SDH 433: Building Effective Habits with Amanda Boleyn

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Hey, friend welcome back to another episode of the podcast. If you’re new around here or if this is the first time you’re tuning in, welcome! I’m so grateful you found this podcast and are deciding to hang out with me, my guests, and the other listeners in spirit. If you’re a long-time listener then you know we like to get down to business and focus on the personal development side of building a business and layering in the tactical side as well. It is a pleasure and an honor to be here with you today.

This month on the podcast and inside of Elevate University we’re focusing on unstoppable goals. Part of creating and achieving any goal that you desire is heavily influenced by not only the activities you do on a daily basis to achieve those goals but it is about the systems and habits you have in place so that it makes it easier and more automatic for you to achieve them.

“We do not rise to the level of our goals. We fall to the level of our systems.” James Clear

In the book Atomic Habits, James Clear outlines that winners and losers can have the same goals whether you are an olympian, business owner, weight loss, investment goal, savings goal...so we can all have the same goal but the question is why do some reach their goals while others do not. And the answer is rooted in their systems they set up to help reach their goals.

By creating and focusing on a system you no longer put your entire focus on the goal, the outcome. It allows you to detach and focus on the system and daily habits that produce the outcome.

As shared in last week’s episode, Being List, we want to focus on building identity-based habits, so the focus is on who we wish to become that drives our actions and produces a result rather than trying to change the habit first.

It is hard to change habits if you never change the underlying beliefs that led to your past behavior. True behavior change is identity change, with who you are being. Good habits can make rational sense, but if they are in conflict with your identity it is going to be hard to change.

In today’s episode, I want to talk to you about:

Habit Stacking
Forgetting About Motivation and Instead Focus on Your Environment
Eliminating Bad Habits

Many people think they lack motivation when it comes to taking action because they don’t feel motivated but what they really lack is clarity. Because when you think to yourself “I want to be more productive today,” your brain can’t actually understand or see what “being productive actually means,” and because it can see it, it is hard to feel motivated.

Habit stacking:

What is a habit and what is habit stacking? A habit is a cue, routine, reward. A simple example of this might be...waking up is your cue, your routine is brew coffee and your reward is that you get to sip that coffee. Identifying the cue is important to understanding your habits as we’ll discuss later in this episode. They are the key to cultivating new habits and breaking said bad ones that you want to break.
- A cue is a trigger that tells your brain to go into automatic mode and which habit to use. Then the routine; which can be physical, mental, or emotional. The reward helps your brain figure out if this particular loop is worth remembering for the future. This is how you get caught in thought loops that you know are not good for you but your brain has associated pleasure with it.
For example:
- A cue could be that you see your gym shoes and clothes in the morning which then your routine is to workout and your reward is a smoothie.
- Maybe your cue is waking up in the morning, the routine is to brew coffee and the reward is to drink coffee and experience the caffeine.
Here’s where habit stacking comes in….because no behavior happens in isolation each action we do becomes a cue that triggers the next behavior. When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One way to build a new habit is to identify one that you’re already doing and then stack a new habit on top.
- Continuing with the coffee cue...let’s say you want to drink more water when you wake up. Now your cue becomes your water bottle next to your bed, your routine is to drink the water and your reward is that you get to brew coffee.
- Let’s say you want to incorporate a meditation practice. You buy a meditation cushion. You wake up and walk to wherever the cushion is, you get your cue (the cushion), your routine is to meditate for 5 minutes, the reward is that you drink the water, and because you drink your water, you then get the reward of brewing and drinking coffee.
Examples of habit stacking in life and business:
- Let’s say you stop working at 4:30 PM every day. Your cue is 4:30 PM, your routine is to clean your work area and your reward is to prep dinner.
- Maybe you want to cultivate a better evening routine. Your cue could be when it turns 8 PM, the routine is that you plug your phone in which then you take a bath or a shower. After cleaning up you brush your teeth and wash your face.
- Say you want to walk more….a cue might be you have a call on your calendar, instead of sitting, you walk during the call instead.
A couple of things to keep in mind...your trigger, your cue must be as specific as possible. For example, instead of saying, “I will meditate before brewing coffee,” be as specific as you can about where and how long will you meditate for. Again, your brain loves specificity.

Forget Motivation, Your Environment Matters More:

A really great example that I’ve shared previously on the show is about the time when I worked at Target after college graduation. I worked as an Executive Team Leader in one of the super-Targets in West Des Moines, Iowa. It was there that I learned that the dollar spot you see at the front of the store was there for more than driving sales, it was to actually get people in the buying habit. Because it is at the front of the store, you cannot miss it when you walk in. Target created an environment that satisfied their business needs and gets you the shopper to slow down, to get you in the buying habit.
The most powerful of all human sensory abilities is vision. The human body has about 11 million sensory receptors. About ten million of those are dedicated to sight. Given that we are more dependent on vision than on any other sense, it should come as no surprise that visual cues are the greatest catalyst of our behavior. For this reason, a small change in what you see can lead to a big shift in what you do. As a result, it is important to live and work in environments that are filled with productive cues and devoid of unproductive ones. Here you get to be an architect of your environment.
Everything in your environment (physical and digital) are cues. If you have clothes that are tucked away and unseen, it will be harder for you to be inspired to wear them than one that is hanging and is visible. It is not easy to take vitamins daily when they are hidden behind spices in your cupboard.
Here are a few ways to redesign your environment and make cues for preferred habits…
- If you want to remember to take your daily vitamins set them out somewhere where you’ll see them...maybe next to your coffee or smoothie supplies.
- If you want to mail a package, put it out on your kitchen table so you don’t forget to send it.
- If you know that following certain influencers on Instagram or social media prompts you to spend more money, maybe you simply unfollow or mute them. I’ve certainly done that. During Thanksgiving and Black Friday/Cyber Monday, I avoided Instagram and social media because I didn’t want to be tempted to buy something that I probably didn’t really need.
- Install Facebook Newsfeed Eradicator so that when you log onto Facebook via your computer, you’re not presented with a newsfeed that could potentially distract you and zap your time and energy.
- Lay your workout clothes, or the clothes you’re going to wear for the next day, out the night before. Not only is it a cue, but you save time and energy thinking about what you’re going to wear.
- Remove notifications from your phone so that you become less distracted and reactive to a post and only check your phone at designated times.
- Set a time limit for how long you can be on apps on your phone.
- Use “Inbox Pause” so that you can be in your email but not distracted by new and incoming emails.
- Refrain from purchasing so-called “junk food” if you’re focused on being healthy

Self-Control and Eliminating Bad Habits:

Reduce exposure to the cue that it causes and/or make it difficult for you to fulfill that routine of the habit.
For example, if seeing your phone becomes a cue to pick it up and scroll social media, then move the phone somewhere where it is out of sight.
If you find yourself endlessly reading blogs, news outlets that either triggers you or take up way too much time, install an app that blocks you from visiting those sites.
If you’re spending money on clothes you don’t really need that you don’t really wear, find ways to not even expose yourself to the possibility of buying them.
Maybe you find that if you physically go to the grocery store you end up buying more than what is on your list, you instead pay the extra delivery fee and tip to order them online so you’re not tempted to spend more.
If you find yourself wanting to reduce the amount of reality tv you watch, make it so that every time you go to watch it, you have to reinstall the app on the phone, making it laborious and annoying so you can create a different emotional meaning to it.

Rather than making a cue obvious, make it invisible. Spend less time in tempting situations. Reduce exposure to a bad habit.

You can also use what is called temptation bundling to incorporate things that you may not want to do. For example, while your coffee is brewing you can unload the dishwasher...so you associate something that you gain benefit from with something that you don’t entirely desire to do.

Create systems and structures that reduce the number of options and distractions so that you can focus on the habits that help you achieve your goals.

As we wrap up today’s episode, I encourage you to grab a piece of paper and write down, cue, routine, reward. Start to identify your own habits and routines so that you can consciously decide which ones to keep, which ones to eliminate, and which ones to stack. I’d love to hear about your habits on Instagram. Tag us (@SheDidItHerWay) and share your habits and routines with us.

Next week we’re talking all things elimination to create physical and mental space in your world to make way for your high-yield habits, who you’re becoming and more so stay tuned.

Until next time, keep doing it your way!

Insights:

“Many people think they lack motivation when it comes to taking action because they don’t feel motivated but what they really lack is clarity.”
“The human body has about 11 million sensory receptors. About ten million of those are dedicated to sight.”
“If you find yourself wanting to reduce the amount of reality tv you watch, make it so that every time you go to watch it, you have to reinstall the app on the phone, making it laborious and annoying so you can create a different emotional meaning to it.”
“Create systems and structures that reduce the number of options and distractions so that you can focus on the habits that help you achieve your goals.”