Ugggh, the other night, I totally blew it. I binged on chips, pretzels, cheese sticks *and* popcorn. I’ve been working on not snacking past dinner and going to bed on time.
I’m wanting to go to bed earlier and wake earlier. 10:30 bedtime, 11pm lights out and wake 6am instead of 7am. This will help me do more Bible reading and spend time with my wife Julie. I also don’t want to snack past dinner.
Do you know what you’re keystone habit is?
If you’re struggling with making a change, maybe it would help to figure out what you need to change/do to make it easier. If you find it, that is more likely your keystone habit. Or closer to it.
Charles Duhigg teaches about Keystone Habits in his book the Power of Habit. (Dialectic Behavior Therapy has a similar teaching on Behavior Chains).
A keystone habit is the habit that leads to other habits, like the first domino in a chain of dominos.
For some people exercise is their keystone habit: if they exercise, they feel better emotionally and mentally, they have more energy, they get more done, they make better eating choices, they sleep better.
Some people, their keystone habit is sleep. If they sleep better, they wake up on time to exercise, meal prep, read their Bible, feel better and more present, have less stress, better mood, etc.
And for others, stress management and self-care is their keystone habit because their sleep is a symptom or outcome of how well or poorly they are doing with sleep and healthy eating and time management to get to the gym or bed on time.
Do you know what you’re keystone habit is?
If you’re struggling with making a change, maybe it would help to figure out what you need to change/do to make it easier.
If you find it, that is more likely your keystone habit. Or closer to it.
Here’s a summary of The Power of Habit book:
A picture of a behavior chain from Nina Barlevy, Psy.D.:
A related video from Charles Duhigg on How to Break Habits:
