Habitology — Change Your Life In 66 Days? Only When You’re Strong Enough
Let’s close the series with a life-changing formula.
Change is always tough. Repeatedly practicing that change is even more challenging. You probably notice when trying to replace a bad habit with a new one.
Do you know that every pieces of your life is made by habits?
You are happy or unhappy, successful or unsuccessful. It is the result of what you repeatedly do, your habits. Therefore, starting news habits leads to partly changing your life.
And one beautiful day, you want to improve yourself and decide take up a new habit. Let me emphasize, a completely new one, with the hope of after 66 days, there will be a life-changing miracle.
Yes. Scientists said that “It takes 66 days to form a new habit”. I did mention it in my first article of this series. But what about to break a habit? Does it also take 66 days?.
My “biting nails” habit
It suddenly hit me hard. Yesterday, when I was focusing on my work, my mom came to me, pulled my hand out of my mouth and asked “ Why are you still biting your nails at this age?”. I have to confess this has been my habit since my childhood as it was a way to deal with the tremendous anxiety that I didn’t know how to deal with. Now it’s till happening unconsciously. And…
Oh! So habit is the thing we actually forget that we are doing it.
While the scientists’ result was focused on the time it takes to create a habit, we can look at it inversely. If you take the habit out of your life, the same way you put one into your life, you will find yourself free of the unconscious and, many times, detrimental patterns that habits cause. You could replace those old bad habits with new good ones.
Instead of surfing Internet before bed, it’s better to read books. Maybe instead of biting my nails , I can take up some physical habits to reduce my anxiety.
It’s never too late to break a bad habit and start good one. Don’t feel like you’ll never make it just because of repeated failure.
There is no better time to turn over a new leaf (or habit) than in the fall.
Day 1–21: Be Strict
In the first 3 weeks, you will need some supervisors to ensure that you’re not slipping back into your old ways and remind or join with you on the good habits. Tell your friends, family, colleagues to yell, bother, remind you so you’re on track.
I find this is a way to put myself under pressure. Maybe we get used to disappoint ourselves, but it is way much harder to decide to disappoint others, especially our beloved. It’s god damn true!
Replace bad habit with a good one, firstly, to make yourself better. Second, to make people around you proud. Everyone is happy. Do you feel like your life is changing?
Day 22- 44: Start Analyze
Wait a second before moving up and take a look at your life through the first 3 weeks. This is the right time to do some soul — searching. Are you happy with doing this? How is it affecting your life, positive or negative? What is the problem?
You can also find a tool to track your goals so you can see your progress and improvement clearly. In this case, Nirow can be your helpful partner.
It is possible that even when you’re taking a good habit, but it turns out bad effect on your life for many reasons. For example, as you start working out, you’ll feel extremely tired and depressed due to your overdo. Be patient and start small.
If you can find that reason buried deep in your unconscious, you will be able to carry out these 66 days much easier. You will have an internal force pushing you.
Day 45–66: Almost There!
This is the toughest stage because you’ve been trying so hard and it can be easy to burn out. You may get so tired that you forget why you’re trying all these things and revert to the old days with nasty habits.
So the solution is to find something to hold on to. It will give you a push to reach the goal. Look into your analytics and see how you’ve improved. Imagine the person you want to be and the compliment of your beloved, you’ll get huge motivation.
You’re really close to the top of Everest, it’s further to go back now.
Day 66+: Rock it!
What are you waiting for? Get the party started!
Celebrating your success with the one who always support you is a great way to treat and motivate yourself to be better in the future. Good luck to you all!
Here is the end of my first series Habitology, thank you for your reading. Follow Nirow Blog for the next series, which will be released in 2 days.
