It Does Not Take 21 Days to Form a Habit
According to Aristotle, how we choose to behave defines who we become.
When confronted with an ethical business dilemma, how we respond is what makes us a just or unjust person. How we choose to deal with anger and emotion determines whether we are temperate or self-indulgent or irascible. It’s the daily choices we make that determine our identity: Our habits.
William Durant described Aristotle’s thesis in a nutshell:
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
Known as the practical philosopher, it's unsurprising that Aristotle emphasised action and functional improvement. Philosophers like him demonstrate that the field is more than just a bunch of people (men, in those times) arguing about hypotheticals. Good philosophy is about real life.
And while the principle of good habits as a means to happiness and excellence goes back thousands of years, in recent decades habits have been front and centre of the self-development space.
The habit loop
In psychology, we generally consider something a habit when it is reliably performed in response to a stimulus, with a level of automaticity. It’s efficient, natural, and completed without even really thinking.
In Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit, he outlines the habit loop:
Each habit involves a cue, a routine, and a reward. The cue prompts us. The routine is what we automatically do next. And the reward is why we keep doing it.
Here is an example of a habit loop that is definitely not from personal experience:
Stress acts as the cue to go to the cupboard (routine) and break open some Dairy Milk (reward). Glorious.
For many, putting the kettle on to make coffee each morning is a habit triggered by waking up and getting out of bed. Arriving at your spot in a cramped apartment carpark prompts you to enact the 8-point-reverse-park you’ve mastered over the years. Checking email might be a habit triggered by sitting down at your work desk. And so on. For many modern tech-based habits, like scrolling social media or checking your phone, the cue is often boredom and the reward is arguably the hit of anticipated dopamine that comes from new likes or notifications.
Duhigg describes habits as a way for our brains to ‘chunk’ information, so they don’t have to expend as much energy the next time the cue pops up. As the habit loop is repeated over time, it strengthens until it becomes automatic.
That our brain is designed for efficiency this way can be supremely beneficial to our productivity, mindfulness and health. Or, as in some examples above, bad habits can settle into our brains, like unwanted tenants who ignore your eviction letters.
For many Ancient Stoic figures and successful people today, we see common themes arise in terms of positive, daily habits: Exercise, journaling, meditation, walking, eating well, sleeping well, and work routines. It's easy to imagine how these habits combined could facilitate health, wealth and positive affect.
It’s worth noting, though, that if you’re planning on building some new habits this year, it might take longer than you think.
The 21-day myth
I remember the question being asked in a professional development seminar I was attending once: How many days does it take to build a habit?
My hand shot up and I answered with confidence, “21 days!”
If you enjoy the self-development space, you’ve undoubtedly heard the same.
But the sneaky facilitator looked at me with a cheeky grin. “Actually, that’s not right.”
The 3-weeks-to-change-your-life mantra has dominated self-development culture over the last few decades, and it’s an enticing one.
While reassuring and a great marketing tool, it’s also incorrect. Or at least appropriated.
The idea is most likely based on a quote by a plastic surgeon in a book from 1960. Dr Maxwell Maltz came up with it after observing his post-surgery patients. He noticed that if someone had a new nose, for example, it took a minimum of around 21 days for them to get accustomed to their new face.
And that seems to be where the self-development world first latched onto the idea of rewiring our brains in three weeks. Maltz did also say a minimum of three weeks, but the qualifier dwindled over time.
How long does it take?
It’s much sexier to hear that 21 days is all it takes to build a habit than it is the unfortunate research-based answer: It depends.
One 2009 study found that habit formation took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for participants. The average time to reach 95% automaticity on a new habit in the study was about 66 days, but note the massive range.
It makes sense that there’s no ‘magic number’ to building a new habit or breaking an old one. Some habits are simpler than others, so we might acquire them faster. And, people are individuals. Personal motivation and circumstance are surely influential here. Someone with lots of free time may find it easier to implement a new exercise habit than a busy parent working long hours and juggling more ‘life’ balls. It also seems plausible that an underlying pandemic and economic recession might make productivity-facilitating habits more challenging.
Modern habit guru James Clear contends that the number of days is the wrong metric in the first place – that we should focus on the frequency of habits rather than time. If you want to learn more about habits, I cannot recommend Clear’s book highly enough - Atomic Habits is an outstanding read, full of great research and practical action points. (It also informed some of this piece. He really is a guru).
Remember, too, that all our existing habits – even the ‘bad’ ones – exist for a reason. They deliver some form of gratification. The brain doesn’t care, as long as it feeds the loop. So, if you want to quit smoking, you’re competing with the gratification that comes with the habit: the chemical addiction side but also the mental one. Considering that, it’s good to recognise that change is genuinely difficult: We shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves on the journey towards more positive habits.
New habits in 2020
By my count, it's been about 225 days since the world changed.
In this time, we’ve had to adjust our routines. Figure out how to ‘work from home’ effectively. Work out how to maintain an exercise regimen when incidental exercise is at an all-time low. Figure out how to perform, foster creativity, maintain social connections, manage mental health, and focus, in what is likely the most distracting, uncertain period any of us will face in our lifetimes.
It's no small task.
Alas, just like William Shakespeare wrote King Lear during the bubonic plague, many have also seen this year as an opportunity to transform. And the best way to do that is by building habits that serve us.
If we want to foster better habits, we need to think beyond the arbitrary 21-day routine.
Appreciating how our current habits work can be a great starting point. What kind of habit loops do you currently maintain? What does the ecosystem of your brain look like right now? That's my plan this week: To observe myself closely, and 'catch' my habit loops in action so I can assess how best to build on or change them.
Then, by focusing on small improvements and consistency, we can improve. It will probably take far longer than three weeks, and we’ll probably have days where we ‘fall off the wagon’, but that's all part of the journey. Hopefully, too, the knowledge that it can take a long time to execute meaningful change is reassuring. No matter what your timeline looks like, if you're still going then you're on track.
And besides, anything you do today that is an improvement on yesterday is something to be immensely proud of. So, as always, be kind to yourself along the way.
I’d love to hear about your own habit loops or new positive habits you’ve implemented in 2020, what you’ve found particularly challenging or something you’re immensely proud of executing.
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