Day 8: How to Hijack Your Existing Habits for Success
September Rentrée Series
🍂 Welcome to the September Rentrée! Every weekday this month, you'll get one bold, bite-sized piece to spark reflection, shift your habits, and help you design a life that feels good in real life. 1 month. 20 bold truths. A life-changing September. In France, la rentrée (the return) is a national event. It's about fresh routines, new ideas, and intentional renewal. And that's exactly the energy we're bringing here!
You already have 40+ habits running on autopilot every single day.
Making coffee. Brushing your teeth. Checking your phone (probably 58 times). Putting on your seatbelt. Locking the door.
You don't think about these. You just do them.
What if you could attach your new habits to these existing ones? Let them carry your new behaviors along for the ride?
Habit stacking: The laziest way to change your life
Here’s the formula:
After I [CURRENT HABIT]
I will [NEW TINY HABIT]
After I open my laptop, I will write 50 words.
After I pour my coffee, I will review today's priority.
After I finish a Zoom call, I will stand and stretch.
After I close Slack, I will take three deep breaths.
Your existing habit becomes the trigger.
No alarms. No reminders. No thinking required.
Why this works when willpower doesn't
Your brain is already running the "check email" program every morning without any effort. Adding "write one sentence" to that existing neural pathway? Simple.
But starting a brand new "morning writing routine" from scratch? Your brain treats that like learning calculus. In Mandarin. Underwater.
You're not building new highways in your brain. You're adding an exit ramp to the ones already there.
Here's how I accidentally became bilingual in my shower
I'm learning Spanish while working full-time, building a business, trying to keep a consistent gym schedule and pretending I have a social life.
I kept "meaning to practice." Downloaded Duolingo. Bought courses. Never touched them.
Then I found this audio method where you actually converse with Spanish dialogues. But when? My days are packed.
So I stacked it: "When I get in the shower, I start my Spanish lesson."
One month in? I think i could order food in a restaurant and ask for a medic.
Ok not quite bilingual yet. But not too bad from shower sessions while my conditioner sits.
And that’s not because I'm particularly disciplined. It’s because I'm strategic about being lazy.
The shower was already happening. I just gave it a job.
Because here’s the truth you need to admit to yourself:
You're never going to "find time" for new habits.
You're too busy. Too tired. Too human.
But you're already opening your emails. Already making coffee. Already hitting publish on posts.
These habits own real estate in your brain. They're not going anywhere.
So stop trying to build new habits from scratch. Start piggybacking on the ones that already run your life.
The best part? When you stack a tiny habit onto something you already do, you get to feel accomplished without the exhaustion of overhauling your entire life.
Do this today: Pick ONE habit you never skip (coffee, laptop, phone check). Add ONE tiny new habit after it. Make it so small it's almost insultingly small. Write it down: "After I [anchor], I will [new habit]."
Ask yourself: What do you do every single day without fail? What tiny change would transform your day if it happened automatically?
The payoff: Your current habits become trojan horses for transformation.
The person you want to become is hiding in the habits you already have.
With love,
Noemie
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