The Habits That Matter Now (Not the Ones You’re Tired of Hearing)

This time of year is terrible for habit overload. Everywhere you turn, someone's telling you: wake up earlier, journal longer, optimize harder. Basically, your morning routines start to feel like a boot camp or a full-time job rather than something that supports you.

If you've tried to be more disciplined and it just hasn't stuck, don't worry. You're not broken. In this blog, it's all about adding the right habits and choosing habits that actually fit your life now, not you a few years ago, a few years from now, or in a different situation.

I want to make sure that any habit you bring in actually helps you feel better, have more clarity, or feel more supported, rather than one that stresses you out or adds more pressure. Positive habits are there to help you create better behaviours for yourself, a better way of living, and to move from something being just a habit to actually part of your lifestyle that you can maintain over time.

My Habit Journey

I'll be honest, I’ve had plenty of great habits when I was younger. I also had many bad habits. It was easier to have good habits when I didn't have kids, especially young kids, and I could sleep through the night, and my time was more open.

Now that my kids are getting older (they're 11 and 14), there's this shift for me. I don't want to do all this habit stacking and pushing with habits. I want the habits that are actually going to help me now.

The Problem with Copy-and-Paste Habits

You've probably seen this time of year so many people telling you what to do or what habits to bring in:

• Eat more protein
• Move your body more
• Write down your gratitude
• Drink 10 glasses of water
• Read this… do that!!!

These copy-and-paste habits or routines will often fail because the context of the habit and who they're for is more important than having the hype or fad habits. What works for someone else may be entirely wrong for you.

Especially us women, at different stages in our lives, there will be different habits that are more important. When I was younger, there was a lot of ability to push my body physically and do exercises that really stressed my body. But now that I've come into a different age (a little bit of perimenopause), my body doesn't want to be stressed, and all that's going to do is spike my cortisol.

Comparison to other people will create guilt, not the consistency that you're wanting.

When you borrow someone else's routine, someone else's habits, you're often borrowing or adopting their expectations too, which might not fit your lifestyle or who you are.

Different Seasons Require Different Habits

Different seasons of your life require different habits. A habit that worked five years ago might not work for you today, and instead, it might drain you.

Rather than having habits that don't fit your life, we want to pick habits that are easy to maintain. A habit that doesn't fit your life will always be difficult to maintain, and we're going for consistency.

The Danger of Habit Stacking

Habit stacking is when you do one habit on another habit on another habit. I used to do this with the Miracle Morning, where they have something called SAVERS: Silence, Affirmation, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, and Scribing (writing).

Adding more habits or stacking them together doesn’t automatically lead to more success. Often, it quietly turns into pressure. When there’s a specific order, a set amount of time, and an expectation to “do it all,” one disruption can derail the whole plan. Instead of building momentum, habit stacking can end up fueling self-criticism and judgment.

When you miss one habit, even though you did nine out of ten, you might suddenly feel like the whole day is a failure, or that you didn't start your day right, or that you can't follow through.

When Habit Stacking Can Work

The Miracle Morning suggests ten minutes for each of six activities (for a total of one hour). Sometimes that's doable for some people. For me, my morning is often getting the kids ready, then getting myself ready, then starting work. I don't necessarily have the time or desire to do that many things.

What I'm doing now is doing a couple of things for longer, and therefore, in my case, better.

When I used to do the Miracle Morning, though, I would cut it short if I was short on time. If you've lost half your time, do five minutes each (30 minutes total). Some days, I only did one minute of each thing (six minutes total). There wasn't always that pressure to do all six things for ten minutes. I was able to adapt it based on my day.

Better Ways to Stack Habits

Another way habit stacking can work is by pairing or connecting things. What if, when you wanted to start doing more squats per day, as you brushed your teeth, you were also squatting? Brushing teeth and squatting, brushing teeth and squatting.

What if you wanted to practice gratitude and used voice-to-text as you made your coffee?

Instead of stacking habits, try matching a new habit to something you already do well. Anchor it to an existing positive routine. ​

For me, I’ve joined a “read the Bible in a year” group and chose to listen to the narration and scripture while getting ready in the morning. I only do it when I can actually pay attention, and not for the entire time, because reflection matters just as much as listening.

Common Signs You're Taking On Too Many Habits

• Your routine feels too stressful
• There are too many pieces you miss some
• You feel behind before the day has even started
• You keep restarting

Gentle truth: If your habits drain you, they're not supportive. Even good habits stop being good if they drain you. If something is costing more energy than it gives back, it’s not serving you. Only commit to what you can realistically sustain, and often that means reducing your commitment, not pushing harder.

Habits That Support Your Capacity

You might be able to relate to not having the bandwidth or the capacity for something. After my father died, I heard that grief can kill your capacity and your bandwidth. I was like, "Ah, that makes so much sense as to why I can't do all the things I normally do."

Rather than focusing on output, let's focus on capacity because we focus far too much on productivity (what are we doing, doing, doing) and not enough on sustainability.

Habits That Restore Energy

1. Create sleep boundaries: Rather than checking emails or messages on your phone right before bed, remove that. Set boundaries for when you turn your phone off, when you stop working, and when you start going to sleep. Also, that might mean no exercising before bed (for me, I'm too wired).
2. Walking without multitasking: I used to walk while listening to a podcast at a fast pace. What if you didn't walk with anything in your ears just to have that mental break? Or what if you decided to walk more slowly to not ramp up your nervous system or cortisol, and just have a restful time?
3. Eat to stabilize your energy: Instead of being so strict or focused on eating habits, just eat to stabilize your energy.

Habits That Simplify Decisions

1. Morning prep: Here’s what I do - Set out clothes the night before, and batch food in advance for breakfasts. Making fewer decisions in the morning is better.
2. Weekly planning: Rather than every single day trying to decide what's going to happen, plan it all out at the start of the week, and only include things you're 100% going to do. Anything else you do is a bonus.

For example, I was just working with a new client to bring more movement into her life. She wanted to start yoga again. Rather than saying, "I'm going to go to yoga every single day or five days a week," I said, "How many could you 100% do?" She said two. The result? One week she did three; the other week she did four. She was able to go beyond what she had committed to.

Habits That Protect Your Focus

One task at a time: I like to use Toggl to tell it what I'm doing: replying to emails, writing the event description. Then I only focus on that. I actually did a video about the Pomodoro technique.

That helps reduce the noise and interruptions in my mind because I'm just focusing on that one task. Also using Brain.fm (binaural beats) helps me focus even better. Adding that in doesn't actually take any more time or energy, but it gives it back to me.

Key reminder: Output is going to follow your capacity, not willpower.

Seasonal Habits: Picking Your Habits for the Season

There are life seasons and business seasons. In a previous post, I talked about momentum seasons and maintenance seasons.

Momentum seasons: Growth season is when the business is growing. An energetic season is where you have a lot of energy, creativity, and gumption. A supportive season is where you have other people supporting you. Times when the stars are aligned. That's when you can bring on more habits and have more capacity and output.

Maintenance seasons: Maybe when you're a parent, perhaps when you're healing or someone else is healing, or you're recovering, or you're ill, or there's been a terrible diagnosis, grief, or whatever it may be. This is a time to level out and just do the things that have to be done, or maybe do some things behind the scenes, rather than pushing, rather than lots of output, because your capacity and bandwidth are smaller.

Your habits should reflect those two different times. You're not going to attempt to run a marathon during maintenance season. You're probably not going to launch a new business during maintenance season.

You have permission to evolve. You're allowed to change your habits as your life changes.

Ask yourself:

• What season am I actually in right now?
• Do I have high capacity? Low capacity?
• Is it momentum season? Maintenance season?

That's going to help you really decide how many habits you can have or how many you need to cut.

Choose Fewer Habits, But Better Habits

Maybe there's just one to three meaningful habits that you could have, and that would have so much more power than doing ten of them poorly. Pick habits that quietly support everything else.

Ask yourself: What habit would make everything else easier?

It could be going to bed earlier. An earlier bedtime might help you more with focus and energy than a long morning routine.

Weekly planning instead of daily overwhelm. When you plan once, you stop negotiating with yourself every single morning because it's already decided.

Maybe it's having support systems instead of pushing harder to multitask. Rather than saying "I'm going to do it all myself," you get help with the things you need.

Fewer commitments in your life could be the thing that beats better time management. If you learn to just say no more, you wouldn't need habits to manage your time.

Fewer habits that support your energy will always outperform the habits that demand it.

You don't need more motivation, more willpower, or more discipline. You just need the right fuel in the first place. Wouldn't that be much easier?

A Small Example: Coffee and Anxiety

Sometimes I get anxiety. I could add in all these breathing activities, more walks, and putting my legs up against the wall. But one small thing I did is this: I heard that if you drink coffee on an empty stomach, it can cause anxiety. So now I eat my breakfast first, have a herbal tea or water with it, and then have my coffee after breakfast.

Sometimes it's just switching things around rather than adding a bunch of habits. Because if I'm adding in breathwork, legs-up-the-wall, tapping, or other habits, that's going to take me 5 to 10, 15, or 20 minutes a day, rather than just changing when I drink my coffee.

(Important note: I'm not saying don't meditate. I'm not saying don't do things for your nervous system or to calm you or for your anxiety. Please do the things. I'm just trying to show you how you can change something small, some small habit, rather than adding on a whole bunch of other ones.)

The Goal

The goal isn't to have this perfect routine where every area of our life has the best habits. It's more about picking and choosing to build sustainable habits. Less can actually move you forward faster.

Wrap Up

The best habits are the ones that fit your real life, the ones you're actually going to do. As you evolve as a business owner, a leader, and a high achiever, your habits should evolve with you. Makes sense, doesn't it?

You don't need more discipline; you just need alignment. Choose the right habits, or delete the ones that don't fit into your life right now. Choose habits for the life and season you're in right now.

Your Challenge

Here's a little challenge for you, or an invitation: Take one habit off your plate this week that is not serving you, and just notice how it feels. Maybe it feels a lot better.

Choose habits that support you now; choose habits that support who you are becoming. These are the habits that matter now.

Until next time, stay dynamic!