> 60. Forming A Habit Takes A Long Time and Requires Small Steps

HOW LONG IT TAKES TO CEMENT A HABIT

To form a habit, depending on the person and the behavior it varies. The average amount is 66 days. Some people took shorter (18 days) or even longer (254 days).

SOME BEHAVIORS BECOME HABIT FASTER THAN OTHERS

The more complex the behavior, the longer it took to become a habit (no surprise there). Participants who chose to create an exercise habit took one-and-a-half times longer to make it automatic than those who were building a new habit about eating fruit at lunch.

HOW BAD IS IT TO MISS A DAY?

If people missed a day here and there, it didn’t have a significant effect on how long it took to build the habit. But too many missed days, or multiple days in a row, did have an effect, and slowed the creation of the habit. Not surprisingly, the more consistent people were, the more quickly they reached the automatic point, although missing one day did not delay habit formation. Missing two or more days did.