How Long Does It Take to Develop a New Habit?
A friend of mine wants to develop better muscle tone by adding calisthenics to his workout routine. However, over the past 2-3 months he has tried it twice.
Obviously, he is not currently developing a calisthenics habit.
In contrast, I know a woman who did yoga at least three times a week for over a year. Yoga was a habit for her, but she wanted to take it to the next level. An opportunity presented itself towards the end of the summer to participate in a 30-Day Yoga Challenge where she would have to do yoga every day for 30 days.
She accepted the Challenge, along with a couple dozen other people, and she completed it flawlessly. Afterwards, she committed to expanding her yoga practice to 4-5 days weekly. She consistently does this now. Her yoga skills are increasing, endurance expanding, and she feels stronger. Of course, she will have to take a break if she gets sick, but the habit has become part of her weekly rhythm.
Why is the woman succeeding but the man is not making progress?
Habit Cycles
Most habit processes defined by experts are trigger or cue, then behavior or routine, and end with reward.
Without the reward there is no motivation to change behavior.
Furthermore, our work has concluded there is not one natural habit development processes or cycles, but two.
DISCOVERY
The first process to develop a new, more powerful habit is Discovery. This is when you consider changing an existing behavior. It flows like this:
#1 - Behavior
A behavior or habit hurts you enough for you to consider changing it. As you deal with your pain, you decide what the new behavior or habit should be to replace the hurtful one. This is good, but not enough to convince you to change.
#2 - Reward
Then you consider the benefits of the new behavior or habit. How will you be rewarded for developing this new habit? Is it worth the effort? What is in it for you? If the reward is too weak, then you will not succeed. If the reward is really appealing, then you can do it.
#3 - Trigger
Lastly, you consider the triggers that cause the unwanted behavior and how to adjust your response so the triggers initiate the new habit you want to develop.
As you can see, the Discovery process starts by identifying a behavior you want to change (WHAT); then you consider the benefits, or reward for overpowering it with a better behavior (WHY); and finally, the triggers that must be adjusted to ignite the new, improved behavior (WHEN).
Once the habit you have discovered and fully defined the new habit, then you move into the Development phase of habit building.
DEVELOPMENT
The Development phase of habit growth is your moment-by-moment, daily rhythm of intentionally developing a habit to improve your life. It flows like this:
#1 - Reward
Constantly remind yourself of the Reward, which is what you gain from the new, better behavior. This intensifies your awareness of the habit you want to develop. Then, you are more likely to choose the new behavior when you are triggered, until it becomes ingrained in your psyche, and happens instinctively as a habit.
#2 - Trigger
Then, whack! You are triggered to behave the old way. However, because the Reward is top-of-mind, you can pause, stop that old-self, ugly habitual behavior from happening, and choose your new, more powerful behavior.
#3 - Behavior
Keeping your desired Reward in mind, you pause long enough to act intentionally, demonstrating your new, best-of-you Behavior. Over time, the sequence of high awareness of the Reward leads you to anticipate the Triggers; and more intentionally demonstrating your new Behavior until it becomes a new, more powerful habit.
Separate of our habit development cycle above, the young woman strengthened each phase of the Reward - Trigger - Behavior cycle in four ways:
First, she connected expanding yoga from three times weekly to 4-5 times weekly to her self-identity. Getting stronger, slimmer, and developing higher yoga skills was a missing piece of the young lady’s current self-identity puzzle. The gain of the stronger yoga habit was more important to her, so she made the time to pursue it.
In contrast, the man who is procrastinating on calisthenics is not really committed to the goal. He feels reasonably strong today, although that depends on your definition of “reasonably strong.”
Strengthening her self-identity and using the additional yoga classes to reinforce she is who she wants to be, is a major part of how the young woman engages the REWARD portion of her habit development cycle.
Second, the woman went public with her commitment. She shared it with a small group of trusted people, the others in the Challenge group. This put positive, subconscious pressure on her to complete the Challenge. It also linked her to a group of like-minded people who would encourage one another, hold each other accountable, and celebrate their successes. (Her small tribe did go out to celebrate at the end of the Challenge.)
In some ways, a group pursuing a goal of developing a new habit is similar to a lone goose joining a flying V, which is a flock of geese in flight. Flying in “v” formation saves energy and enables the birds to keep track of every bird in the group while communicating better. The “v” formation breaks barriers more effectively than flying solo.
This informal accountability reinforced the TRIGGER portion of her habit development cycle. Following through on her commitment to demonstrate she is healthy, dependable, and trustworthy helped motivate the woman to develop a habit of more yoga.
Third, she enjoyed the camaraderie of being part of a select group of 20-30 people during the Challenge. She also connected more deeply with a small tribe of 3-4 women within the larger Challenge crowd. Her tribe enjoyed closer friendships, received encouragement, and discussed their shared yoga (and life) experiences.
In contrast, the man is pursuing his calisthenics habit alone.
The camaraderie of the group is part of the woman’s BEHAVIOR portion of her habit development cycle. She looked forward to being with the group, bonding with them, and didn’t want to let them down by not showing up to encourage their progress.
Fourth, she set time aside in her calendar. The guy wanting to add calisthenics just hopes to fit in the time.
The calendaring of the yoga classes was another portion of the BEHAVIOR portion her habit development cycle.
Do you see how the woman’s approach to yoga connected to a habit development cycle of REWARD - TRIGGER - BEHAVIOR, whereas the man wanting to regularly do calisthenics just has a hope, not a new habit under development.
Key Takeaway #1 of 2
The time it takes to master a new habit depends on how well you pursue the new habit through a combination of REWARD(s), TRIGGER(s), and BEHAVIOR(s).
What-When-How Foundation
Before you can develop or ideally, master a habit, you must consider our What-When-How Foundation:
WHAT
Decide on a habit you want to develop. Ask yourself, are you capable of developing the habit? Is it worth it - what will become more fulfilling, easier or unnecessary once you develop this habit? How important is it to you?
The WHAT establishes reality in at least two ways: (1) Can you do it? It is okay to have a stretch goal, but it must be realistic.
For instance, a man without legs might be able to develop a habit of running with prosthetics. Isn’t that cool? It is great to push yourself to develop powerfully meaningful habits. However, a person who refuses to stop their negative judgmental habit will never fully master a habit of loving others.
Another reality anchor is: (2) The intensity of your desire to experience the REWARD.
These two WHAT factoids are a foundation of rock or sand for your willpower to master the desired behavioral habit. If these anchors are weak (“sand”), then you will be the guy hoping to do calisthenics and not progressing. However, when these anchors are solid (“rocks”), then you can do anything, such as becoming a yogi.
WHEN
Determine how much time you can commit to developing the new habit. How much of your time should you commit each week? What will you stop doing to give yourself time to develop the habit? What is the best time of day and days of the week to work on this habit? How can you protect that time to continually work on the habit?
The WHEN defines your rhythm for developing the behavioral instincts of the habit. You might have a trigger, such as when you turn on your computer it reminds you to review your schedule for the day before doing anything else.
The WHEN also defines how long it takes to practice the new or improved habit. Often, it’s not long.
For instance, if I want to improve my patience, then I develop my habit of patience throughout the day. It does not take any extra time, except to pause when triggered so I can choose to be patient.
However, I must also hold myself accountable. Here is a simple self-accountability rhythm to develop a habit: In this case, I schedule three 1-minute check-ins daily to ask myself how well I am demonstrating patience. These might occur at 9am, 3pm, and 9pm daily as alarms on my mobile phone from calendar events, reminders, or other types of notifications.
HOW
Determine the best way to learn the new habit. How long will it take to demonstrate basic competency in this new habit? How long will it take to demonstrate mastery of this new habit? How often must you spend time developing the habit, and/or holding yourself accountable after you become proficient to maintain mastery of this new habit?
The HOW confirms a timeline for the vision of what you want to achieve with this new or improved habit. Again, this reinforces your willpower to fully master the habit.
Return to the example of my desire to become more patient. Let’s say I consider myself patient 50% of the time. My new habit target is to be patient 80% of the time, and my stretch goal is 90-100% of the time.
My check-in rhythm starts at 9am to consider how patient I have been so far that day. My 3pm check-in evaluates how patient I have been since 9am. My 9pm check-in examines my patience since 3pm. Then from 9pm to 9am I can be as impatient the entire time! (Just kidding.)
Three check-ins daily help you develop the habit faster because you catch your failures earlier, and REWARD yourself with compliments more often for success.
Key Takeaway #2 of 2
Mastering new habits involves a variety of disciplines. In this article, we have discussed your:
Habit Development Cycle
What-When-How Foundation
Self-Accountability Rhythm
Do not overlook the self-accountability rhythm! It is crucial whether you are developing habits on your own or as part of a group. Three check-ins daily is a small time commitment, but significantly increases your success rate.
But How Long Does It Take?
A common misconception is it takes 21 days to form a new habit. As James Clear points out in this blog post, the notion that it takes 21 days to form a new habit was not derived from any formal scientific study or testing. It was a theory based on observations in the 1950s by a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz.
“There’s no such thing as 21 days to start a new habit. The amount of time it takes will vary from person to person.”
“On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances.”
The real answer to “How long does it take to form a new habit?” is more complex and relies on many factors, including the depth of your competency, when you plan to develop it, how often you repeat the habit, and many other factors. Our proven What-When-How Foundation, Habit Development Cycle, and Self-Accountability Rhythm, combine with your commitment to provide a solid foundation for your growth.
As to specific time frames, our experience with thousands of clients leads us to believe it takes:
21 Days to develop momentum towards achieving your habit
90 Days to establish your habit, and
Up to a lifetime to sustain (and often improve) your habits
If you are leading a team or an organization, it is very important to keep in mind the 90-day recommendation. You can’t just teach your team a new process and expect them to master it in two weeks. They might get really good at it, but it will take much longer to integrate it into their workflows. You should plan for 90 days of consistent repetition of the new habit or behavior to really ingrain it into the DNA of your company.
Thank you!
At Habitly, we engage people with a variety of wisdom in a growing library of animated episodes, full courses, and various Habit Builders created by us and other experts. Enable you and your people to learn and master the habits that improve employee engagement, increase client satisfaction, and accelerate growth.
Thank you for considering what we’ve learned. Let us know your thoughts and questions in the comment section below.
