habit is something your
nervous system does automatically
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without conscious intervention.
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00:07:41,127 --> 00:07:45,701
The entire goal of habit stacking is
to move a behavior from the conscious,
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the effortful part of your brain, the
prefrontal cortex, to the automatic
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part, that basal ganglia you've heard
me talk about a couple of times on
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recent shows, specifically to a region
called the dorsolateral striatum, right?
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00:07:58,370 --> 00:08:01,092
Which is⦠This is where your
brain actually encodes repeated
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behaviors into automatic sequences.
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That is the part that runs your
circadian rhythm like you're breathing.
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You, you with me?
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00:08:08,057 --> 00:08:08,327
Okay.
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00:08:08,535 --> 00:08:12,309
Most habit building advice keeps
the behavior in the conscious zone.
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00:08:12,492 --> 00:08:15,579
It says things like, "Every
day choose to do this.
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Commit.
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Stay disciplined.
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Don't break the chain." Yeah?
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You, you've heard that, right?
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Okay, good.
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That's asking you to make an active
decision 365 times, and humans, I'm sorry
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00:08:26,308 --> 00:08:28,760
to say this, are bad at active decisions.
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00:08:28,899 --> 00:08:30,438
We are built to automate.
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You could say we're our own version of AI.
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Habit stacking moves
the finish line, right?
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Instead of trying to automatize through
sheer willpower and repetition, you're
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hijacking a system that's already
automated, and your brain can handle that.
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It's built for it.
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It is designed for it.
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This is why the method works for different
people in completely different contexts.
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A parent with two kids and a demanding
job can stack two minutes of meditation
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00:09:02,064 --> 00:09:05,264
after I sit down at my desk, and
they can actually maintain that.
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00:09:05,351 --> 00:09:09,221
An entrepreneur can stack five minutes
of journaling after my morning coffee.
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Yeah?
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00:09:09,708 --> 00:09:10,195
You feel me?
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00:09:10,386 --> 00:09:14,273
A teenager can stack 10
pushups after they pee.
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I know it's funny, but it's true.
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The mechanism is identical in each case.
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The anchor already exists
for each one of those people.
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The nervous system, it's already there.
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Another variation worth knowing
is what BJ Fogg calls temptation
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building, pairing a behavior that
you need to do With one you actually
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00:09:33,073 --> 00:09:37,464
do, like listening to your favorite
podcast, but only during a workout.
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Except for mine.
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You wanna listen to mine all the time.
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It's a, it's a cousin of habit
stacking, and it operates on the
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same cue hijacking principle.
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Some people will find it easier
to do because the reward is
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immediate and it's obvious.
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00:09:49,412 --> 00:09:53,108
The false floor is where people
miss the actual value, though.
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Because here's what happens when
you successfully use habit stacking.
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The habit isn't actually the point.
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You stack a five-minute writing session
right after you pour your first cup
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00:10:01,760 --> 00:10:06,908
of coffee, and by month two, you've
written roughly 2,400 words, not
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00:10:06,908 --> 00:10:10,543
because you magically became a writer
or because you had some mystical
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00:10:10,543 --> 00:10:15,116
motivational breakthrough, but because
the mechanism you built was write.
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00:10:15,282 --> 00:10:18,316
By month four, you've
written over 10,000 words.
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00:10:18,316 --> 00:10:20,925
By month eight, you're at 40,000 words.
205
00:10:20,925 --> 00:10:23,890
You are deep into whatever it
is you're wanting to write.
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00:10:23,995 --> 00:10:25,890
At that point, something has shifted.
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00:10:26,056 --> 00:10:28,986
The behavior has created
an identity shift.
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00:10:29,047 --> 00:10:31,508
You're no longer someone
that's trying to write.
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00:10:31,682 --> 00:10:33,838
You're someone who actually writes.
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00:10:33,925 --> 00:10:37,699
And that identity shift is what people
think they need to build habits.
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But actually, identity follows
consistent action, not the other
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00:10:42,125 --> 00:10:44,386
way around, and I mentioned this
in a previous episode as well.
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This is why so much motivational
advice is actually bass ackwards.
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00:10:48,369 --> 00:10:50,708
It says, "First, believe in yourself.
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00:10:50,803 --> 00:10:54,525
First, see yourself as the person
who does the thing, then the habits
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00:10:54,534 --> 00:10:58,899
will follow." But neuroscience
shows the inverse to be true.
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Identity follows behavior.
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00:11:01,464 --> 00:11:05,943
When you constantly show up, even
in tiny doses, your self-image
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00:11:05,995 --> 00:11:07,603
updates to match the pattern.
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00:11:07,821 --> 00:11:10,664
You don't need to believe you're
a writer before you write.
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00:11:10,769 --> 00:11:15,908
You become a writer by writing reliably,
even when you don't feel like writing.
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And that's only possible when
the habit doesn't require you
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00:11:19,499 --> 00:11:21,551
to feel like anything, right?
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When it's just attached to your coffee,
when it's just attached to your nervous
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00:11:27,123 --> 00:11:29,123
system's current infrastructure.
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00:11:29,384 --> 00:11:33,176
But here's where the trap kind of
tightens, because this method works so
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well that people will often overuse it.
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They learn about habit stacking.
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They get excited.
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They identify 15 e- existing anchors
inside their day, and they decide
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to stack a new behavior on each one.
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The morning coffee gets the writing.
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After breakfast gets a meditation habit.
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Shower gets a cold plunge.
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00:11:50,984 --> 00:11:52,341
Lunch break gets a side project.
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00:11:52,384 --> 00:11:56,715
Commute, the commute gets a podcast, and
dinner gets the family time protocol.
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00:11:56,958 --> 00:11:59,523
And then finally,
bedtime gets the reading.
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00:11:59,723 --> 00:12:01,784
On paper, that all seems reasonable.
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00:12:01,923 --> 00:12:04,915
Even after listening to this episode
so far, you might be like, "Well, that
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sounds reasonable, right, Tracy?" No,
they're just adding⦠Because let's
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00:12:08,202 --> 00:12:11,341
be honest, they're just adding small
behaviors to the existing moments.
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That's what you told us, Tracy.
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But here's what's happening in reality.
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You've just created 15 new decision
points, 15 micro-commitments, and 15
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00:12:20,080 --> 00:12:25,549
opportunities for that entire structure to
fail the moment one anchor gets disrupted.
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00:12:25,697 --> 00:12:28,932
And this is where, uh, this is
where people often burn out using
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00:12:28,967 --> 00:12:32,176
the right method because they don't
understand the underlying principle.
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Habit stacking works because you removed
decision fatigue, but only if you
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actually remove the decision fatigue.
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If you stack too many behaviors onto
too many anchors, you've created the
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same problem that you started with.
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Now, instead of one big willpower
decision, I'm gonna exercise for 45
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minutes, for example, you now have 15
little ones, and 15 is worse than one.
254
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It's bigger than one, right?
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Right.
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This, which way is that little
greater than, less than sign, right?
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15 is worse than one because the cognitive
load is distributed throughout your
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day, not in that one time that you were
gonna work on the other, the old way.
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The real science-backed approach to
habit stacking is ruthlessly minimal.
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One anchor, one small
behavior, and give it 66 days.
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That, my friends, is the actual
length of time it takes for a
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stacked behavior to become automatic.
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Not 21 days like everyone
is out there quoting you.
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Sorry.
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00:13:24,115 --> 00:13:28,532
Researcher Phillipe Lally at UCL ran
the study that established the real
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00:13:28,541 --> 00:13:35,271
number, 66 days on average, with a
range of 18 to 254, depending on the
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person and depending on the behavior.
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After 66 days, the behavior
has generally moved from the
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00:13:40,532 --> 00:13:42,436
conscious effort into automatic.
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Then, and only then, can you add another
behavior onto a different anchor.
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This is slower than your
ambition tells you to do it.
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I get it, and it's⦠And that, my
friends, is exactly why it works.
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Because by the time you've successfully
automated one behavior, something
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has already shifted neurologically.
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Your dopamine response
to progress is different.
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00:14:04,167 --> 00:14:10,358
Your identity has absorbed the change, and
now the next behavior that you stack lands
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on a slightly different psychological
terrain than you started with 66 days ago.
278
00:14:15,358 --> 00:14:17,332
You're not a person
trying to change anymore.
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You're a person who has changed,
and you're adding to that change.
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That's a completely different
nervous system state entirely.
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What James Clear calls keystone habits in
this space points to the same phenomena.
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Certain behaviors, once automated,
create ripple effects that make
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00:14:33,663 --> 00:14:36,158
adjacent behaviors easier to adopt.
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The first stacked habit that
you successfully automate often
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functions as that keystone.
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It doesn't just add one behavior,
it shifts the entire baseline.
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That is the actual promise of
habit stacking, and it's more
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00:14:48,532 --> 00:14:49,663
radical than people realize.
289
00:14:49,706 --> 00:14:52,123
It's not a shortcut to a faster change.
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00:14:52,245 --> 00:14:56,315
It's a method for sustainable change
that doesn't require you to become a
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00:14:56,315 --> 00:15:00,123
different person overnight, and that
actually prevents the burnout that
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00:15:00,123 --> 00:15:02,410
kills most people's growth trajectories.
293
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The people who understand this
aren't the ones that are crushing
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it with 47 simultaneous habits.
295
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No, sorry, just not happening.
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They're the ones who build one
sustainable habit and who, in two
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00:15:13,428 --> 00:15:18,810
years, have accumulated seven or eight
of them, each stacked one upon the
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00:15:18,810 --> 00:15:23,882
other, each one automated, each one
requiring zero willpower to maintain.
299
00:15:24,029 --> 00:15:27,534
I know that's not as sexy as
transform your life in 90 days,
300
00:15:27,629 --> 00:15:29,299
but it's what actually happens.
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The trap is believing that
sustainability is boring, okay?
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00:15:33,725 --> 00:15:36,647
And hey, if this is hitting home
for you the right way, and if you're
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00:15:36,647 --> 00:15:39,769
sitting there thinking, "I've been doing
this wrong the whole time," then you
304
00:15:39,777 --> 00:15:42,847
need to be in my corner every single
week where I put out the newsletter
305
00:15:42,847 --> 00:15:44,664
called Unleashing Your Success DNA.
306
00:15:44,673 --> 00:15:45,456
It's not fluff.
307
00:15:45,490 --> 00:15:49,438
It's not another five tips to more
productivity email that you delete
308
00:15:49,438 --> 00:15:50,447
before you finish your coffee.
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00:15:50,638 --> 00:15:54,873
Every issue is a mindset shift, it's a
habit upgrade, and it's all filled in
310
00:15:54,873 --> 00:15:57,986
with that dose of rebellion that you love
and enjoy from this whiskered fellow.
311
00:15:58,247 --> 00:16:01,995
And they're all designed specifically
for people like you, aspiring folks that
312
00:16:01,995 --> 00:16:05,925
wanna do better, wanna be better, who
want to build something but quiteâ¦
313
00:16:06,125 --> 00:16:07,734
can't quite pull that trigger yet.
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00:16:07,743 --> 00:16:10,508
Each week I'm gonna hand
you a mirror and a shovel.
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00:16:10,664 --> 00:16:13,873
And if you like that idea, go ahead
and head on over to yoursuccessdna.com
316
00:16:14,169 --> 00:16:17,108
because the world doesn't need
another person who almost did it.
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00:16:17,212 --> 00:16:17,456
Okay?
318
00:16:17,516 --> 00:16:21,325
So now let's, let's zoom out for a second,
and I wanna give you the whiskered wisdom
319
00:16:21,325 --> 00:16:22,699
I want you to walk away with today.
320
00:16:22,882 --> 00:16:24,290
You don't need more willpower.
321
00:16:24,464 --> 00:16:25,995
You need a better address.
322
00:16:26,038 --> 00:16:29,586
Every habit you've ever quit
didn't fail because you're weak,
323
00:16:29,716 --> 00:16:31,047
didn't fail because you're broken.
324
00:16:31,186 --> 00:16:33,308
It failed because it didn't have a home.
325
00:16:33,403 --> 00:16:37,586
It was floating out there in the
ether, in the open, exposed to every
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00:16:37,586 --> 00:16:41,969
bad day, and every distraction, and
every moment that your motivation
327
00:16:41,977 --> 00:16:44,395
dipped below the standard line, right?
328
00:16:44,543 --> 00:16:47,125
Habit stacking gives
your new behavior a home.
329
00:16:47,256 --> 00:16:50,647
It moves in next door to something
your brain already trusts,
330
00:16:50,769 --> 00:16:52,377
and that changes everything.
331
00:16:52,621 --> 00:16:55,346
You don't need more willpower
You need a better address.
332
00:16:55,503 --> 00:16:57,050
Habit stacking isn't a shortcut.
333
00:16:57,172 --> 00:17:00,372
It's the science your motivation
really never told you about.
334
00:17:00,468 --> 00:17:01,494
So here's your one action.
335
00:17:01,503 --> 00:17:04,894
Do this today, not tomorrow,
not next week, today.
336
00:17:05,068 --> 00:17:08,242
Grab yourself a piece of paper or open
up the Notes app on your phone right now
337
00:17:08,329 --> 00:17:11,929
and write down three things you do every
single day without even thinking about it.
338
00:17:12,129 --> 00:17:14,963
Maybe it's your morning coffee, maybe
it's brushing your teeth, maybe it
339
00:17:14,963 --> 00:17:16,824
could just be sitting down at your desk.
340
00:17:16,972 --> 00:17:18,016
Just three anchors.
341
00:17:18,181 --> 00:17:23,624
And then pick one, just one, and write
next to it the single smallest version of
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00:17:23,624 --> 00:17:25,068
a habit that you've been trying to build.
343
00:17:25,242 --> 00:17:29,329
Maybe it's two pushups, write one
paragraph, take three deep breaths,
344
00:17:29,372 --> 00:17:30,859
write one sentence in a journal.
345
00:17:30,859 --> 00:17:34,198
Whatever it is, write the smallest version
of that new habit you're trying to build.
346
00:17:34,259 --> 00:17:34,737
That's it.
347
00:17:34,929 --> 00:17:36,294
That's your whole stack right there.
348
00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:40,389
Start that tomorrow morning, and then
do not add another one for how long?
349
00:17:40,668 --> 00:17:42,268
That's right, 66 days.
350
00:17:42,398 --> 00:17:44,476
That's not a challenge,
that's a prescription.
351
00:17:44,581 --> 00:17:44,946
Okay?
352
00:17:45,137 --> 00:17:45,598
Uh, all right.
353
00:17:45,607 --> 00:17:46,798
So let's, let's bring this all home.
354
00:17:47,007 --> 00:17:50,146
Today, we cracked open the real reason
your habits have been dying on the
355
00:17:50,146 --> 00:17:52,468
vine, and it's not you, it's the method.
356
00:17:52,685 --> 00:17:56,103
Willpower is a finite resource,
and you've just been spending
357
00:17:56,103 --> 00:17:57,433
it like it was unlimited, right?
358
00:17:57,433 --> 00:17:58,876
What happens when you do
that with your bank account?
359
00:17:59,016 --> 00:17:59,685
Yeah, right.
360
00:17:59,789 --> 00:18:00,859
Checks bouncing everywhere.
361
00:18:01,085 --> 00:18:04,485
But now you know better, and you've got
the science, and you know how to stack.
362
00:18:04,572 --> 00:18:07,563
One anchor, one tiny behavior, 66 days.
363
00:18:07,685 --> 00:18:09,763
That, my friends, is the
entirety of the game.
364
00:18:09,946 --> 00:18:12,537
Remember, identity doesn't
come before action.
365
00:18:12,694 --> 00:18:14,650
Identity follows action.
366
00:18:14,850 --> 00:18:17,642
You don't become the person
first and then do the thing.
367
00:18:17,789 --> 00:18:22,129
You do the thing consistently, quietly,
even when no one's watching, and
368
00:18:22,129 --> 00:18:26,163
then one day you're gonna look up
and realize you already became the
369
00:18:26,163 --> 00:18:27,494
person you were hoping to become.
370
00:18:27,703 --> 00:18:29,572
So stop waiting to feel ready.
371
00:18:29,746 --> 00:18:31,311
Stop waiting for the perfect moment.
372
00:18:31,459 --> 00:18:32,807
The coffee is already brewing.
373
00:18:32,955 --> 00:18:34,303
The anchor is already there.
374
00:18:34,346 --> 00:18:36,424
All you have to do now is show up.
375
00:18:36,633 --> 00:18:39,772
And if this episode lit something
up inside of you, maybe go ahead
376
00:18:39,772 --> 00:18:42,929
and share it with someone else who's
been getting ready for way too long.
377
00:18:43,207 --> 00:18:45,711
They need this maybe
more than you know, okay?
378
00:18:45,746 --> 00:18:48,537
And as always, think
successfully and take action.
