I talk about habits a lot – forming habits, building habits, strengthening habits. But there is something I have glossed over, so I wanted to bring it up – and that’s the time required for these things to develop.
You have probably heard that it takes 21 days to create a habit. Like most of these “everyone knows” rubrics – it’s not very accurate. If it were, we would all have built an incredible collection of immutable habits…but we haven’t.
That’s because it can take much, much longer than that to do all the things needed to really solidify a habit. You need time to develop, set, and inculcate any change. Habits don’t just need to be generated, they need to be nurtured and sustained. When the habits are new, they are susceptible to all kinds of attacks including fatigue, planning (more appropriately, failing to plan), scheduling, emotional upset, inertia, momentum, etc.
We also often neglect to think about the other side of the coin. Typically we want to develop a habit to replace a different, “bad” behavior that we believe is not serving us. So we also need to include the time we will need to unlearn that behavior and install a “better” behavior.
So the next time you think you need to develop a new practice habit – whether it’s to practice every day (even if only for a short time), to warm up every time, to include technical work, to learn new tunes, to learn new techniques, to prepare for specific events, whatever it is – be sure to give yourself the favor of taking the time you need. Use tools to help you succeed (journal, note taking, mark your calendar – whatever it takes).
Define success. Reward yourself for the interim milestones. Celebrate your wins. And when you slip or slide, stand up, brush yourself off, and get back to it. You’ve got this!
What do you think? Do you have a way to make habits stick? If so, please share – in the comments below!