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  • Hey there, Improvement Pill here.

  • Welcome to lesson three of the Tamed Course.

  • If you have not watched the previous lessons, pause this video right now and click on the link in the description below.

  • Because remember in order for you to get the most out of this course;

  • In order for you to really learn how to change your habits and change your life.

  • You're gonna have to watch each and every single one of the videos.

  • In today's video we're going to debunk two of the biggest misconceptions people have about building habits.

  • And the first is in regards to how long it takes to actually form or break a habit.

  • You've probably heard at one point or another "oh it takes 21 days" and it's simply just not true.

  • This misconception actually stems from a guy named Maxwell Maltz.

  • Maltz was a plastic surgeon back in the 60s.

  • And he noticed that when he worked with people who got a new nose or add some sort of facial reconstruction, these people would feel uncomfortable when looking in the mirror.

  • And Maltz found that it took them about 21 days to get used to what they were seeing.

  • Before they were more comfortable with the new faces.

  • And what's funny is that he took this simple observation with little to no science backing it up.

  • And he stated that it takes 21 days to form or break a habit in his book Psycho-Cybernetics.

  • Which was a self-help book that went on to becoming a best-seller and eventually sold millions of copies.

  • And over time people just assumed that this 21 days to build a habit thing was true.

  • So how long does it really take to form or break a habit?

  • Well the recent study conducted at the College of London by Professor Philippa Whaley found that it really depends.

  • They looked at a group of people and tracked how long it took for them to reach a point of maximum automaticity for a variety of different habits.

  • Now for those of you that don't know what automaticity is, it's basically how little thought you need to put into a task.

  • For example, if I told you to tie your shoe, you wouldn't have to think about it very hard.

  • Chances are you've tied your shoes enough times that it's already reached a point of maximum automaticity.

  • A routine is considered to be a fully embedded habit when it reaches the highest point of automaticity.

  • And here's a graph from the study that depicts this.

  • The study found that every single routine out there has what's called the automaticity line.

  • A point where if you've repeated the routine enough times, it becomes as automatic as it's going to get.

  • At this point your routine is now a habit.

  • And this study found that it can take anywhere from two weeks to nine months with an average of 66 days to reach this line.

  • And it all depends on how complicated and hard the routine is.

  • For example the routine of taking your supplements in the morning might only take three weeks before it reaches the line of automaticity.

  • Before it becomes a fully embedded habit that you don't even have to think about.

  • On the other hand, a routine of going to the gym and working out might take six months before it hits this line.

  • So for all of you out there who think "Oh I only need to stick to this routine for 21 days." or "Oh I just need to complete a 90 day challenge."

  • You're gravely mistaken.

  • You have to understand that it's going to be a long, long journey.

  • A journey that could potentially take almost a year to complete, depending on what sort of habits you're trying to build.

  • Now this might seem scary for a lot of you.

  • How am I gonna stick to these habits without missing a day for an entire year?

  • And this brings us to the common misconception number two.

  • Which is that if you relapse, if you give in and smoke a cigarette or have a drink or you miss a day of meditation that it's all over.

  • A lot of us have what I like to call the "all-or-nothing mindset".

  • We think "Oh, once the streak is broken all of my hard work is gone, and because it's gone I should just relapse over and over again."

  • "Right? I might as well enjoy myself."

  • And this is far from the truth.

  • A significant number of people in the same study missed a day or two when building their assigned new habits.

  • Maybe they were too tired or maybe they just forgot.

  • The researchers took this opportunity to look at its effects on the automaticity line.

  • And to their surprise, they found that missing a single day does not have a clear effect on your progress.

  • The amount of progress loss was almost non-existent.

  • However, they found that if you continue to relapse, if you continue to miss days of going to the gym or doing your daily meditation, then you started losing a lot of progress.

  • And the amount of progress loss was exponential.

  • So missing two days was significantly worse than missing just one day.

  • And missing a week was way worse than missing two days.

  • So what does this mean for us?

  • This means that we need to shift our mindset.

  • We shouldn't focus on a numerical streak.

  • We should not count the amount of days it's been since our last relapse.

  • The mindset that we should have is that we're gonna try our best to stick to this habit for as many months as it takes.

  • Until it reaches this line of automaticity.

  • Because chances are, you're going to relapse at one point or another.

  • In fact, studies have shown that 90% of all people trying to overcome their addictions or build new habits relapse at least once throughout their journey.

  • What's important is that you force yourself to go back to building your good habits the following day.

  • You must resist the urges to binge because that's when you actually start losing progress.

  • As long as you can do this, you will eventually reach the automaticity line.

  • You may have postponed it by a day or two.

  • But as long as you get back up and try again, don't worry about the streak.

  • You will eventually reach that line.

  • And once you hit that line, it becomes automatic.

  • So now that you know how habits work.

  • And you also know how long it really takes to form a habit.

  • Now it's time for us to select a habit together.

  • There's dozens of good habits out there that are all beneficial.

  • So we're gonna cover a bunch of them and then we're gonna pick one and focus on that one for the rest of the course.

  • Because remember, our strategy is to adopt good new habits so that they can eventually replace your current addiction.

  • The tamed course was brought to you for absolutely free with the help of the patrons of this channel.

  • If you want to support the cause and help me create more videos like this, please visit my Patreon page right here.

  • Or in the description box below to find out about the perks and benefits that all my patrons receive.

  • Stay tuned.

Hey there, Improvement Pill here.

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