21 Days To Form a Habit, (Absolute Lie)

I see this comment made all the time, “it takes 21 days to form a habit.” All I can wonder is whether or not the people who make statements like that have ever actually formed a conscious habit for themselves. Let me explain why I say this

Firstly, we need to look at why habits are hard to form. And I have come to realise that habits are hard to form because they work in opposition to other habits that we have already formed.

Think about it… if a habit was as easy as just deciding today to form a new habit from this day forth, then as easy as that, a new habit is born. This would cause a serious problem, because as easy as it would be to form a new habit, that’s how easy it would be to break the old one that worked in opposition to the new one.

For example, if you decided one day that you were going to brush your teeth every morning first thing as you wake up, and that’s it, from that day forward you would brush your teeth every morning without even thinking about it? What would happen if you decided after a year (when you had forgotten about your “first thing in the morning teeth brushing idea,”) to shower straight after you woke up. Well because forming a new habit like showering would be very easy, the old habit of first brushing your teeth would be instantly broken. That would be a problem.

The difficulty of forming a habit depends on two things, is it in opposition to another earlier formed habit? If it is (and it always is), the next question is, how deeply engrained is the old habit? The depth of an old habit depends on how long you have been doing it for.

So does a habit take 21 days to form? Well below I have given two examples of habits, you tell me which one would be harder to form.

-         Yesterday I decided to brush my teeth every morning, but today I decided it would be better to shower first.

-          I have been brushing my teeth first thing in the morning for 50 years, a few weeks ago I decided to shower first, but I keep forgetting out of force of habit.

There is another problem with the 21 day habit idea, and that is, it doesn’t take into account Mr Habits evil twin, Mr Addiction.

Addiction is similar to a habit, except that it alters the chemistry of the brain. Whether we brush our first or shower first doesn’t alter the brains chemistry. It’s just a habit. Whereas heroin, nicotine, caffeine and alcohol do alter the brains chemistry, and that changes everything.

If you decided to abstain from drinking milk or if you decide to abstain from your heroine addiction is a completely different ball game

Learn To Swim By Swimming

For so long in my life I over analysed what I wanted to do and actually never got round to doing it. Imaging trying to teach a young child to swim by sitting her in front of a chalk board explaining which muscles the child must move in order to swim. Then to teach the child about how momentum through water can create an upward thrust that will keep the child afloat. After that imagine taking the child to gym to exercise the necessary muscles to ensure the child has the strength to swim.

That’s ridiculous; the child just needs to get into the water supervised. Soon the child’s mind will have worked out all the complexities of swimming without any lesson required.

I have caught myself at times spending too much time planning for a course of action, rather than just taking the action.

The best way to grow as a human is to learn to do things, by actually just doing it. What if it’s required of you to give a public speech? Our natural inclination is to spend hours writing out the speech and thinking it through in our minds, but when it comes to giving it, we are so paralysed by fear that we forget everything we planned, our throats close up and we battle to speak.

What’s the point of a speech that took hours to prepare if we can’t remember it at crunch time? The best way to prepare a speech is by given speeches. The best way to learn to swim is by swimming, and the best way to change your life is by making a change.

There is a difference between what you think you think, and what you actually think.

Nope, that is not a typo. Let’s clear it up with an example. I asked a person at work if he thought that money was the answer to happiness. His answer was fairly neutral answer. Something like “I don’t think money is the answer, but being poor definitely isn’t the answer to happiness either.” Seems like a fairly balanced view right? But having a look at his life, the truth is that his view of money is far from balanced. Money is all he ever talks about. He works till 12:00 almost every night. He has no relationship with his son, and his wife has left him. Though there might be many reasons for this, his son told me that his father was always at work. He has a massive house with no one in it.

He tries to appeal to me to work large amounts of over time with promises to earn massive amounts of money. He can’t understand why I don’t seem interested, because to him the mention of money should motivate me more than all else. The only reason he thinks like that, is because that’s how he thinks. If only he knew that the only way to motivate me would be to offer me more time with my wife.

So this doesn’t prove he is some money crazed evil person, because he definitely isn’t. All it proves is that there is a disconnect between what he says and what is actually going on deep inside his mind. He isn’t even aware of his inner most thoughts. He thinks that he thinks in a certain way, but his actions tell a different story.

Though you might not completely agree with this example I have used, I am sure you agree that there is often a disconnect between what someone says and what they do. Not because they are outright lying to deceive you, but because their inner thoughts are different to what they think their inner thoughts are.

It is vitally important to realise that we all do this, you are not free from this problem as if you are different to everyone else. We all do this all the time.

If you are going to change your life, you have to identify what your inner most beliefs are. This is not something you can find out by thinking about your opinions; it’s only possible to know what your inner most thoughts are by looking at your life pattern. It will give you a clearer view of how you actually think on the inside.

You probably grasp the principle of what I am saying, but you might find it hard to think of exact examples. I will give some examples later on in this blog.