Coaching practices for How to Prime Yourself for Good Habits

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Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

  • I keep meaning to start a good new habit
  • My bad habits run on autopilot but the good one I’m trying to build never feels automatic
  • I just landed in the new place and I keep telling myself I’ll start the good routines once I’ve settled in and unpacked
  • I can hold the intention to be a certain way in my head all morning, but the second I’m standing in the actual spot
  • Every time I commit to a new habit it’s all-or-nothing

Practices that may help

  1. Engineer cues for habits you want
    Place obvious, consistent triggers in your environment to start a desired routine.
    The Power of Habit, Made Practical
  2. Build a craving deliberately to cement a new habit
    Create an anticipatory craving for the reward of a new behavior before the reward arrives.
    The Habit Loop, Made Practical
  3. Install target behaviors in the new context from day one
    Begin the desired habit in the new environment before the new context develops its own competing cues.
    The Habit Discontinuity Effect
  4. Prime your identity with environmental cues
    Place objects, images, or phrases that represent your desired identity in the spaces where the relevant behavior happens.
    Identity Priming, Made Practical
  5. Apply PDSA to a behavior you want to build or break
    Treat habit formation as a series of small experiments rather than a commitment you either keep or blow.
    Plan–Do–Study–Act: Deming’s Loop for Personal Improvement
  6. Find your keystone habit — the one that cascades into others
    Identify a single habit whose consistency seems to lift other behaviors along with it.
    The Habit Loop, Made Practical
  7. Shrink the behavior until it’s tiny
    Scale the habit down to something you can do even on your worst, busiest day.
    Tiny Habits, Made Practical
  8. Apply foot-in-the-door to support positive behavior change
    A small initial behavior commitment is a proven bridge to larger, lasting change.
    The Foot-in-the-Door Technique, Made Practical
  9. Attach the habit to an anchor moment
    Use an existing routine as the prompt: “After I [anchor], I will [tiny behavior].”
    Tiny Habits, Made Practical
  10. Habit stacking
    Anchor a new habit to one you already do: “After [current habit], I will [new habit].”
    Atomic Habits, Made Practical

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