You become what you practice every day, if you practice happiness, you will be happy, if you practice anger, you will get angry. We all should practice a little good and positive behavior to become positive and optimistic in our lives.
Habits and its Psychology
Habits are the single trait that distinguishes one person from another person. The habits of every successful person are the pathway through which they have gained all the success. This not only gives them discipline but also gives them consistency to continue their tremendously amazing successful work. Waking up at 6 AM every day allows a person to have 3 extra hours daily than a person waking up at 9 AM. Also, these behaviors help them to facilitate success in a defined way.
Scientific approach or Magical Practice?
Most people find it magical that a habit can be formed in 21 days, or one could quit a habit in 21 days. However, this idea of 21 days is still a matter of debate between the people who believe in it and the people who are still searching for scientific proof of this human trait. Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s work on self-image does give this amazing idea that anyone can change their habits by practicing a particular way of doing things or habits in only 21 days, although this idea is not proven by Dr. Maltz still it gained popularity as time passed. This has been useful for several people still psychologists and human nature experts say that it takes approximately 60 to 90 days for anyone to adopt or change habits.
The journey
The journey of 21 days is surely not a walk-through cake, it is challenging, tiering, burdensome, demanding, and sometimes dreamy. To have a look through these 21 days we will separate the whole journey into 4 major parts which are mentioned as followed:
Easy and Inspiring Walk (1st day to 3rd day): We have heard many stories of people who have significantly changed their behaviors by constantly practicing something for 21 days. This inspired us to do the same and we started the walk. For the first few days, we managed it very well and started feeling that this is going to continue in the same way, but what we don't realize is that there are always challenges and hurdles on the path to success. The people who inspired us to have this journey didn't tell us about the challenges that we are going to face.
Fight within (4th day to 8th day): The challenges that I am facing are even worth the struggle or not? This is the question that is constantly going to cover the whole idea of you changing your behavior. Is it worth it? Do I seriously need it? Am I doing fine without it? Always you are going to have a different question in your head, and ultimately either you are going to quit or find some way to answer all these questions and move on.
End of the honeymoon period (8th day to 15th day): All the inspiration has gone, only hardships and struggles are left. You have nothing to depend on and you feel this idea is completely useless, this is the point where you also think that you have come a long way and you can start cheating sometimes with your routine, your brain will constantly start shivering all your thoughts of not cheating on the routine. In this phase, the maximum number of people quit this 21-day method because for various reasons (mainly cheating). Once they start giving their brain the leniency to cheat theirs's no way of coming back.
Beginning of second nature (16th day to 21st day): Adopting a different nature is always difficult. When we practice a new habit, it makes significant positive and negative changes in our nature. These changes can be physical, psychological, or medical.
Although a
lot of people do not believe in the 21-day method still it has helped many
people to recover from serious health issues such as smoking, and also it has
helped people to make new healthy routines in their life. Students are using
this trick since the 90’s to make a proper timetable for their everyday routine, it
helps them to manage their studies and extra-curricular activities in a well-designed
way.
13 things that successful people never do
We can alternately say that we need to add a few more details to this 21-day theory.
- Extend the days: The most important is the number of days we are practicing something for 21 days which eventually gives our brain a signal that our nature is changing and we are supposed to not do something after a point in time. Now, this duration can be different from person to person. For myself, it could be 30 days and for someone else, it could be 60 days. So, it is better to say that we need 21 days to make a new habit but we also need to continue that habit for at least 90 more days constantly every day to make it an associated nature of ourselves.
- People surrounding you: It is very important to see who is with us during that volatile stage of our lives. We need some support, but we can never afford to have a bad influence in our life when we are under so much strain in our lives. One rotten apple will spoil the whole lot. This is a very old saying and accurately true as well, especially when you are moving towards a new life, you do not want someone who will pull towards your old bad habits. Stressing on every little factor is important so it is better to keep someone genuine and supportive in your life during this phase.