Have you ever heard about taking 21 days to form a new habit? That famous assumption comes from the book Psycho Cybernetics by Maxmell Maltz. The book was published in 1960, it mentions that patients took 21 days to get used to seeing their new face. When patients had an arm or leg amputated, Maxwell Maltz noticed that they would sense a phantom limb for about 21 days before adjusting to the new situation. And that’s how society started spreading the common myth that it takes 21 days to form a new habit. It is remarkable how often these timelines are quoted as statistical facts. If enough people says something enough times, then everyone else starts to believe it. But the problem is that Maxwell Maltz was simply observing what was going on around him and wasn’t making a statement of fact. Beside he made sure to say that this was the minimum amount of time needed to adapt to a new change/habit. So, what do you think? What is the real fact about the term of having things to be formed as a new habit?

There is also the other research told that the average people could form a habit within 66 days. The research came from Eroupean Journal of Social Psychology. Philipa Lally and colleagues from the University of London recruited 96 people who were interested in new habits, like eating fruits 15 before lunch or running 15 minutes each day, and other (Lally et al., 2009). When they examined the habits, they found that there was relationship that showed in a curved relationship between the practice and the habit that began automatically, and their results found that the average participants could form a habit within 66 days.

This research also noted that not doing it a day of a few days, like not repeating the activity will not close the opportunities in forming habits. It is just repetition of activities done in in the early training that gives a lot of increased opportunities in forming habits. This fact shows that forming habits within 21 days is not entirely true. Beside, it’s still depend on what what we intended to have. Some habits are easy to built, some are difficult. People has different condition too, there are some groups of people who are difficult in forming habit or even can’t form them at all. Personality, motivation, environment and conditions, as well as the kind of habits that want to change also affect the speed of a person to change a habit. So what are you waiting for? Form your habit as soon as possible, people can always do new things when they are aware of the habit and are motivated to change.

research source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.674