It Does Not Take 21 Days to Form a Habit

Summary

In 1960, Dr. Maxwell Maltz published his bestseller book “Psycho-Cybernetics” in which he defines happiness as a habit and claims that “it usually requires a minimum of about 21 days” to form a new habit. The 21 day idea caught on, because 3 weeks is neither too short (that it’s unbelievable), nor too long (that it’s discouraging). However, Dr. Maltz was simply making an observation as a plastic surgeon. He was not declaring a statement of fact that is based on research. Also, the phrase “it usually requires a minimum of about 21 days” was propagated without the words “usually”, “minimum” and “about”. So how long does it really take to create a new habit? Published in the October 2010 issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology, the research article “How habits are formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world” (Phillippa Lally, et al.) attempted to answer that question. The study examined the habits of 96 people over a period of 12 week, and the data was then analyzed to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to automatically doing it. The answer? Not 21 days. According to Lally’s study, implementing meaningful change in our lives requires 2 to 8 months. The variation is due to the type of habit in question, the person developing it and his/her circumstances. On average it takes 66 days, not just 21. However here’s the good news: The study showed that if you miss an opportunity to perform an action that’s helping you build a habit, there is no significant impact on the habit formation process. In other words, if you fall off the wagon, it doesn’t mean you’ve failed … you can go back and continue trying. Initially, it takes longer to form a habit and persevere it, but over time, it starts to happen more easily and it requires less effort. So what does this all mean? Well, a couple of things: If you’re trying a new diet, attempting to quit smoking or changing any daily routine, don’t expect new habits to be created in a...