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How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
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Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#62As a person who has learned a few dozen keyboard layouts, the timelines described here check out with my experience. 21 days is kind of the baseline to get to a barely acceptable typing speed, and then there’s a slow long slog as you get more and more comfortable day by day. Depending on how much you practice, it could take between 2-8 months to _really_ get comfortable with a layout.
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's a tendency sometimes to leave certain words implicit. "It does not [even] take 21 days to form a habit." Some of those linguistic habits never leave their birthplace, giving you colloquialisms like "do you want to come with [us]" in the Midwest. Most don't have any regional association though, and sentences with dropped fragments sound perfectly normal, with your mind filling in the gaps. In this case, the se…
"Do you want to come with" is a Midwest colloquialism?? Wow I say it all the time. Very weird to find out.
It has Germanic roots too. Are any of the people you were close to growing up from the Midwest or from sort of Germanic or Scandinavian background?
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#64It took me a few days to become a smoker, and a few weeks to get to the point of not wanting to smoke again (some decades later). It took me a week or so to start having a healthier breakfast and it become part of my routine, and I've been trying to have healthier lunches for years now (and still regularly fail, normally because at lunchtimes I'm tired, stressed and yearning for comfort foods like sandwiches and snac…
But then again, 21 days might be an optimistic number solely for the purpose of getting people started. Now we should do a study of how many people, armed with this belief, still managed to keep their habit after 21 days.
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#65It took me a few days to become a smoker, and a few weeks to get to the point of not wanting to smoke again (some decades later). It took me a week or so to start having a healthier breakfast and it become part of my routine, and I've been trying to have healthier lunches for years now (and still regularly fail, normally because at lunchtimes I'm tired, stressed and yearning for comfort foods like sandwiches and snac…
I forget what book it was, it might have been the happiness trap, but a big point they made was that building new habits and changing your life has a lot more to do with your inner notion of identity and long-run values. It's much easier to change your habits when they align with who you believe you are, The mental model difference between "I'm trying to eat healthier," and "I am a healthy eater."
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is your healthier breakfast? I never really learned what is considered a healthy breakfast.
I think part of the problem is we don't really know what a healthy diet looks like. We can point to what is probably unhealthy: eating tons of sugar filled items is probably bad, eating a lot of fried food is at least questionable, but beyond that we really don't know. The research is either poorly done, impossible to do, or you can find studies that go both ways.
I mean a healthy diet is a variety of fruits and vegetables, with a decent supplement of whole grains and occasional lean meats and eggs. Minimally processed as much as possible - whole ingredients should be the majority of calories.
The details don’t matter so much, as long as you get a variety and generally stick to the above guidelines.
I think you can judge how healthy a diet is by how many people get diseases, malnutrition or premature death as a result of a diet, and almost nobody is going to suffer because of that diet plan above.
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#67It took me a few days to become a smoker, and a few weeks to get to the point of not wanting to smoke again (some decades later). It took me a week or so to start having a healthier breakfast and it become part of my routine, and I've been trying to have healthier lunches for years now (and still regularly fail, normally because at lunchtimes I'm tired, stressed and yearning for comfort foods like sandwiches and snac…
What is your healthier breakfast? I never really learned what is considered a healthy breakfast.
A boiled egg or two with a tiny drizzle of soy sauce and a banana.
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#68I happen to be taking a Team Lead course, and forming habits came up yesterday. 21 days weren't mentioned explicitly, the time frame was "a few weeks". We were given 6 criteria when forming a habit:
1. Tangible - you need to pick a tangible action that is observable. If you're trying to fix a part of your behavior you can't pick "I'll pay more attention" as a habit to correct yourself, instead you should write a note or say some phrase.
2. Up to me - don't form a habit that requires outside factors. If you want to start jogging, don't ask your neighbor to jog with you. Each time he's not available, you'll have an excuse not to jog.
3. Swallow the frog - don't push it off. This isn't a well defined criteria, the idea is to minimize excuses (like #2).
4. Daily - a habit needs to be formed by taking action every day.
5. Trigger - your action needs a trigger. This can be an internal (feeling hungry), external (a timer on your phone), or contextual (every morning, every time you walk into a conference room).
6. New - it's very hard to form a habit if you've already tried and failed. Pick an action that you haven't already tried.
There was also an important note that changing behavior often requires multiple steps. The instructor gave the example of using dental floss. It's hard to go from nothing to flossing every day, so break it into:
1. Every time you go into the bath room in the evening, pick up the dental floss, and put it down.
2. After picking up the floss becomes a habit, cut a piece of floss, and throw it out.
3. After cutting the floss becomes a habit, floss a few teeth.
And so on.
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#69IMO, getting a habit might need a "click", a resolution.
I tried many times to get into exercise, but only got into a regular schedule (daily) recently. I don't even know what happened but there is definitely a click. The number of days is not so important. Something inside just told me to do it. Same with fasting. Somehow I got into 72-hour water fast with zero preparation and "habit" a few months ago and have been doing it once or twice a month.
How to get the click is more interesting. I wish I could generate those clicks for things I want to do but not dying to do.
Re: How long does it take to create a new habit? (2015)
#70Trying to overcome human nature will make the process long, but aligning with it will make it fast. Good habits and bad habits are only relative—more often than not, bad habits align with human nature, while good habits are the opposite.