The Power of Goal Stacking.

I am now averaging 80-90 hours of exercise every month, 3 hours per day and 1/8th of a typical month is spent working out. How have I done it and consistently showed up to the gym daily? The secret is goal stacking. My daily exercise routine includes shooting basketball, swimming, running, weightlifting, pickleball, and outdoor cycling. Thanks to the power of goal/habit stacking, here is a breakdown of my training stats from Strava:

2023 so far: 453 Hours | 1434.9 Kilometers covered | 140 personal best | 525 activities
January (| 31 DAYS | 83 Hours | 327 kilometers | 2 Personal Records | 119 Activities)
February ( 28 DAYS | 66 Hours | 191 Kilometers | 4 Personal Records | 91 Activities)
March ( 31 DAYS | 94 Hours | 223 kilometers | 1 Personal Records | 111 Activities)
April (30 DAYS | 90 Hours | 157 Kilometers | 1 Personal Records | 91 Activities)
May ( 31 DAYS | 48 Hours | 265 Kilometers | 62 Personal Records | 45 Activities)
June ( 30 DAYS | 72 Hours | 272 Kilometers | 70 Personal Records | 68 Activities)

If you notice, in May 2023, the number of hours I spent in the gym reduced; that is as a result of my participating in four full 42.2KM Marathons (Toronto, Ontario Marathon, Stewart McKelvey Fredericton Marathon, New Brunswick, Emera Blue Nose Marathon, Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the Servus Credit Union Calgary Marathon, Albert, Calgary) and I also broke 62 personal records in May (so proud of moi).

Goal Stacking involves achieving two goals at the same time. Here is how I goal-stack daily:

Shoot Basketball and listen to audiobooks (I average 2-3 books per week)
Swim and listen to French books (I average 7-10 hours of French study time in the pool)
Run and listen to podcasts ( I listen to one podcast daily – 365 Podcast Listening Challenge)
Weightlift and listen to audiobooks.
Cycling and listening to audiobooks/music.

The above image is my stat on Strava- 68 activities, 72 hours as of June 23rd. I can go to the gym as much as I do because I stack my goals. I chose two things I am committed to doing and show up daily to execute. There are days when I don’t want to go to the gym, but when I remember that swim time is French study time, I get motivated to go. At the beginning of the year, I set a goal to read 100+ books (100 Books Reading Challenge), and stacking my basketball shooting session with my audiobook listening time has made a lot of difference.

By stacking my goals, I have read more books, listened to more podcasts and deepened my French listening skills. As Greek philosopher Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do… therefore excellence is not an act, but a habit.”. I strongly believe that “We play the way we train,” and being at the gym daily is a great habit to cultivate. Consistently exercising is one of the great hacks for living a life of purpose.

When it comes to building new habits, you can use the connectedness of behavior to your advantage. One of the best ways to build a new habit is to identify a current habit you already do each day and then stack your new behavior on top. This is called habit stacking.¹

Habit stacking is a special form of an implementation intention. Rather than pairing your new habit with a particular time and location, you pair it with a current habit.

The habit stacking formula is:

“After [CURRENT HABIT], I will [NEW HABIT].

For Example:

Exercise. After I take off my work shoes, I will immediately change into my workout clothes.

Habits are like the atoms of our lives. Each one is a fundamental unit that contributes to your overall improvement. At first, these tiny routines seem insignificant, but soon they build on each other and fuel bigger wins that multiply to a degree that far outweighs the cost of their initial investment.

Meditations

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt – See, Hear, Feel
One way of pulling our attention into the present moment is by labelling our sensory experience – what we feel. See or hear. We take our problems with us no matter where we go unless we intentionally leave them at the shore.

“When I am silent, I fall into the place where everything is music.”. – Rumi

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Time Budget – Align your schedule with your values
When we want to spend money wisely, we create a budget. Money is a precious resource; it is essential to spend it intentionally. Time is more precious than money hence the need to create a time budget.
Step 1: Audit what you do in an entire week. Don’t change anything; make a record of your activities. The goal is to find patterns.
Step 2: Reflection – Go through the audit and categorize how you spend your time. Tally which categories are getting the most of your attention. The way you spend your time should reflect your values.
Step 3: Make Adjustments – Set healthy boundaries, limit social media use to a 30-minute window each day, carve out an hour to exercise and stick to it or no more candy crush ever again.
Use tools to enforce the adjustments, such as apps that limit screen time, alarms that remind us to exercise, and accountability partners.

Podcast

3 Effective Ways to Turn Your Life Around & Why Continuous Learning Is Necessary for Personal Growth with Novak Djokovic | On Purpose with Jay Shetty
Two types of mentors: Vani (Mentors that you learn from and you don’t meet e.g. reading books, podcasts, and documentaries) and Vapu (Mentors that you actually know and they know you, you usually meet with them).