Success Advice
How Long Does It Take to Form a Habit? Why 21 Days Is a Myth
How long does it take to form a habit? The best-known study puts the median at 66 days, but the range ran from 18 to 254 days, so there’s no magic number. Stephen Guise, author of Mini Habits, says that’s exactly why you shouldn’t build your plan around a deadline. Make the habit so small you can do it on your worst day, keep the streak going and let consistency do the work.
I personally purchased Mini Habits, and I’ve got to say it’s a very well-written book and it’s well-researched, too. If you’ve been following our work on Addicted2Success, you know habits are the crucial key elements to success. You really need to focus on creating successful habits. Stephen guides you in the right direction when it comes to creating successful habits.
Is it really 66 days?
Consistency is key. When I tell people I coach how to build a new habit, I tell them to make sure it’s not a boring habit. You’ve got to make it exciting too, because you’re not going to stick to it if it’s boring day in and day out. Then I asked Stephen: is the research correct when they say it takes 66 days to solidify a new habit?
“On average,” he said, but there’s really just one study on how long it takes to form a habit. That’s the University College London study led by Phillippa Lally, published in the European Journal of Social Psychology. Volunteers picked an eating, drinking or exercise behavior to do daily, and the median time to reach their peak of automaticity was 66 days. The range was 18 to 254 days.
“The range was pretty crazy,” Stephen said. “So personally, I don’t like aiming for that magical number of days.”
Where the 21-day myth came from
Stephen also took apart the 21-day idea. He traced it to a surgeon’s observation that got “blown up” until people ran off with it. The UCL behavioral science team tracked it to the preface of Psycho-Cybernetics by plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz. Maltz wrote that it usually takes “a minimum of about 21 days” for an old mental image to change, using examples like patients getting used to a new face or the feeling of a phantom limb after an amputation.
That’s about getting used to a change, not building a habit. And notice the word “minimum.” Somewhere along the way, a floor turned into a deadline.
Here’s why it matters. If you expect a habit to lock in by day 21 and it doesn’t, it’s easy to decide you’ve failed and quit. If you know it could take two months or more, a slow day 30 is just day 30.
Why so much of your life runs on habit
When I asked Stephen what excites him about habits, he pointed to research from Duke University. Psychologists there, summarizing diary studies where people logged what they were doing through the day, found that about 45% of everyday behaviors were repeated in the same place almost every day. “If you don’t have very good habits, you’re not going to have a very good life,” Stephen said. “If you do have good habits, then life is just so much easier and more enjoyable.”
I think one of the biggest issues you have as an entrepreneur is that you’re running on autopilot most of the time. When your life is overcomplicated, you become unaware of what’s really going on inside your own mind. So I asked Stephen how to become more aware of your habits.
His answer was simple. Working on any new habit builds the habit of mindfulness: being aware of what you’re doing and why. “A bad habit a lot of people have is not questioning why they’re doing something in any given moment,” he said. Exercise and meditation are his picks for a first habit to stack others on. Meditation quiets your conscious thoughts. That’s really what you want to do. You want to quiet that overanalytical side of your mind.
Make it too small to fail
Willpower plays a huge part in solidifying your habits, so I asked Stephen about it. He called willpower the key component in habit formation. “The whole idea behind mini habits is to create behaviors that you always have enough willpower to meet,” he said.
His example was one push-up a day. It came out of frustration. On his bad days, he couldn’t face a 20- or 30-minute workout, so he’d feel lazy and guilty, and that spiral weakened his willpower even more. One push-up is so small you can always force yourself to get down and do it.
“When I first did my first one push-up, at that time I thought I was crazy for even thinking about it,” he said. But once he was down there, he kept going. He used something like 20 to 30 micro goals that added up to the same 30-minute workout he couldn’t do when he aimed for it as one big chunk. He calls the extra work bonus reps.
You’ve got to take baby steps. Just one little step, then the next step, then the next. And it compounds. Stephen told me his push-up habit eventually turned into going to the gym five or six days a week. From one push-up to six days a week in the gym, that’s a pretty good result.
Stop training yourself to fail
I asked Stephen about something he calls success cycling. A lot of people set a goal, fall short, and repeat that until they expect to fall short. That expectation then makes the next goal harder. “Success cycling is just the idea of not failing anymore,” he said. “Because if you’re always succeeding, you’re going to start expecting success.”
That’s why a tiny daily target is so powerful. Every day you hit it is one of the small wins that rewires what you expect from yourself.
It always seems like successful people have it on their mind. It becomes them. Instead of “Oh, I need to do that,” it’s “I am this. I am going to do this. I must do this.” Stephen agreed. “It’s identity-based. Exactly.”
When I asked what really separates successful people from those just floating through life with their habits, he said strategy first, then knowing how to act when you don’t feel like it. Picture an Olympic athlete telling their coach, “Sorry, coach, I don’t really feel like training today.” It doesn’t happen. They’re consistent.
And what should you remove from your life to stick to your habits? Self-doubt, Stephen said. It has a habitual component too, and turning it into self-confidence is exactly what small, winnable habits are built to do.
How to form a habit while you wait for it to stick
I asked Stephen how he maps out his habits. Write them down? Visualize them? He used a giant desk calendar on the wall and drew a big check mark every day he did his mini habits, sometimes with an encouraging phrase. “Over time you see the streak of checks,” he said. “Don’t break the streak.”
There’s good news in that 66-day study too. Missing one opportunity didn’t materially affect habit formation. Stephen’s rule is simple: if you miss a day, it’s not a huge deal, but you definitely don’t want to miss two days in a row.
Tracking apps can help as well. They’re great for procrastination, because it’s good to track your progress and know you’re sticking to what you originally planned. A little accountability is what everyone needs.
But be careful how you use an accountability partner. Stephen pointed to research suggesting that announcing your goals and celebrating early can demotivate you. Don’t just tell someone, “I’m going to lose 100 pounds.” Tell them, “Keep me accountable.” It’s all in the way you use your words. You’ve got to use your words correctly.
The two mistakes that stall a new habit
When I asked about common mistakes, Stephen named two.
The first is having too many at once. One guy tried 10 mini habits. Even small tasks get overwhelming at that number. He recommends one to four, and he does best with three.
The second is not taking it seriously. One push-up a day can look meaningless. “Really it is,” he said, “because you’re changing your brain’s neural pathways. Even if you’re only doing one push-up a day, you will still develop a mini-sized habit.”
His biggest discovery from all his research? Consistency over quantity. He used to run hot for a couple of weeks, then stop for a couple of weeks. Once he got consistent with smaller behaviors, it kept building until he was doing more than he ever did on his motivation cycles.
A reading habit I’m building
We got talking about books, and I shared one of the habits I’m trying to create. If I find a book I really love on my Kindle, I’ll order the paperback as well so I can go back through it and highlight it. With every book I find interesting, I try to highlight it or write a little essay about what I learned from each chapter. I’ve found it’s really working, in the sense that I remember a lot more of what I read.
Here’s the method. Read the whole chapter. Turn your Kindle off. An hour later, sit down and try to remember as much as you can, and write it out like an essay. It’s not going to be word for word. It’s your perception of it, your understanding of it, and it solidifies that much stronger in your mind. They say that if you can dig into your memory and pull it out, it’s going to stick. Stephen liked it so much he said he needed to start doing it with a notepad.
When I asked for his last 30-second speech to the world, he brought it home. “Consistency is king and habits are king. So drop the big goals of trying to lose 100 pounds and focus more on the daily processes that will lead you to your goals.” His last line is the one to keep: “Tomorrow’s version of you is going to be more like today’s version of you than you realize.” It’s the reason showing up every day beats any number of days on a calendar.
How long does it take to form a habit? A quick plan
- Expect about two months or more, and don’t panic if it takes longer.
- Shrink the habit until you could do it on your worst day.
- Do bonus reps when you feel good, but count the minimum as a win.
- Track it with a wall calendar or app and protect the streak.
- If you miss a day, get back on the next day. Never miss two in a row.
- Keep it to one to four habits at a time.
- Ask a partner to keep you accountable instead of announcing big goals.
FAQ
How long does it take to form a habit?
In the most cited study, from University College London, the median was 66 days to reach peak automaticity, with a range of 18 to 254 days. It depends on the person and the behavior.
Is the 21-day habit rule true?
No. It traces back to plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz, who wrote that people take a minimum of about 21 days to adjust to a change like a new face. He wasn’t measuring habit formation.
Does missing one day ruin a habit?
No. The 66-day study found missing one opportunity didn’t materially affect habit formation. Stephen Guise’s rule is to never miss two days in a row.
What is a mini habit?
It’s a positive behavior so small you can do it every day, even on your worst day, like one push-up. Stephen Guise says the point is to always have enough willpower to meet it.
How many habits should you build at once?
Stephen Guise recommends one to four at a time. He does best with three. More than that gets overwhelming, even when each habit is small.