HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO FORM A NEW HABIT?

This is bad...counter days were missed!  Once again the routine is coffee, blog counter, finish one thing before job or appointments or other scheduled events of the day.  I know I've done a post about this recently but obviously I've failed. I failed to keep  the schedule I previously made or I wouldn't have skipped counter days 306 and 307.  Let's find that post.

Found it! On August 7th 2014 I listed the order of the day. Coffee and change the blog counter. Next is to set the phone alarm to prepare for work or appointments so I'll be free to write a post for the blog without checking the clock constantly. Last before moving on to projects I need to finish one thing and I'll be feeling great about myself. That was over a month ago and this new habit should be solid.

Today I've had coffee, written out my work schedule for the next 2 weeks to post on the fridge, finished a painting for sale, and changed the blog counter,  hence realizing I did not do the blog counter for 2 days.

That last activity made me feel bad about myself, but should it?  If my first post was Nov. 12th 2013, I've had 301 days to get used to the counter habit. It's looking worse.  Hm. I cannot remember how long it takes to form a new habit but I know I've looked it up in the past. Well, here we go again.

This time I found a great article by James Clear (you can follow him at James Clear.Com) which appears in Huffpost Healthy Living. He wrote about the 21 days being the time to learn a new habit. He discovered it was Maxwell Maltz who put forth this idea. Apparently Maltz wrote in his book, "Psycho-Cybernetics" that a minimum of 21 days was needed for the old mental image to dissolve and be replaced with the new image of yourself. UH OH! 21 days?! I've failed!!!

But people skipped the important word before the number 21 in his book.  It's "Minimum".  Clear says  Health Psychology researcher, Phillipa Lally,  decided to follow 6 people over 12 weeks and each was to start a new habit. The Lally study indicates that it's actually 18-254 days or 2 to 8 months, not 21 days to learn a new habit.

This is good news for me, as researchers also found that missing 1 opportunity to perform the behavior does not materially affect the habit formation process. In other words it's okay if you mess up now and then.

This research is inspiring for 3 reasons, Clear states, first there is no reason to get down on yourself or judge yourself if you did not master the new habit in 21 days.

Second you don't have to be perfect, but indeed, give yourself permission to make mistakes. Developing strategy to get back on track is is good for you.

And third it reinforces the notion that  the longer timeline shows that doing a new habit is a process and not an event.

What have I learned?  I'm okay.  In fact I'm doing great!  I've messed up from time to time but that's okay.  Sometimes I mess up because I'm always thinking about painting and what to paint, or how to paint what I want to paint.

Today I will share one of the methods I use to paint my watercolors and find a subject to depict.  On a larger than normal size of paper I put down a first layer of paint. I will choose colors and add salt or stamps of leaves or throw alcohol into the paint. After it's dry I cut the paper into smaller sizes and study the painterly results. Here is one I look at every day to see if a subject strikes me to paint. So far I've seen a castle, a boat in a storm, underwater fish...Today I can see light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe I'll leave this first start painting as it is and keep a daily record of how I view the splatter, perhaps how I view myself.