With all the pressure to change our lifestyles these days, we want to know exactly how many days to form a habit. Speed is everything nowadays! When we can figure out the time investment it takes to change our behavior we have an easier time setting goals and meeting them.
It is said that geniuses with an IQ over 150 rarely form habits because there is thought behind most actions that the owner of the mind takes. While this may be true to an extent, new research has shown that it is not likely the IQ that makes forming the habit difficult, but the lifestyle.
Those who watch little TV, who make thoughtful decisions about how to spend their time, and who avoid the regular past times that many of us are familiar with are less likely to form habitual patterns. (But that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t manage!)
If we want to establish a healthy habit, we need only do it on a conscious level for seven to fourteen days. Depending on the habit that we are trying to instill we may need the whole two weeks or we might only need a fraction of it. If we are trying to break a habit then we need to introduce a new habit in its place.
Replacing one habit with another should really only take one to two weeks if it is done routinely and adamantly. Depending on the habit that you want to replace and the difficulty of replacing the behavior with something healthier, your time will vary. Smokers have a hard time replacing their habit with something healthier because there is a great difficulty associated with it.
If you go fourteen full days without smoking and replacing it with the habit of exercise, you are definitely going to feel a loss on day fifteen if you don’t fulfill your habitual routine. So consistency is very useful. But don’t beat yourself up and give up if you miss the occasional time, especially when you are first starting to make a new habit.
How Many Days To Form A Habit?
October 13th, 2009 by ArtGuy3 Leave a reply »
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