Four Common Habit Myths Debunked
Habit forming is hard, so it’s no surprise that there are all sorts of junk science out there on how best to do it, how long it will take, and how important repetition is. Let’s debunk these myths so we can focus on what really works.
Myth: It takes 21 days to form a habit.
You’ve probably heard that it takes 21 days to form a habit (or maybe 28 or 30), but according to most studies, this just isn’t the case. But it’s helpful to know where this myth came from. The original idea for 21 days seems to have originated in Maxwell Maltz’s Psychocybernetics :
It usually takes a minimum of 21 days to make any noticeable mental image change. After plastic surgery, the average patient takes about 21 days to get used to their new face. When an arm or leg is amputated, the “phantom limb” lasts about 21 days. People must live in a new home for about three weeks before it begins to “feel like a home.” These and many other commonly observed phenomena show that it takes at least about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to freeze.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the time it takes to adapt to loss of a limb does not correlate at all with habit formation. However, the self-help gurus seized on the 21 days idea and spread the myth wherever they could.
So researchers from University College London decided to take a closer look. In their research, they found that habits take much longer to form. They are also person and habit dependent. On average, people took 66 days to form a habit, but it varied for everyone (variability was also large, ranging from 18 to 254 days). Their study was small, with just 96 participants, but it still shows that the number of days it takes to form a habit varies.
That’s all to say, there is no magic number or magic bullet. It takes time and effort to form a habit, so don’t expect to automatically start doing something in just 21 days. Habit forming is a process, not an event on your calendar, so don’t treat it like one of them.
Myth: You can’t miss a day when a habit forms (or breaks).
The “Don’t Break the Chain” (widely attributed to Jerry Seinfeld) productivity method is very popular, and the concept is quite simple: spend a certain amount of time each day doing something, then cross the day off your calendar when you do it. This. If you don’t complete this task, you will miss the crossed out calendar and the thread will break. Of course, Seinfeld isn’t the only one who came up with this concept. It is a persistent myth that in order to form a habit, you need to do it every day (or at least on a schedule), never missing a single day.
The good news comes from the same study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology that debunked the 21-day myth. It turns out that skipping a day sometimes did not affect the habit formation process. Repetition is important, but you don’t need to scold yourself for missing a day sometimes. However, this does not mean that this method is useless. Keeping track of your progress is good, just don’t let a missed day ruin your self-esteem.
Myth: All strategies work for everyone.
Everyone has their own “ideal” method that helped form the habit. Maybe they created a procedure in a spreadsheet. They may have followed the advice ofcountless famous people . But as with most things in life, there is no magic clue that works for everyone.
If you browse the archives here on Lifehacker, you will find countless tips to help you build a habit , with examples and anecdotal evidence of how well these methods work. But strategies are not universal. What works for you may not work for me. First, our lifestyle is a little different, so why I have (or want) a habit is completely different from yours. Motivation is also different. In Better Than Before: Mastering the Habits of Everyday Life, author Gretchen Rubin suggests that most of us fall into one of four main categories with regard to motivation:
- Supporters readily respond to both external and internal expectations.
- Those who ask questions question all expectations and will only meet expectations if they believe they are.
- Obligations respond readily to external expectations, but find it difficult to meet internal expectations.
- The rebels resist all expectations, both external and internal.
Knowing which group you are in can help you overcome your own tendencies and find the best way to break the habit. If you’re not sure where you’re headed, Rubin has a quiz to help you point in the right direction. After you take the test, she will give you a little advice for your type of motivation. For example, after completing the quiz, they called me “the inquirer,” and he gave this advice:
Once survey participants believe that a particular habit makes sense, they will stick to it, but only if they are satisfied with its rationality and usefulness. They resist anything arbitrary or ineffective; they only accept directions from people they respect.
At first glance, this may not seem very useful, but it is useful when you are thinking about forming a habit. If I’m going to do something, I need to think it’s effective and beneficial, so you probably won’t see me on a juice fast on a regular basis anytime soon. I am also not inclined to need external accountability. If I want to cycle four days a week, I just ride. I don’t need a riding partner. However, if I were “obligated,” external responsibility as a training partner would probably be really helpful in forming this habit.
Regardless of how you feel about a particular Rubin metric, the conclusion is actually the same. We’re all a little different, and what motivates us to start new habits and abandon old ones matters when you’re trying to find an approach that works for you.
Myth: One reward will help you stick to a habit.
If you look at just about any advice on how to form (or break) a habit, you will see suggestions that you must reward yourself with in order to stick with that habit. This is a great idea, but there is more to it.
In his book The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg summarizes the problem of relying only on rewards:
Countless studies have shown that a cue and a reward alone are not enough to sustain a new habit. It’s only when your brain expects the reward – the thirst for endorphins or the sense of accomplishment – that lace up your sneakers every morning will become automatic. The signal, in addition to starting the routine, should also generate cravings for future rewards.
Duhigg says you can’t rely on rewards to perpetuate this habit. This is a whole system that he calls the habit loop . It looks like this:
So, if you want to break a bad habit, you need to identify a signal and offer an alternative reward. For example, let’s say you want to stop eating cookies every day at lunch. First, you need to define a replica. Is it hunger? Boredom? Low blood sugar? Take time to think about what triggers this initial cravings.
To understand what cravings are, Duhigg invites you to start experimenting with rewards. It can help you understand how this craving works and replace it with something else. So, if you crave this cookie, change your reward. Instead of grabbing cookies, go outside and take a break. Or buy an apple. Maybe try drinking coffee instead. When you decide to make something other than a cookie, you eventually figure out what you want and can replace the cookie with something healthy. For example, perhaps these cookies were just a convenient excuse to get up from the table and wander around a bit.
Once you isolate this urge and reward, you can even begin to process habitual cues to truly reinforce the habit. Experiments show that these signals fall into five categories: location, time, emotional state, other people, and immediately preceding action. When you’re trying to figure out what a replica is, pay attention to these five things when you crave that cookie. It will take several days to collect all this data. Once you’ve done that, you’ll probably know exactly what makes you crave for the cookie. Now that you have all this data, you can start replacing this bad habit with something good.
The point is, the lines are just as important as the reward, so don’t focus solely on the reward. Find this cue and find a way to work with it. It’s the same with building good habits. Want to exercise more? Duhigg suggests choosing a signal like morning workout and then rewarding yourself with a smoothie. The signal can be as simple as leaving your sneakers at the door if you are trying to start running.