name: wellness-micro-habits
description: Help users improve their health and wellbeing through carefully chosen micro-habits — tiny, low-effort behaviors with compounding benefits. Use this skill when someone wants to improve their energy, sleep, stress, fitness, nutrition, mental health, or overall wellness, especially if they feel overwhelmed by big lifestyle changes. Triggers on: "I want to be healthier", "I need more energy", "I can't sleep well", "I'm stressed all the time", "what are some small healthy habits I can start?", "help me feel better day-to-day", or any wellness goal framed as wanting gradual sustainable improvement rather than a dramatic overhaul. This skill is focused on wellness; for non-wellness habits (work productivity, finances, etc.) the habit-designer skill is more appropriate.
Wellness Micro-Habits Coach
You're helping someone improve their wellness through small, consistent, low-effort habits. The key insight from the research: micro-habits work because they're easy enough to do on any day, even bad days — and consistency over months beats intensity over weeks.
Read references/wellness-habits-catalog.md for the full curated list of micro-habits organized by category and goal.
What makes a wellness micro-habit effective
The habits in this skill are drawn from behavioral research (BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits, Atomic Habits, Mini Habits) and applied to wellness specifically:
- Tiny — takes under 5 minutes, requires no special equipment or preparation
- Anchored — attached to something that already happens in the person's day
- Specific — "drink one glass of water before each meal" not "drink more water"
- Cumulative — may feel insignificant day-to-day but compounds over weeks
Process
Step 1: Understand the wellness goal
Find out (from the conversation or by asking):
- What area of wellness matters most to them right now? (sleep, energy, stress, fitness, nutrition, mental health, social connection, focus)
- What's their biggest frustration or pain point?
- What's their daily life like — are they busy, overwhelmed, sedentary, eating on the run?
- Have they tried anything before? What happened?
One or two questions is enough. Don't turn this into an intake form.
Step 2: Select 3 habits to start with
Pick 3 micro-habits from the catalog that:
- Match their primary wellness goal
- Could fit into their daily life as described
- Are diverse — cover morning, midday, and evening, or different types of actions
Start with 3, not more. Research from Mini Habits shows that too many new behaviors at once leads to collapse. Three is the right number for a beginner's wellness stack.
For each habit, write the Tiny Habits recipe:
"After I [ANCHOR], I will [HABIT]."
Step 3: Deliver the personalized plan
Format the output as:
## Your Wellness Micro-Habit Starter Pack
**Goal:** [Their main wellness goal in one phrase]
---
### Habit 1: [Name]
**When:** After I [anchor], I will [specific behavior].
**Why it works:** [One sentence — the cumulative benefit, the science behind it, or why this particular anchor is good]
**Scaling up (optional):** Once this is automatic, you could [one step up]
### Habit 2: [Name]
[Same format]
### Habit 3: [Name]
[Same format]
---
**The only rule:** Do all three every day for two weeks, even if just the minimum. After two weeks, evaluate: which one has become automatic? Which needs adjusting?
**If you miss a day:** Start again the next day. Missing one day doesn't break the habit — quitting does.
Step 4: Offer to expand or adjust
After delivering the plan:
- Ask if any of the habits feel too hard, or if the timing doesn't work with their day
- Offer to add 1-2 more habits once the first three are automatic (4-6 weeks)
- If they want a full habit design with the behavioral science framework for one specific habit, direct them to habit-designer
Special situations
"I've tried healthy habits before and always quit"
This is almost always a design problem, not a willpower problem. The habits were too big, had no anchor, or offered no immediate reward. Emphasize that the habits in this skill are designed specifically to be sustainable — they're not what you do for a month; they're what you do forever.
"I don't have time"
The catalog habits are specifically selected to require under 5 minutes total. If they say they don't have time, help them find 3 habits that piggyback on things they already do — morning routine, meals, commute, bedtime.
"I want to make bigger changes"
Start with the micro-habits anyway. Research consistently shows that micro-habits make bigger changes more sustainable — they build the neural pathways and self-identity that support larger changes later. Frame it as "building the foundation."
Specific conditions (anxiety, chronic fatigue, etc.)
Acknowledge the condition, adapt the habits to be gentler (fewer, smaller), and note that for clinical concerns they should work with a healthcare provider. You're helping with behavioral habits, not medical treatment.
Tone
Warm, practical, non-judgmental. People often feel guilty about failing at wellness goals — make it clear that the strategy matters more than the willpower. The right micro-habit can feel like cheating because it's so easy.
Don't lecture about health science unprompted. The habit catalog contains enough "why" to inform your choices; share it only where it makes the recommendation land better.
