They say that great things start from small beginnings.

Humans are creatures of habit. You may not notice it but you’ve been doing tons of things simply because you’ve gotten used to doing it. Because of repetition, we tend to remember these habits and for us to succeed in life, we need to learn new and better ones.

The key to successfully create new habits is by utilizing a technique called “Habit Stacking”.

To better understand how this works, here’s an example.

Whenever the new year comes, we all make resolutions; to eat healthier, exercise more, get rid of vices, sleep better, work smarter, and so on. However, a month later, how many of us actually stick with our new year’s resolutions? Probably only a handful. What’s the most common reason we stop? Some may say that it’s because the tasks are too overwhelming or that we’re not strong enough to follow through.

The bottom line is that most of us have a hard time developing new and better habits because we tend to do everything all at once. Consequently, our brain is “overwhelmed” and isn’t able to keep up with all the drastic changes.

Habit Stacking is a method of breaking down “complex” habits into smaller chunks that, at first glance, may not seem relevant to the overall habit you want to achieve; but you’re doing them anyway because these small acts eventually snowball into the habit you want to form.

Habit Stacking starts with an idea. What do you want to learn or what kind of habit do you want to form? Let’s say you’re a bit timid and you want to change that, you want to be more social. Of course, expecting yourself to become the life of the party overnight is a complete shot in the dark. Instead, what you can do is this:

If you want to be more social, you will start with a small, singular task. Whenever you attend parties, you will make it a habit to introduce yourself to someone you don’t know. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less. Just one task.

Of course, this is just an example, but as you can see, you’re breaking down your goal of becoming social, into small, doable chunks that you can act on immediately. This way, you’re compelled to move and do it without getting overwhelmed.

Eventually, with constant repetition, your mind will be conditioned enough, that introducing yourself during parties becomes automatic. You will no longer fret about doing it.

Overall, habit stacking allows you to create a set of simple rules that guide your future behavior. It’s like always having a game plan for which action you should do next.