Making Changes in the New Year

3 Myths About Behavior Change

As we ring in the New Year, we often reflect about the things that we want to keep in the upcoming year and thing we want to change.  Old habits can be hard to leave behind and new habits can be challenging to begin.  

According to the American Psychological Association, a habit is defined as a “well-learned behavior or automatic sequence of behaviors that is relatively situation specific and over time has become motorically reflexive and independent of motivational or cognitive influence; meaning, it is performed with little or no conscious intent.

Habits have three parts:   cue, repetition, and automation.   Habits are triggered by cues.   Some examples of cues include location, time, routine, mood, and other people.  Repetition refers to the developing of habits (both beneficial and not beneficial) develop by repeating behaviors.  Once a habit has been repeated for a prolonged time, it becomes automatic, which means they occur without intention.

There are several myths that occur about forming new habits and positively changing your behavior.

Myth #1: It takes 21 days to form a new habit.

If you have tried to change a behavior, you may already realize that it is a difficult task.  The good news is that science supports that this is normal.  According to a recent study in the European Journal of Social Psychology, actually it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit.  The actual time may range from 18 to 254 days, with an average of 66 days!  With that being said, we shouldn’t judge ourselves so harshly if we struggle to change.   Be patient, stay the course, identify your pitfalls.  Otherwise, the failure to change in 21 days leads to disappointment and frustration, followed by decreased motivation, which leads to quitting.

Myth # 2: Willpower is the key to change.

Habits are deeply embedded in our brain.  Habits can be tied to memory and can be temporarily inactive.  Old habits may be revived by cues, such as a location, a smell, our friends and family, and our work environment, willpower alone will not disrupt the habit association.

Myth # 3: Lasting change is impossible.

Every new year, we see the cover of magazines touting people that have lost half of their weight, or make some other highly remarkable change, and it is easy to begin to wonder what is wrong with ourselves and why we have not accomplished such great results.   We do know that old habits can be changed and new ones can be formed by using multiple Behavior Change Techniques at the same time as outlined in the figure below.

Stopping an Undesirable Habit

The truth is that change is hard, but not impossible.  Work on changing one behavior at a time.  Write it down and tell a trusted someone your intentions.  Ask for their support in helping hold you accountable.  Most importantly, be patient with yourself while you break old habits and establish new ones.