21 Day Rule: How to make it work for you?
Dr Maxwell Maltz, a plastic surgeon in the 1950s, discovered that his patients needed 21 days to get used to the changes he would make to their bodies, such as getting used to a nose-job or facelift. He concluded that “these, and many other commonly observed phenomena tend to show that it requires a minimum of about 21 days for an old mental image to dissolve and a new one to jell.” His conclusions got shortened to: “It takes 21 days to form a new habit”, which has somehow stuck for all these years. Though many psychologists and authors have debunked this story, my personal experience favours the 21-day rule. Irrespective, there has never been a doubt that it takes a minimum of 21 days to form a new habit.
Why does the 21 Day rule work?
- Short enough, yet sufficiently long: It is just three weeks, and many of us would not hesitate to take the challenge. Twenty-one days is a short enough period to get started; a very long commitment can sometimes bog us down. Yet, it is sufficiently long for us to celebrate when we complete it and experience the joy of doing the activity regularly.
- Small effort goes a long way: When we decide to do something new and commit to doing it for 21 days, we usually pick a doable challenge, even if the effort is relatively small. This small effort goes a long way in building the routine, as in the initial phase, we want to tick the box and remain motivated enough to stay the course. Once we cross the initial hurdle of habit formation over 21 days, it is much easier to ramp up the effort for most of us.
- Doing something every day is magical: There is a certain rhythm to our days, and once we decide to do something every day, especially if we choose to do it at a specific time, it becomes a part of our body clock and our daily routine. We would often do things without thinking, which is what habits are all about. Isn’t it?
If we want to give ourselves a chance of success with any new habit, then 21 days is the minimum period for us to follow the new routine or behaviour. For me, 21-days has worked very well, and I use this rule extensively when forming new habits or doing away with some old ones.
Here is how I have tweaked the 21-day rule for myself:
· If I pick up a new routine, I will make an effort to do it at least for 21 days consistently day after day.
· My penalty for missing a day is that my count of 21 starts all over again.
· I usually fix a time in the morning to do the new activity; this gives me the entire day to cover up if I missed the activity in the morning, for any reason whatsoever.
· Rather than consigning the activity to memory, I prefer to calendarize it or put an alarm to remind me of the same or use any other memory trick such as association — linking it with something already a routine, like brushing my teeth or having a meal.
· Depending on the activity, I often sign up an accountability partner; it could be a family member or sometimes even a coach.
· Many times, I build a gradual ramp-up in my routine, start small and step up in tiny increments every day.
Not only for building good habits, but the 21-day rule also works equally well when we want to break or replace a bad habit. You give up something for 21-days, and your urge to go back diminishes, and you become more confident of giving up the nasty habit for a longer duration.
There are enough naysayers who say that the 21-day rule is a myth, but we won’t know until we try. Right?
So, which is the new routine you are willing to try out to put the 21-day rule to test? That 15-min exercise routine or a 3 Km jog or kicking the smoking habit you have been putting off all this while. Game for the 21-day challenge?
