Time To Simple New Habit – 66 days
There is an interesting post on the PsyBlog on How Long Does it Take to Form a Habit? After exploding some myths (it takes 21 days) and dashing the hope that we can just google an answer (21- 28 days) they review a recent study that shows (not surprisingly) that it varies by the complexity of the new habit you are trying to form.
Two key findings caught my eye:
1. It takes on average 66 days of practice to form simple new habits such as eating a piece of fruit daily. Something becomes a habit when we no longer need to exert self control to do the behavior (it becomes automatic).
2. There is significant individual and sub-group variation. For example the variation in one experiment was 18 days to 254 days for the same habit.
Both of these finding offer factors to consider any time you are designing a behavior change program, especially one focused on a small steps approach. The first offers a guide line on the amount of repetition that is involved. Turns out missing a day is not too bad but being consistent early on the new habit curve has the most value. The second, highlighting variation, underwrites the importance of developing a psychographic profile or segmenting those you are designing for into new habit champs and new habit resistors.
