I read an article since I was curious to know how long it took to form a habit. It referenced the myth of 21 days that a plastic surgeon surmised when he observed how long it took an amputee to learn to do without a limb as true if you've lost a limb. But, for things like drinking a glass of water everyday or hard things like sit ups before breakfast, that number may not work. The article referenced at term - automaticity. As you can guess, as did I, it appears to refer to that which becomes automatic in your life. Things which you no longer have to put out energy to decide if youre going to do something...but just do it. Automatically.
The psychologist drew a chart of his findings and the average was 66 days. Now, I don't put a lot of stock in psychobabble, but I thought that this might be a great thing to challenge us with. 66 days.
66 days to form a habit? Well, I know when it comes to forming a bad habit that number is more like 66 seconds. But, to paraphrase a great quote, anything worth having is worth working hard for. Wow, I butchered that and to top it off I ended my sentence with a preposition. Definitely a bad habit that took 66 seconds and living in Arkansas to burn in my brain.
Now, 66 days...to what?
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