How Long Does It Take to Form a New Behavior?

Ha! I received this question from someone who is participating in my teleseminar series so I decided to write about it today. I thought it was worth putting some research out there for all of you. I am going to include a few different pieces of research and then tell you what my (non-science) client based research has proven.

Maxwell Maltz suggests change takes 21 days

“Maxwell Maltz was a plastic surgeon in the 1950s when he began noticing a strange pattern among his patients.

When Dr. Maltz would perform an operation — like a nose job, for example — he found that it would take the patient about 21 days to get used to seeing their new face. Similarly, when a patient had an arm or a leg amputated, Maltz noticed that the patient would sense a phantom limb for about 21 days before adjusting to the new situation.

 

These experiences prompted Maltz to think about his own adjustment period to changes and new behaviors, and he noticed that it also took himself about 21 days to form a new habit. Maltz wrote about these experiences and said, “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.”

 

In 1960, Maltz published that quote and his other thoughts on behavior change in a book called Psycho-Cybernetics. The book went on to become an blockbuster hit, selling more than 30 million copies.

 

And that’s when the problem started.

 

You see, in the decades that followed, Maltz’s work influenced nearly every major “self-help” professional from Zig Ziglar to Brian Tracy to Tony Robbins. And as more people recited Maltz’s story — like a very long game of “Telephone” — people began to forget that he said “a minimum of about 21 days” and shortened it to, “It takes 21 days to form a new habit.”

And that’s how society started spreading the common myth that it takes 21 days to form a new habit (or 30 days or some other magic number). It’s remarkable how often these timelines are quoted as statistical facts. Dangerous lesson: If enough people say something enough times, then everyone else starts to believe it.

 

It makes sense why the “21 Days” Myth would spread. It’s easy to understand. The time frame is short enough to be inspiring, but long enough to be believable. And who wouldn’t like the idea of changing your life in just three weeks?

 

But the problem is that Maltz was simply observing what was going on around him and wasn’t making a statement of fact. Furthermore, he made sure to say that this was theminimum amount of time needed to adapt to a new change (http://jamesclear.com/new-habit)”.

 

The Transtheoretical Model implies that change takes longer than 21 days

“The Transtheoretical Model (also called the Stages of Change Model), developed by Prochaska and DiClemente in the late 1970s, evolved through studies examining the experiences of smokers who quit on their own with those requiring further treatment to understand why some people were capable of quitting on their own. It was determined that people quit smoking if they were ready to do so. Thus, the Transtheoretical Model (TTM) focuses on the decision-making of the individual and is a model of intentional change. The TTM operates on the assumption that people do not change behaviors quickly and decisively. Rather, change in behavior, especially habitual behavior, occurs continuously through a cyclical process. The TTM is not a theory but a model; different behavioral theories and constructs can be applied to various stages of the model where they may be most effective.

 

The TTM posits that individuals move through six stages of change: precontemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, maintenance, and termination. Termination was not part of the original model and is less often used in application of stages of change for health-related behaviors. For each stage of change, different intervention strategies are most effective at moving the person to the next stage of change and subsequently through the model to maintenance, the ideal stage of behavior.

 

There are several limitations of TTM, which should be considered when using this theory. Limitations of the model include the following:

• The theory ignores the social context in which change occurs, such as SES and income.
• The lines between the stages can be arbitrary with no set criteria of how to determine a person’s stage of change. The questionnaires that have been developed to assign a person to a stage of change are not always standardized or validated.
• There is no clear sense for how much time is needed for each stage, or how long a person can remain in a stage.
• The model assumes that individuals make coherent and logical plans in their decision-making process when this is not always true (http://sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/SB/SB721-Models/SB721-Models6.html)”.

Phillippa Lally’s research indicated that on average changes takes 66 days

In a study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Lally and her research team decided to figure out just how long it actually takes to form a habit.

The study examined the habits of 96 people over a 12-week period. Each person chose one new habit for the 12 weeks and reported each day on whether or not they did the behavior and how automatic the behavior felt.

 

Some people chose simple habits like “drinking a bottle of water with lunch.” Others chose more difficult tasks like “running for 15 minutes before dinner.” At the end of the 12 weeks, the researchers analyzed the data to determine how long it took each person to go from starting a new behavior to automatically doing it.

The answer?

 

On average, it takes more than 2 months before a new behavior becomes automatic — 66 days to be exact. And how long it takes a new habit to form can vary widely depending on the behavior, the person, and the circumstances. In Lally’s study, it took anywhere from 18 days to 254 days for people to form a new habit. [1]

In other words, if you want to set your expectations appropriately, the truth is that it will probably take you anywhere from two months to eight months to build a new behavior into your life — not 21 days.

 

Interestingly, the researchers also found that “missing one opportunity to perform the behavior did not materially affect the habit formation process.” In other words, it doesn’t matter if you mess up every now and then. Building better habits is not an all-or-nothing process (http://jamesclear.com/new-habit).

Dr. Michelle’s client based research on change

“When performers want to make change it is global. For example, many of my clients want to build their confidence. In order to build confidence, a performer has to work on changing cognition’s, emotion’s and actions. This is not something that can be done in 21 days nor does it generally take several years. From what I’ve found in my work with clients is that as long as someone is in the preparation stage (TTM) – in this stage, people are ready to take action within the next 30 days. People start to take small steps toward the behavior change, and they believe changing their behavior can lead to a healthier life – in 6 months people can have increased awareness (which is important for change) and a well develop plan that’s starting to be ingrained (replacing the old cognition’s, emotion’s and actions). In a 6 month period of time 80% of my clients have moved from the preparation stage to the action stage and are feeling more confident. In order to make this happen, consistency is important and it does take concerted effort outside of our sessions on the part of the client to remain diligent with the things we are working on. This is where the hard work comes in. 

 

Does that mean you don’t have to spend time working on this any more? No but it does mean you have a better sense of confidence and control for dealing with things when they come up. In the maintenance stage clients pop in and out of office for tuneups. In these tuneups they learn to: transfer the skills they originally learned to other situations, fine tune skills they forgot they had, redevelop their plan or develop a new one (which is not at all like starting from square 1).

 

The process of change in all three areas: cognition’s, emotion’s and actions is not the same as deciding to drink more water everyday. In this comparison, we are really talking about apples and banana’s. Some of the processes of drinking more water will be similar but they are not as attached to identity (pressure, competition, etc.) as is the case of a professional athlete who if she doesn’t get her anxiety under control so she can win more matches and earn more money will surely lose her status (and her identity) as a professional athlete. 

 

I always ask clients, how many years has it taken you to get good at what you do? And you want to hurry through mental change? THE mental change that is going to make the biggest difference in how you perform?

I am interested to hear what you think. What are your thoughts?

I hope your return to reality from the holidays has been a smooth transition!

Dr. Michelle

Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org