A keystone habit is your ultimate self-care habit.

A keystone is a wedge-shaped stone piece at the top of an arch. It locks all the other stones into position, allowing the span to bear weight.

Within the world of habits, a keystone habit is the habit that supports all of your other habits.

I like to use 3 criteria for my keystone habits.

1. A keystone habit is good for you.
2. A keystone habit should feel like a gift you give yourself.
3. A keystone habit is a habit that you do every day, at the same time, no matter what.

Let’s take a look at each one.

1) A keystone habit is good for you.

Let’s face it: not all our habits are good for us.

In fact, the reason we struggle is that we’ve unintentionally installed hundreds, if not thousands, of mindless habits.

What makes a keystone habit stand out from the rest is that we know that it is good for us.

2) A keystone habit should feel like a gift you give yourself.

There are a lot of habits that we know we should do.

However, they are not very motivating because, for whatever reason, they just don’t make us feel good.

What makes a keystone habit stand out is that we do it because it makes us feel good.

A keystone habit shouldn’t feel like a chore. It should feel like a gift given to our mind, body and heart. 

3) A keystone habit is a habit that you do every day, at the same time, no matter what.

The power of keystone habits is consistency.

A keystone habit is performed daily at the same time each day.

And if you happen to miss it, you go out of your way to complete it.

Must satisfy all 3 criteria.

The secret of keystone habits is that they satisfy all 3 criteria.

But habits are sneaky.

Some habits look like keystone habits, but they are actually kryptonite habits.

Habits like sugar, caffeine, junk food, texting on your phone, social media and binge-watching may satisfy the last two criteria, but they fail to satisfy the first.

Good candidates for keystone habits are meditation, stopping and breathing, reading, journalling, connecting with loved ones, exercising, walking, connecting with values and deep work.

My keystone habit happens to be meditation.

I meditate each and every day, first thing when I wake up in the morning, no matter what (currently on a 3,163-day streak).

As with any habit, when you first start, it doesn’t feel like a gift to yourself (the second criteria).

It took me about 2 weeks to settle into my meditation habit. 

At first, it was hard to stick with and I had doubts that it was really doing anything.

But at some point, things just clicked, and I felt myself saying, this is something that I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life.

Your keystone habit will lay the foundation for future habits because it’s a candidate for habit stacking.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves (we will cover habit stacking later).

To make any habit a keystone habit, tap to view any habit in the app and press the edit button at the top right corner of the screen.

You will find keystone under priority in the middle of the edit habit screen.

Until next time.