What is a habit?
Before you get used to doing any specific actions, you need to understand what the word “habit” actually means.
A habit is a certain pattern of behavior of an individual (human), the implementation of which develops into a need.
Simply put, a habit is an action that a person performs automatically without thinking about it. The emotional, psychological and physical state of the body depends on its implementation.
Our character is based on our habits. Therefore, there is no need to look for those to blame. It's always easy to do. But changing yourself and your attitude is difficult. Change yourself and you will notice how people around you change, how situations change and new opportunities appear.
“A holy place is never empty”
Everyone has also heard this saying, but few have thought about it seriously either. The point is that nature abhors a vacuum. And if something has left your life, it means that something else will come to the vacant place. What exactly is up to you. It could be a new relationship, a new job, a new hobby, or it could be melancholy, despondency and fear of the future.
Remember what you always lacked time for: sports, English, books, general cleaning, macrame, cross stitch? So don’t wait for another occasion: quarantine or dismissal is a great way to occupy your free time with something pleasant.
And there is no need for this “what will we live on then?!”, “we will have nothing to eat” and so on. You still won't be looking for a new job 24 hours a day. So set aside a couple of hours a day for reflection and searching for new options. The rest is for yourself and everything pleasant.
What do habit and reflex have in common?
A correctly chosen habit becomes a reflex that forces the body to rebuild. The following experiment was carried out. A volunteer who liked to be different from other people decided to change his biorhythms and sleep during the day and stay awake at night. For 21 days, he rested during daylight hours and worked at night. After the habit developed, he decided not to sleep during the day for one day. By evening he was sleepy and lethargic, but as night fell, he felt cheerful and active again. This proves that habits are part of reflexes. That is, under certain circumstances, the body ignores the setting and performs its usual actions.
"Smile and wave"
Now you won’t remember where and when you first heard this phrase: in the cartoon “Madagascar”, the film “The Madness of King George” or the song by Alexander Pushny. And we don’t know whether this phrase will help in all the situations faced by the heroes of these wonderful works.
But we know for certain that a person smiles not only when he feels good. The reverse also works: even an insincere and forced smile after a short time makes the brain think that everything is fine with us, hormones of joy begin to be released in the body.
In general, here’s a life hack: if you’re in the worst possible mood, and there are no constructive thoughts about the impending changes yet, occupy your time with something fun. Watch a comedy, read jokes, sing some funny songs at online karaoke. And you will notice that after half an hour of this action you feel better and everything around is not so bad.
And one more point that many people overlook: any comedy, joke, song is almost always some kind of short but instructive story. Think about the meaning and perhaps it will tell you a way out of your situation. In the end, almost everything that happens to us has already happened somewhere and to someone.
Become happy in 21 days - fashionable flash mob
Developing habits is not only useful, but also fashionable. A few years ago, such an intercontinental flash mob was popular. Anyone could take part in it. Each participant wore a purple bracelet on their wrist, after which they were not allowed to complain about anything for 21 days. If he still had vague thoughts, he had to take off the bracelet and put it on his other hand, after which the experiment would begin all over again.
The purpose of this action was to teach people to be optimistic and stop complaining about life. Project participants noted that the flash mob helped them change for the better. They began to look at life differently, and the experiment allowed them to become happy in 21 days.
Don't listen to your opponents.
Pressure from outside will always put a spoke in your wheels. A person’s success attracts those people who do not want to see him so successful and happy. Many simply strive to find weak points and put pressure on them in order to return the personality far back. Relatives support or rely on a relative who is obliged to behave according to their plan. Is the lady quitting smoking hard? Her friends will drag her out for coffee, where she will be offered a cigarette. Have you decided to go to a fitness club? Friends will talk about the possible harm of training, how it didn’t help them and in general it’s all wasted money.
You only need to listen to experienced people who do not show persistence as an opponent. After many times of being rejected or ignored, people will simply stop showing interest. You need to firmly follow your dream!
How the 21 day rule works
Every day, millions of people try to develop a wide variety of skills, but not everyone succeeds. Psychologists have come up with one simple rule that, in their opinion, helps achieve the desired goal.
If you repeat the same action every day for 21 days, it is recorded in the subconscious, and we begin to do it unconsciously, i.e. automatically . To bring it to automation is our goal.
Experts in the field of psychology argue that daily work during this particular period deposits an attitude in the subconscious, thanks to which a habit is developed.
A habit transforms into a need over time. How? Let's look at an interesting example. Parents force a small child to relieve himself in a designated place. Over time, the importance of this process “reaches” his subconscious and he begins to ask to go to the potty. The habit of going to the child's potty, over the course of several years, develops into the need to go to the toilet.
Associate your activities with pleasure.
If work does not bring pleasure for 7 years, then a new one is clearly required. Even if learning a very useful English language is difficult, you shouldn’t focus on it. Any business that is done through force is doomed to early or late failure. Soon the person will feel disgusted. Did parents force their child to go to music school? When he finishes it, he may feel an aversion to tools. If something does not cause inner delight, you should avoid it and find an alternative. But there are exceptions! Reading books, maintaining order, physical activity and the like—basic things cannot be excluded.
Why does it take 21 days for a habit to form?
This is a completely logical question that interests everyone who has set out to instill in themselves this or that habit. I wonder why not 30 days or 35, but rather 21 days? In fact, this number is scientifically based, but to understand why it takes 21 days to form a habit, you will be interested in knowing a few historical facts.
The first person to put forward the “21 days” theory was plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz. In 1950, he noticed that his patients, after operations on their appearance, got used to their appearance only after 21 days. He described his hypothesis in the book “Psychocybrnetics”. After the doctor’s work was lauded by society, people started talking about the theory everywhere.
20 years later, psychologists from London questioned the claim that a habit is formed in 21 days. They conducted their study in which 96 volunteers took part. It lasted 12 weeks. Each was given a task to regularly perform some specific action. After the end of the experiment, after analyzing all the results, they found out that the period of habit formation is different for each person. This is determined by the individuality of each person. Getting used to performing a certain action occurs within 18-254 days.
Another study was carried out by American scientists on astronauts. 20 people took part in the experiment. Each of them was given glasses that they did not have to take off for 30 days. These glasses were special. The secret was in the lenses. When putting them on, the world turned upside down (in the literal sense of the word), that is, the astronauts saw an inverted image.
Scientists noticed that it was after 21 days that the brain of each of the experiment participants adapted. If the glasses were removed on the 10th or 19th day, then the experiment had to be started again, because the effect disappeared. After the volunteers got used to seeing the upside-down world, they were allowed to take off their glasses. After which their brains were rebuilt again for 21 days.
Many consider the results of US scientists to be unreliable, since the astronauts did not take off their glasses during the entire experiment, which lasted about 300 hours. If you rely on their results, then in order to accustom yourself to daily jogging, you will have to run for 21 days, interrupting only to sleep.
Having studied the results of all the studies conducted, we can say that a habit is developed in a minimum of 21 days, and a maximum of 254. This is influenced by many factors, which we will now talk about.
If change is inevitable
At that moment when you realized that a turning point has come, that the way you are living, it is no longer possible to live, that it is time to start changing your life, step number one is to audit your life, determine where you are now, what is happening in your life, what you like about it and what you don’t. Turn off self-pity, remove all accusations and listing the sins of other people, focus only on the facts. There is this and this. It makes me uncomfortable, but this is what I really like in my life. This is the part I would like to change, but this part doesn’t require any action yet. I have this much energy, but most of the time my mood is like this.
Now look at the things you don't like in life. Write down why you don’t like them, what they entail now and what they might entail in the future. Tell yourself why they happened to you. Most things that happen to you have a reason. Most often, this reason is yourself, but it is very painful to admit. It's much easier to blame everything on someone else.
If you're unhappy in a relationship, it's your partner's fault. But who chose this partner? I don’t like my job - I have a terrible boss, I’m not appreciated, my colleagues couldn’t be worse, and it takes 2 hours to get to work and back. But who chose this job? Who made the decision to stay there? Health problems - again I was unlucky and why do I have all these pains? But who chose to smoke, drink alcohol and eat junk food? Who decided to litter the body - their most important asset? You are constantly depressed and in a bad mood - everything around you is bad, bad and bad. But who constantly reads and discusses negative news? Who focuses on the bad? It's probably not you, it's someone else.
How to force yourself to move forward
If you decide to acquire any useful habit and doubt your willpower, try to come to an agreement with your “I”. For example, you decided to read books before bed and thus develop, but you don’t know how long you will last. Think of habit formation as a 21-day experiment. This time will be enough for you to understand whether you need it at all or not.
Main! Just start doing it. Do it once and just repeat it tomorrow. So, day after day. Stop reading, go and do it! It’s also important to remember that over the years you will regret that you didn’t change something in your life, that you could have been more decisive! Think about it, root it in your head, say it out loud if necessary, when it’s hard to tear yourself away from the couch and go do what you planned.
And the first habit on the list is finishing things. Hold out for 21 days. Prove to yourself that you can do it.
For a habit to become a part of your life, it must bring joy, harmony and a sense of self-satisfaction. So don't be afraid to experiment and take action.
Take a piece of paper and write down 10 habits that will make your life better. Then choose the most desirable one. Commit to yourself that you will perform the action regularly for 21 days. Take a calendar and circle these days. Next to each date, put a plus if the task was completed today, or a minus if not. Such visibility will help you control the execution of actions and make you proud of yourself.
If at the end of the experiment you realize that you still don’t like the habit, quit it and start the experiment with a new task.
For example, if you read scientific literature every day for 3 weeks before bed, and after this period you do not feel satisfied, stop torturing yourself. If you still want to expand your horizons, try reading easy-to-understand books, poetry, classics, etc. By going through them, you will definitely find your favorite works and can develop a habit in 21 days.
Acquire and apply new skills.
From a new stage in life, you need to find a place for new skills. It is important to include this item wherever possible: in your diary, tablet, phone, on a sticky note on the refrigerator. If you don’t take at least minimal steps towards an idea within the first days, maximum a week, interest in it will drop to zero. What seemed interesting at first will later become a thing of the past.
It is worth determining a clear time when you can do this in full force. In the meantime, paying attention to your dream simply won’t work! Decided to study English? Every day for 30 minutes will be optimal! Do you have a goal to run in the morning? Then you need to force yourself to get up earlier and go for a run.
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Step by step steps to form a habit
Forming a habit is a rather difficult and responsible process. It consists of several stages that must be completed. Now we will tell you how to do this step by step.
- Decision-making . To develop a habit, you need to understand that you really need it. Besides this, you still have to want to get it. Desire will control your actions and help you overcome the difficult period of 21 days. For example, you decided to eat only healthy and nutritious foods in order to lose weight, feel healthy and vigorous. In this case, when you want to eat sausages, your subconscious mind itself will stop you.
- Start . If you have a goal, then take action. Don’t put off such an important matter until “later.” Don't wait for a new week, month or good mood to come, because the habit will accompany you throughout your life.
- Repeat for the first two days . After you have started active actions, you need to hold out for the first 2 days. This is the initial distance that will have to be overcome.
- Repeat throughout the week . This is the second distance that needs to be covered. Every day, no matter what, perform the intended action. Habit formation does not include weekends and holidays.
- Repeat for 21 days. By doing the action during this period of time, you will realize that you are doing it automatically. That is, the process of forming a habit is already bringing the first successes.
- Repeat 40 days . It is necessary to continue to monitor the development of the habit after 21 days. After all, three weeks may not be enough. It depends on the complexity of the habit, motivation and individual characteristics of the person.
- Repeat for 90 days . After you complete the steps for exactly 90 days, you can say with great confidence that you will form a sustainable habit.
Reward yourself for small victories.
Were you able to finish your work ahead of schedule? You can go to the cinema to watch your favorite film. After a month of training, have you lost those extra pounds? Take it and go on a tourist trip. For tangible growth, it is important to apply the “carrot and stick” rule. If laziness takes over and goals are achieved sluggishly, you should deny yourself whims. On the difficult path of development there should be room for pleasant surprises. The incentive always finds an echo in gratitude. Changes in life are freedom that is available to everyone!
We hope that the article was useful to you! It is important to be open to perspectives and not be afraid to explore new sides of yourself. PS Lack of haste and concentration on the main thing will quickly lead to long-awaited results. Happiness is near!
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How not to break down?
We are all human and we tend to doubt. This also applies to habits. Sometimes, depending on his volitional abilities, it is very difficult for a person not to go astray from the intended path. Now we will share little secrets that will not only help you develop a new habit in 21 days, but will also strengthen your willpower.
- Come up with a reward that you can afford if you don’t slack and complete everything on time.
- Use positive reinforcement : self-hypnosis, imitation of someone, in general, anything, as long as it helps you stay on track.
- Constantly motivate yourself . Without proper self-hypnosis, you will not achieve the desired result and will not understand that you really need the habit. If you find it difficult to do this, seek help from family and friends who believe in you. They will charge you with positive emotions and return you to the right path. In addition, look around you; those around you must have noticed the changes that have occurred in you. Positive feedback from friends and colleagues is also an excellent motivator. For example, if you decide to go to the gym, then within a couple of weeks you will notice how your body is changing. People around you cannot help but notice this. They will definitely speak positively about your habit, and your family will encourage your endeavor. This is what will force you to move on, without stopping there.
- Make sure you perform the actions regularly . Habit formation does not tolerate even the shortest breaks. In case of failures, you will have to start all over again. Only daily work on yourself guarantees a positive result. It’s like taking pills: if the doctor tells you to take them 3 times a day for 4 weeks, then that’s what you need to do, otherwise the disease will return, and the result of the treatment will be meaningless. To make this easier, keep a diary of your successes and write down every day that the action was completed, what emotions it caused you, who appreciated your undertaking. When you feel like giving up, look through your notes. They won't let you stop halfway. Today it is fashionable to blog, so why not start now. A sense of responsibility to a large audience of readers will not allow you to stray from your intended path. And people, by the way, really love such experiments and watch them with pleasure.
- Put in enough effort . They easily get used to only bad habits; useful ones are acquired through hard and painstaking work. Remember this and constantly work on yourself. If you want to quit, think about how much you have already done to make the habit a part of you. Once you realize how far you have come and how much you have endured, you will not want to stop.
Believe in success based on the example of others.
Changes in the life of one person are possible if another also managed to achieve results. It is important to recognize that success can be passed on to those who really put in the effort. There is even a possibility of surpassing the other, but it is important to gain experience and knowledge. All people are equal and have the same potential. Everyone at some stage experiences fear, doubt, and misunderstanding.
Difficulties can strengthen willpower or completely destroy it. Do you want to open a business, but don’t have the knowledge? Why not ask a friend who has been doing this for years for advice. It is important to stay close to those who have the results we strive for.
