by rzk on 4/22/25, 6:47 PM with 134 comments
by PaulRobinson on 4/22/25, 8:38 PM
It took me a week or so to start having a healthier breakfast and it become part of my routine, and I've been trying to have healthier lunches for years now (and still regularly fail, normally because at lunchtimes I'm tired, stressed and yearning for comfort foods like sandwiches and snack bars).
I think anyone who believed exactly 21 days was the magic number for all habits, for all people, was grossly naive.
But what I do find is that after 21 days it's no longer novel, it's just what you do, if somebody asks you what you do about X, you no longer say "I'm trying this new thing around X, and...", you tell them your new habit. Identifying that habit as part of who you are is key to it being sticky. For some people, and for some habits, that might be true after a week, or it might take a year, but it's an important step, and if you want that habit to stick you should get to it as fast as you can.
by egypturnash on 4/22/25, 9:00 PM
(Addictions are a different story of course.)
by gchamonlive on 4/22/25, 9:08 PM
In all these cases the habit is secondary. It's all discipline and pain.
But I think there is a better relationship to be had with habits. One that isn't unfairly tied to productivity. One that I can just enjoy the struggle until I form that routine, or I build up the familiarity or the skill to do something. That kind of attention changes something fundamental about my relationship with what I'm trying to internalize and make a part of myself. It's to learn to be constantly learning and improving without making it a burden or a chore.
by noam_k on 4/23/25, 3:34 AM
1. Tangible - you need to pick a tangible action that is observable. If you're trying to fix a part of your behavior you can't pick "I'll pay more attention" as a habit to correct yourself, instead you should write a note or say some phrase.
2. Up to me - don't form a habit that requires outside factors. If you want to start jogging, don't ask your neighbor to jog with you. Each time he's not available, you'll have an excuse not to jog.
3. Swallow the frog - don't push it off. This isn't a well defined criteria, the idea is to minimize excuses (like #2).
4. Daily - a habit needs to be formed by taking action every day.
5. Trigger - your action needs a trigger. This can be an internal (feeling hungry), external (a timer on your phone), or contextual (every morning, every time you walk into a conference room).
6. New - it's very hard to form a habit if you've already tried and failed. Pick an action that you haven't already tried.
There was also an important note that changing behavior often requires multiple steps. The instructor gave the example of using dental floss. It's hard to go from nothing to flossing every day, so break it into:
1. Every time you go into the bath room in the evening, pick up the dental floss, and put it down.
2. After picking up the floss becomes a habit, cut a piece of floss, and throw it out.
3. After cutting the floss becomes a habit, floss a few teeth.
And so on.
by _JoRo on 4/22/25, 11:35 PM
Obviously, this means going from A to Z can take years instead of weeks. Though, from my own personal experience and from what I see of others, trying to go too quickly from A to Z just results in whiplash and irractic behavior--where I have seen it work is when there is an existential crisis demanding that the behavior change.
by m463 on 4/22/25, 11:37 PM
Forming a running habit is probably harder than say heroin.
I also recall from the "atomic habits" book, that you can chain habits together.
The idea was that if you already have a habit of getting out of bed in the morning, you could hydrate. Just say "as soon as I get out of bed, drink a glass of water" and it is easier to form the habit.
by tombert on 4/22/25, 9:54 PM
While the exact time that I formed the healthier "habit" is harder to quantify, I definitely felt like the first three weeks were the hardest. It did feel, almost overnight, by the beginning of week four it was relatively easy to keep my calorie intake lower.
by cryptoz on 4/22/25, 8:16 PM
by markus_zhang on 4/23/25, 3:34 AM
I tried many times to get into exercise, but only got into a regular schedule (daily) recently. I don't even know what happened but there is definitely a click. The number of days is not so important. Something inside just told me to do it. Same with fasting. Somehow I got into 72-hour water fast with zero preparation and "habit" a few months ago and have been doing it once or twice a month.
How to get the click is more interesting. I wish I could generate those clicks for things I want to do but not dying to do.
by Willingham on 4/22/25, 9:19 PM
by kshacker on 4/23/25, 5:50 AM
So twice what is being discussed here.
by blueyes on 4/22/25, 8:40 PM
This whole question revolves around the effort/reward ratio of a behavior. When people talk about ~21 days, they're talking about doing a hard thing until it's second nature and seems easy.
But there are other ways to make something seem easy, and there is another component in the ratio: reward. That is, even if effort stays the same, you can wire a habit by making the behavior more rewarding. (This is why people are able to get addicted to a substance after one dose -- because they can't forget the state they entered ... and it was so easy to get there.)
So the takeaway here is the you can wire habits by decreasing the amount of effort to do something that you think is good for you -- eg if you want to hydrate more, place a glass near the sink so you drink water when you get out of bed in the morning -- *and* by increasing the reward. The whole trick is getting the ratio right.
Cliche Silicon Valley example. I did an ice plunge, and it gave me a day long plunger's high. I didn't need to plunge for 21 days to get the habit. I started doing it 3 times a week after that, because I knew what I had to do to feel good.
This actually gets to something Huberman calls "duration-path-outcome". Getting clarity on what you have to do (path); how long it will take (duration); and what the payoff is (outcome), can do wonders for motivation. Confusion kills action (and for that matter, all deals, since habits are just deals we make with ourselves). If you can get clarity, reduce the effort, and increase the amount of reward and your confidence in it, I think you can get to new habits really quickly.
Fwiw, I wrote a little bit about forming habits here: https://vonnik.substack.com/p/state-changes-work-and-presenc...
by LtdJorge on 4/22/25, 8:50 PM
Edit: took me 1 day to drop the remaining sugar, and plants in general.
by mjparrott on 4/22/25, 9:42 PM
by anshumankmr on 4/23/25, 5:37 AM
So that habit of gymming literally zero days. Just visited the gym, checked out the washrooms, found it acceptable, and signed up immediately.
by WarOnPrivacy on 4/23/25, 5:18 AM
And change¹ isn't really what we do; we cover bad with good.
We surface counterproductive drivers.
We counter them by layering new thinking/behaviors over old.
Each layer is it's own project and most don't stick for a while.
¹ see also, healingby atoav on 4/23/25, 7:18 AM
by laylomo2 on 4/23/25, 1:18 AM
by KurSix on 4/23/25, 6:38 AM
by layer8 on 4/22/25, 10:06 PM
It also has a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psycho-Cybernetics
by Chipen on 4/23/25, 3:55 AM
by topspin on 4/23/25, 7:20 AM
by ChrisMarshallNY on 4/22/25, 9:02 PM
However, as the article says, it really depends on what habit we are trying to establish.
by agumonkey on 4/22/25, 9:39 PM
by joelsstafford on 4/23/25, 4:01 AM
by yawnxyz on 4/22/25, 10:32 PM
by pbhjpbhj on 4/22/25, 8:24 PM
Something about the title suggested it was going to be much less than 21 days; maybe it's the domain name biasing my reading of the title.
by sublinear on 4/22/25, 9:16 PM
by jmyeet on 4/22/25, 11:09 PM
People are neurotypical rarely if ever understand what those with ADHD go through. The best description I've heard is that people with ADHD don't have habits: we have trauma.
The meaning of that is that neurotypicals have the capacity to simply go into a rom and do something. It almost passively happens. ADHD people do not. Even getting up in the morning involves 50 questions being mentally asked and answered. Do I need to take something to the bathroom? Did I run the dishwasher? Did I leave the heating on? Do I need to do laundry today? And I'm 5 seconds into my day.
A brain that seeks novelty quickly gets bored with reptition. The only way you form habits is by the trauma of the consequences of not having that habit.