Giving Yourself Enough Time to Form New Habits
How long does it take to form a new habit? In a study from the University College London on modelling habit formation in the real world, it was found that on average, it takes about 2 months (66 days) for a new behaviour to become automatic. However, this timeframe doesn’t work for everyone as you need to consider variables like personality and situation. Some subjects in the study took more than 200 days to adopt a new habit. Others, 17 days.
When developing a new habit, we need to accept that the goal is to ‘keep at it’ not ‘be automatic’. If we assume that our desired behaviour will one day magically take place without conscious effort on our part, we will question ourselves when it doesn’t seem to happen. When it feels like it is taking too long, or requires too much effort, we are more likely to give up. If we maintain perspective that the aim is to remain committed, and in that we acknowledge that acquiring this habit will require continued effort on our part, then the chances are more likely that we will stick with it.
Image source: flickr/kamera.obscura