30 days to from a habit??? I doubt it

[Tim Brownson]

I just wanted to post this Blog and ask if anybody can shed anymore light on where the 21 or 30 day habit thing came from and if I am way off base here.

Cheers
Tim

I’ve had a similar conversation with about 4 different life coaching clients in the last month or so about breaking and/or changing habits. In fact it even triggered this post a few days ago. On each occasion the client believed that it took between 14 and 30 days to create a new habit. I’m not sure where this figure came from (I actually have The 7 Habits in the back of my mind for some reason but I could well be wrong on that, so don’t quote or sue me!) but I am fairly confident it’s incorrect and the real mark is 90 days+. If it were true it would be fairly easy for people to stick to diets, quit smoking, exercise regularly etc because most people could tough it out for less than a month and come out smiling at the other end with their shiny new behavior in place.

I know lots of people that have joined a gym and gone regularly for a few weeks before quitting and I also know lots of people that have started a healthy eating regime and its collapsed after a similar amount of time. As for smoking, well don’t get me going on that one, it seems every smoker I have ever spoken to has given up for short periods of time, usually about an hour 20 or so times per day.

So what’s the deal here?

Let me start by saying that we do need habits or rituals to help us in life. We spend a lot of time on auto-pilot (about 90% of our day) so the more good stuff that we do automatically the better. As a kid you were probably mercilessly beaten if you didn’t brush your teeth, right? Ok, maybe not beaten but certainly asked nicely to do it each morning and evening. Not many people are getting calls from their parents into their 30’s to make sure that they haven’t sneaked off to bed without cleaning their gnashers because it’s become a ritual well before then. If you are getting calls by the way, you may want to either change your phone number or hire a life coach. Or better still, do both.

Not that I’m suggesting fro one moment that it takes 30 years to build up a habit because that really would make going to the gym a problem. Just when you get it cracked it’s time for that hip replacement and you lose all momentum. What I am saying though, is plan for it to take 3 to 4 months because not only do you have to form a new pathway in your brain, but also the old pathway or habit has to atrophy through lack of use. Think of it like walking through a meadow of long grass. The first time you do it and glance back the grass has returned and you can barely see where you walked. By the 50th time though there is a clear pathway and the old route you used to take has started to grow over. Is this grounds for concern? Absolutely not, unless you have just been told that you have 30 days to live in which case you’re screwed, but then again you already knew that so apologies for my lack of tact.

There is something in sales called managing customer expectations and it is an excellent concept to map over to self-development. If you sell a product and tell a customer they will get delivery in 7 days and it takes 10 they will be unhappy and may even cancel. If you tell them it will take 14 days but you will do your best to improve on that and you get it to them in 10, you are a hero. The result is exactly the same but the way it is viewed is completely different. So with that logic in mind, if you tell yourself that you can develop a habit in 30 days and it doesn’t stick you will in all likelihood lose interest and quit. On the other hand, if you have told yourself it will take 120 days then you will be more likely to push through because you are focusing on getting to that mark. The good news is that if sticks sooner you are as happy as a cat with the key to the cream factory.

In my experience most of the people that fail with personal goals do so because they set themselves inflexible targets. Then when they don’t meet them they get disillusioned and inclined to quit. Often they will do this just as they are about to make a significant breakthrough and that is a real tragedy in my opinion. Of course I’m a life coach and I’d encourage you to set yourself stretching goals, but be prepared to adjust if and when you need to, that way you will insulate yourself against disappointment and self-retribution and be infinitely more likely to meet your expectations.

[Angela]

I think 30 days is a generous chunk of time to give yourself a new way of being to see if it works for you in creating a life you love. If you're trying something new that you suspect will be a positive change, 30 days is a commitment that's not so daunting that you would immediately rebel against it; you're giving yourself the option to let yourself out of the deal if it doesn't work for you. And it's a long enough period that you can see the benefits or lack of benefits clearly enough to make another choice at that point: is this worth pursuing as a deeper commitment, or would it be a wise choice to let go of this one and try something else?

If 90 days works for you, try 90 days. For me, 30 days just seems more manageable -- more of a free gift I give myself, and less of a burden. I'm sure the particular period that works will vary for the individual. For 12-steppers, it's one day!

[Tim Brownson]

Angela I think I did a terrible job of explaining what I meant!

I agree 100% about the entire overwhelm aspect because that can be a huge stumbling block in more ways than one. I'm not sure if you are familiar with NLP but I use submodalities to understand how clients view their goals and this can help them make a quantum shift pretty quickly. It is very possible to have long-term goals and still treat each day at a time and not get overwhelmed.

I'm just unsure of the actual physical time to make something become a habit or ritual in 30 days because with most people its still almost certainly at the conscious competence stage and to be a true habit it's got to be at the unconscious competence level.

We may be splitting hairs I'm not sure.

One thing I think is important though; if I give clients op-outs they usually take them. The best work usually comes when people are backed into a corner and feel (rightly or wrongly) that they have to make changes or suffer the long term consequences whether that is with health, a job they hate, or just life stuff.

[Kaspian]

I think it depends on the pattern you're trying to establish (or habit you're trying to break). For me, 30 days worked great for playing horn, writing, and getting up early every day. When I decided that I was not going to eat chocolate anymore, it took close to three months to not want to eat it when I saw it. For any behavior change that I'm not fully committed to, no amount of time seems to work.

[Jon Tweddle]

Originally Posted by Kaspian

I think it depends on the pattern you're trying to establish (or habit you're trying to break). For me, 30 days worked great for playing horn, writing, and getting up early every day. When I decided that I was not going to eat chocolate anymore, it took close to three months to not want to eat it when I saw it. For any behavior change that I'm not fully committed to, no amount of time seems to work.

Hi Kaspian

Do you still stick to the early rising?

I did it for 30 days (6am every morning without fail,) and as soon as the trial ended I slumped straight back to my usual routine.

I know that I can't expect the 30 day trial to do all the work, but I was suprised at how easy it was to get back in my old ways.

I think for me a 90 day trial would probably suit better, as I am a LAZY git!!

I have recently taken up playing the sax , so I'm going to start a 30 day trial of playing 5 times a week, hopefully this will become more of a habit than the 6am thing!


Cheers
Jon

[TheStrongerSelf]

Wellllll, i think it really depends on what you expect after 30 days. I too think forming a habit takes variable amounts of time, depending on the strength of old interfering habits and your desire to do it.

I much more see the 30 days timespan as the timespan it takes me to figure out if this is a habit i want to adapt and keep in the long run or if i should go another direction. For example, i have started to exercise daily about 45 days ago, but it still takes effort for me to get it started everyday. Is it a habit if it takes effort to begin doing it, but i still do it daily? If not, then i clearly missed the 30 days mark =) But 30 days was enough for me to figure out that it was good enough for me to keep doing it.

[GoalSettingCollege]

I guess it's not the duration that matters when it comes to keeping the habit. But what's the burning desire driving the forming of the habit. You may have tried a particular routine religiously for 21, 30 days or so, but if you're not really focused on the purpose of

Like rising early. What's the desire of doing so? So that you'll have more time in the wee hours of the morning to work on your website, generate additional income to maintain a lifestyle you've been hankering for. If you don't create this purpose, you'll easily find yourself lapsing back.

Probably the interesting part about the 30 days habit analogy is that while maintaining the routine, you actually go on to create this burning desire. For example, I've known friends who tried this habit on picking up jogging. In the end, he loved the activity so much in the process that he even signed up for marathons.

Cheers,
Ellesse

[Tim Brownson]

Originally Posted by TheStrongerSelf

Wellllll, i think it really depends on what you expect after 30 days. I too think forming a habit takes variable amounts of time, depending on the strength of old interfering habits and your desire to do it.

I much more see the 30 days timespan as the timespan it takes me to figure out if this is a habit i want to adapt and keep in the long run or if i should go another direction. For example, i have started to exercise daily about 45 days ago, but it still takes effort for me to get it started everyday. Is it a habit if it takes effort to begin doing it, but i still do it daily? If not, then i clearly missed the 30 days mark =) But 30 days was enough for me to figure out that it was good enough for me to keep doing it.

TSS, it shouldn't have anything to do with desire etc. If you still stuggle at 45 days then it's not a habit because you are thinking about it and that is exactly my point. If you had been doing this for 5 years it would be ingrained and part of your neurology as something you do, not something you have to do.

Think of habits or rituals that you do without even thinking about them at a conscious level, they are the holy grail of development in so much as that with persistance we can get almost anything to that level.

I'm doing a horrible job of explaining what I mean but it's no big deal

[TheStrongerSelf]

Ahh, i see what you mean. Thats a good definition of the word habit. I dont think there is a set amount of time it takes to form a new habit, but i said that in the other post anyways.

I had a bit of a problem with the definition of habit, so thanks for clearing that up =)

As for desire, i was talking about it affecting the amount of time it takes to form the new habit not it's role when the habit is already established, but... no idea if the mind has an easier (i.e. faster) time adapting a new habit if the desire to do so is bigger. I like to think it does =)

[Kaspian]

Originally Posted by Jon Tweddle

Hi Kaspian

Do you still stick to the early rising?

Yes. I have occasional mornings when I'll sleep in to 6 or 6:30, but that's about as late as it gets. Most mornings I'm up by 5am. Also, other than taking a month off while traveling, writing and playing horn daily have stayed consistent, too.

If you define a habit as something so ingrained that you don't have to think about it, none of mine are a habit; I still have to think about it and choose to act (including going to bed early). But, they stay because I recognize that doing them consistently adds value to my life and it makes me a happier person.

A thought about exercise: When I rock climbed 2-3 times per week, my body began to crave intense physical activity if I went more than 3-4 days without climbing, kayaking, or doing something else physical. (I stopped when an non-rock climbing injury made it too painful.) It was more comfortable to give my body what it wanted—a good workout—than to stay home and be immobile.

[Adrian]

I'm just unsure of the actual physical time to make something become a habit or ritual in 30 days because with most people its still almost certainly at the conscious competence stage and to be a true habit it's got to be at the unconscious competence level.

I think it depends on what the task is. The more physical or conscious the task has to be, the less "ingrained" it's going to be, no matter how many days you've done it.

Things like sleeping on a certain side of the bed, breathing, keeping your food from touching the other food on your plate at a potluck, those are all habits. They're such a part of you do you do it without consciously thinking about it. (Another would be living a vegan lifestyle. You don't think about not eating any animal products, it's on autopilot.)

However, some other things I don't think are true 'habits' than 'rituals' - just ways of living. Things like practicing a musical instrument for an hour daily, exercising, going out of your way to meet a new person every day, those things you need to keep in the front of your mind every day so they don't escape you. Those things aren't so much innate as they are "I have to remember to do this or else I won't get around to it today." That's why people end up scheduling times to exercise, etc.. If you don't make it an effort, it will not get done.

So to answer your question: in a nutshell, it just depends on what you're talking about and what you're trying to establish as a "habit".

Does that make sense?

[shivraj]

Dr Maxwell Maltz wrote the bestseller Psycho-Cybernetics.
Originally a Plastic Surgeon, Maltz noticed that it took
21 days for amputees to cease feeling phantom sensations
in the amputated limb. From further observations he found
it took 21 days to create a new habit. Since then the '21
Day Habit Theory' has become an accepted part of self-help
programs.
Brain circuits take engrams (memory traces), and produce
neuroconnections and neuropathways only if they are
bombarded for 21 days in a row. This means that our brain
does not accept ‘new’ data for a change of habit unless
it is repeated each day for 21 days (without missing a day).
the fact that the human mind takes almost exactly
21 days to adjust to a major life change, universally - whether
it's a negative like a loss of a limb or a loved one, a change
of employment or residence, or positive like entering into a
new romantic relationship.!!!

[nick pagan]

Angela mentioned one of the best things about the 30-day program, which is that if it doesn't feel good after time then you can give it up. Having the option to quit is important as there's no sense battling on without making changes when things clearly don't work.

Tom - you mention unconscious competence but I thought that was reserved for building new skills. Building a habit and building a skill are not always one and the same. For example, most people have unconscious competence at the skill of reading but choosing to read for an hour a day is a repetitive process - which forms a habit, not a skill.

Sometimes you need a habit in order to build a skill - such as learning to play the sax. Intensive learning at the early stages of building a skill helps to go through the transition from conscious incompetence through to unconscious competence in a time effective way and is more likely to engender sufficient accomplishment, skill building and pleasure that continuation will happen by default.

Building a habit and a skill simultaneously is probably the most difficult thing to do as it demands more of us.

If you attempt to build a habit and/or skill and after 30-days find yourself still struggling and unable to accept it as an on-going routine then you either ought to give up (because trends tend to continue and a miraculous turn around won't happen if you keep on doing the same thing) or else you have to rethink about reasons, objectives, methods, interpretations and so on so that the habit becomes doable, enjoyable and relatively easy.

I have a post related to the 30-day trial here that aims to get skill building off to a much better start.
Intensive Training