How Long Does It Take To Develop A New Habit
Defining Habits
A habit is an automatic behavior that has been performed repeatedly over time. These behaviors are performed continuously and reactively without thought.
Our routines are coded into our nervous system through neural pathways. This is why habits aren't as easy to change as making a new year's resolution.
The more we repeat these patterns the bigger and stronger these neural pathways get. So, when you decided to turn bad habits into good habits you're literally rewiring your brain.
Habits that you enjoy are the most concrete because enjoyable behaviors prompt your brain to release dopamine. This dopamine release creates a craving to repeat that habit that you enjoy.
How Long Does It Take To Build A New Habit
It takes someone 66 days or 2 months on average to automatically perform new behaviors. The reason there is an average is that everyone is different and so is every habit. Some will be easier to form than others and some people will make habits easily where others struggle.
Take this average with a grain of salt and not as a doctrine because there is no timeline for habit, you will move at your pace. Sometimes you will form habits faster than the average, and sometimes you will make new habits that take longer than the average.
Some say you form a habit in 21 days based on an older book published in 1960. This is not wrong, however, based on more recent studies, it's not the full truth. You can form a habit in 21 days, you can also do it sooner, but on average it will take longer.
There's a better way to know you have formed a new habit than by searching for an exact amount of days to mark on a calendar. The key to knowing is if you can do this habit without having to consciously remember or try; it's just part of your life now.
How To Create Habit
Creating habits takes repetitions of behavior in a similar environment. Being in the same setting acts like a cue to your brain to act out this habit.
Cues can be people, places, activities, etc. For example, when you get into your house you may automatically kick off your shoes and throw your keys into a bowl.
Proper sleep could speed up this process because it's suggested that learning and memory take place during the strengthening of neural connections in our sleep.
How To Change Habit
The easiest way to break a habit is to control your environment and the cues that trigger your unwanted habit. Your strategy can be to avoid the cue or to replace it with a new healthier one.
For example, spending time with your friend that likes to play tennis with you instead of the one that likes to smoke with you. A new habit doesn't make the old one disappear, however, you can make the neural connection a stronger influence over your behavior.
Tips to change habits:
Practice patience and stick with it. Remember it takes an average of 66 days or 2 months to develop a new habit.
Show self-compassion when repeating an old habit. It's just a reminder that it's difficult, not that you won't do it.
Instead, celebrate your awareness when you notice you're repeating an old habit, soon you'll catch yourself before you even repeat it.
Use structures like a post-it note around the house to remind you and remember to move them around when you stop noticing them.
Go public! Let your friends, family, and coworkers know your plan, and let them know how they could support you in doing the healthiest habits.
Work with a certified health coach! A coach will guide you to get clear about what behaviors you want to change; help you develop a plan; give you support in the process; and hold you accountable for sticking to a routine.
10 New Habit Quotes
If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude. -Colin Powell
In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions.It's not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. - Tony Robbins
Let today be the day you give up who you've been for who you can become. -Hal Elrod
Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day in and day out. -Robert Collier
Successful people are simply those with successful habits. -Brian Tracy
The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken. -Samuel Johnson
A habit cannot be tossed out the window; it must be coaxed down the stairs a step at a time. -Mark Twain
And once you understand that habits can change, you have the freedom and the responsibility to remake them. -Charles Duhigg
Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most. -Abraham Lincoln
Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have. -Dale Carnegie