A behavior happens a couple of times and you go about with life, never even noticing that you’ve done it. Then the behavior happens a few more times and still it goes unnoticed. Life is funny that way. The small, mundane, unimportant things get compartmentalized in this automatic part of the brain, and we don’t ever really have to or need to pay attention to it happening, think using turn signals in the car, or flushing the toilet after you go. The thing is, these unimportant, mundane, small things can become a norm, which is then considered a habit. Google defines a habit as a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up.
Science has proven that on average new behaviors take approximately sixty-six days to become automatic. A habit, can however, form in as little as eighteen days. Let’s take a look at the flip side of this science. It can also take as many as 254 days for a new habit to form. This means it can take that amount of time to break or reverse a habit.
I am potty trained and crate trained. We have a very stringent nighttime routine. Mom complains about being a super light sleeper, she hears everything. When Mom doesn’t get sleep she turns into a “mombie” and she will take down anything or anyone that crosses her path. One night Dad let us out before bed, which is normal. I discovered that my bunny neighbor left gifties, and right then was to very best time to forage for them, completely dismissing the fact that I was going to be locked up in bed for the next 8 hours. That night there was a problem. I had to go, really go! I barked to let Mom know I couldn’t hold it anymore. She woke up, came into our room, said some bad words, told me “no barking”, and then let me out. I did my business, then proceeded (unbeknownst to Mom) to find more of the tasty morsels the bunny left behind for me. She called me back in, “come Kevin… cookies…”. I ran back to the door, she grabbed a few cookies, gave me one, and put me back into my kennel with the remaining cookies.
Well, between late night bunny nuggets and midnight snacks I had to figuratively “let the dogs out”. I barked to let Mom know that she literally needed to let the dogs out. She repeated the process, cuss, out, poop, cookies, kennel, cookies, “NO BARKING”.
I tried this new behavior again the next night, and the next night, and the next. Mom came in every time. She wasn’t happy about it – remember that “mombie” I mentioned?!? I overheard her say that she couldn’t just let me bark, I would end up waking up Boy. It’s true, if she doesn’t answer my barking, I will bark more, and louder. I formed a new, bad habit, or I was certainly in the process of starting one. Mom is in the process of trying to break this newly formed habit. When Boy goes to his dad’s house, she lets me bark. She does not respond, which is unimaginable. Her only response these days is a booming voice from her room, “enough”,” no barking”.
My point… habits form before you even realize they are happening. They can be tough to break. Pay attention to your little, unimportant, and mundane, behaviors, so they don’t get stored in the automatic section of the brain. BE AWARE of the things you are doing. Live all parts of your life with blatant awareness and intention.