Habits and Goals

We don’t think about the fact we brush our teeth in the morning. When we do it, there are some unique variations to this routine, many of us like to do it in the shower, some after breakfast and a few as soon as we wake up in the morning. But do any of us think about it have to make a real effort to remember to do it? Or does it just blend into our everyday, it becomes a habit.

Now, we’re not saying that working towards that promotion, making changes to lifestyle or starting off that new venture is on the same level as brushing your teeth, but that the key to sustaining change and building on goals is to make them part of your everyday, to create new habits that become part of your routine, the everyday and part of you.

It is said that depending on the habit it can take anywhere for 8 weeks to 8 months to form a new habit and then around 2 months for any new behaviour to become automatic. Essentially this means when you’re creating an action plan for change you need to give yourself plenty of time to adjust to new routines and allow yourself time to build new habits. This could explain why some of us seem so keen and motivated for the first month and then slowly it starts to diminish.