Significance of 21 Days for Any Habit Formation

The 21 Day Habit Formation Theory was first introduced by a plastic surgeon, called Maxwell Maltz, in the 1950s. According to the experts, it is said that a habit takes around 2 months to become your automatic behaviour, to be exact it takes 66 days. However, for some people it can take up to eight months to become a natural behaviour. We are not here to prove that after 21 days of working dedicatedly on a habit, it will become incorporated in your daily routine. But habits do become a part of your routine. However, after working hard on a habit for 21 days, you should not expect your entire success on day 22. It is not necessarily an all-or-nothing process, as it’s fine if you mess up every now and then while you’re working on a habit. Developing and forming a habit depends on how difficult the habit is, what are the situations and environment are and what type of personality is the individual who is trying with new habit.

Theory of Habit Formation

Most people have a common conception that habits are formed after practicing a task for 21 days continuously. Twenty-one days of task execution can make that new habit a part of your routine, unfortunately it’s not completely true. The 21-day habit formation myth was first misinterpreted by Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s work on self-image. It wasn’t claimed by the surgeon however. But people wanted it to be true so much that this concept garnered popularity gradually.

There are three phases in a habit formation theory: (a) Honeymoon Phase, (b) The fight thru phase and (c) Second nature. 

Honeymoon phase of habit formation is distinguished by the feeling of “this is easy.” Honeymoon phase is generally the result of something inspiring and exciting. All married people believe that greatest and best of honeymoons have to end at some point. 

The fight thru phase of habit formation happens when the inspirational and excitement factor fades, and reality sets in. Individuals find themselves striving with the positive habit execution while the old habits still stay right around the corner. The key factor to get going towards the third phase is the win few stages of the second phase which includes recognizing, asking questions to yourself, and life prediction. 

Second nature phase of habit formation is characterized by feelings of “getting in the groove” or in simple words getting used to it.

Significance of 21 Days for Habit Formation

Acquiring needs dedication and will power. People sometimes need motivation to work and practice for forming new habit. Sometimes people also lose motivation over time in the process to find themselves off track. According to some researches, it can take 21 days to fully form a new habit, however it doesn’t work same for everyone. The reason is 21 days is the required time for new neuropathways to be completely formed and framed in your brain. Brain circuits take memory traces to produce neuro-connections and neuropathways and that’s possible only if they are pelted for 21 days in a row. This implies that our brain does not accept new data as a change of habit, unless it is practiced each day for 21 days. However, some sources have tried to disagree this concept, but still the researched studies based on experiments on people has showed that 21 days is a comfortable time period to form and sustain a new habit. And the only simple rule to prove this concept is that one must perform the activity every single day, without failing, for complete 21-days. Success of this method or concept is measured by one’s ability to stick with the practice for complete 21 consecutive days, and by the time the 21 days gets completed the practice would have developed and taken the shape of a new natural behaviour. 

Committing yourself to work hard for complete 21 days at least will lead you towards developing a new reflex habit or behaviour. The beginning of this process is often the toughest part, but sticking to your habit for the first 3 weeks or 21 days could make your success for the year and life. However, on the 22 day you still need to drag yourself out of bed, and keep practicing as it might take less than week to shed the adopted habit. Habits take time to build and need daily commitment plus hard work.