Radical Responsibility by Fleet Maull

Author:Fleet Maull
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sounds True

We commonly hear that it takes ninety days to establish a lifelong habit, but the research is less clear. Health psychology researcher Phillippa Lally and colleagues recently studied ninety-six participants who were attempting to establish new habits, some as simple as drinking a glass of water before lunch or running for fifteen minutes before dinner. The researchers found that the time it took for participants to establish the new habit ranged anywhere from 18 to 254 days (and 66 days on average).6 There’s a silver lining to this news: if it does actually take up to eight months to fully establish a new habit, we can relax and let go of any expectations of overnight success. We can instead focus on long-term gains. Fortunately, some new behaviors (such as a new workout routine or a regular mindfulness practice) provide immediate rewards while also increasing the likelihood of longer term benefits along the way.

The important thing is to stick with it and never give up. It’s also essential to set yourself up for success. Make sure that new behaviors fit into your daily or weekly routines, give yourself adequate time to do them, set up effective reminders, and rely on a buddy or find a community for support. And remember that the old neural pathways are still there, which means that relapses are normal and quite likely to occur. It’s important to inoculate yourself ahead of time against letting a relapse send you into a tailspin of self-loathing and compensatory acting out. It’s also helpful to develop a “no big deal” attitude toward relapses. Just think of them as road bumps and useful reminders to redouble your efforts to establish the new positive habit. Remember: if you stick with a new behavior long enough, it will become neurologically robust and therefore easily sustainable.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.