3 powerful techniques to make exercise your new habit
Have you ever tried to start an exercising habit but it never seemed to last? If so, read along.
The Oxford Dictionary defines exercise as an “activity requiring physical effort, carried out to sustain or improve health and fitness.” That sounds easy enough right? But people still find that starting to exercise or being consistent with exercise, are both very difficult things to do. And it’s not that the exercise itself is the hard part, the hard part is building the habit of exercising.
To build the habit of exercising, and make it something that you can’t avoid, you must first understand how to habits are formed in the first place.
Today I’m going to show you 3 simple, yet powerful techniques we use in our Lower Back Program (link) to make exercising your new habit.
1. Stacking a new habit on top of an already-formed habit
Most of our daily life is made up of the habits we already perform.
If you can identify the habits that you already do automatically, you can stack the habit of exercising on top of that - this is known as Habit Stacking. I first came across this technique in James Clear’s Atomic Habits.
Clear states that the more you perform an action, the stronger and more efficient the neural connections in your brain become, allowing you to perform these tasks with far less effort. Because these habits have such strong connections in your brain you can take advantage of that to build new habits. I bet if I gave you one minute you could think of some habits you take for granted each day. These tasks that you take for granted, the tasks that sometimes you don’t even know you’re doing, are the tasks you should be stacking exercising on top of.
Once you know what you already do it’s easy to pair your new habit (exercise) with an already established habit, you just need to use this formula:
After/before (CURRENT HABIT), I will (NEW HABIT).
The key to starting a new habit is to identify current habits that make up your day. Once you do that, stacking your exercise on top of already established neural pathways is the easiest way to make it stick.
2. Break down your new habit into smaller, more actionable steps
The hardest thing about any task that we know we should be doing is starting.
Some mornings the idea of exercise can seem overwhelming, but putting on my running clothes seems far more manageable. That’s because the actual action of doing the exercise takes time. So the next step after habit stacking exercise onto an already established habit is to break the action of exercise down into smaller steps so it’s easy to get started.
My example of running vs putting on my running clothes exemplifies this perfectly. Running is a big mountain to climb. But by breaking down my running habit into a more actionable step of just getting dressed I have removed the friction of getting started, making it easier to just show up. Then I continue breaking down the task so I’m left with small 2-minute (less is best) steps that I can easily complete.
These smaller steps can be chained together to create larger Habit Stacks. This is a super effective way to take advantage of the natural kick that comes from completing a task. So instead of the mountain-like task of “going for a run”, I now have:
After I wake up (CURRENT HABIT), I will put on my running clothes (NEW HABIT)
After I put on my running clothes, I will put on my socks and shoes
After I put on my socks and shoes, I will start stretching …
You get the point. After completing 3-4 of these smaller tasks, I have suddenly built momentum and now going for a run seems a lot more manageable.
In the end, a habit is only a habit when you consistently show up. If you can break down the action of doing exercise into smaller steps, you are far more likely to do it.
3. Prepare your environment to cue your new habit
Most people will think that building better exercise habits is all about willpower and motivation. In reality, it is more about how you set up your environment.
Every habit is initiated by a cue. Something that makes the brain decide it’s time to start an activity. If you can make the cue stand out you are more likely to perform the task.
It is easy for me to sit on the couch and watch TV when modern houses are built with a lounge room in a central location. It is not easy to go for that run I said I would if my running clothes are hiding in the cupboard. When the cue that kickstarts a habit is hidden, habits are easy to ignore. But you don’t have to be a victim of your environment, you can shape it so your environment cues you to perform better habits.
If I want to go for a run instead of watching TV, I can put the remote away from the TV, while also putting out all my running clothes in a central spot in the house so I can’t avoid them. This will simultaneously make it harder for me to watch TV while also cueing my running habit.
This also applies to other good habits:
Want to drink more water, always keep a water bottle at your desk
Want to eat more fruit, keep a fruit bowl on your kitchen bench. (To multiply this habit, you can remove all other junk food from your house - this will force you to eat fruit instead).
Want to remember to do your rehab exercises, set up your yoga mat before you go to work so you see it as soon as you get home.
If you want to make exercise a habit, make the cue a big part of your environment.
Humans are wired to choose the path of least resistance. Exercise doesn’t have to be a mountain-sized task that requires all your willpower or extreme amounts of motivation to complete.
We use these 3 simple strategies in our Lower Back Program to help people make exercise something they can’t avoid, and you can too.
As always, if you have any questions about forming new habits please feel free to get in touch with us.
