Even Atomic Habits Doesn’t Tell You This Harsh Truth About Habits
Yes, you read that correctly: everything you’ve heard about habits is wrong. Even Atomic Habits.
You might have heard of Atomic Habits by James Clear.
Good book.
Solid concepts: systems, cue, response, craving, reward, and all that.
Sold millions of copies.
But there’s one huge problem.
It never mentions the harsh reality of habits.
Habits (almost) never stick the first time around.
The Habit of Starting Again
You will start and stop an activity many times before it becomes an actual habit. And even then, it probably won’t last forever.
Sure you might have heard of Seinfeld’s Don’t Break the Chain method and that he hasn’t missed a day of writing in his entire life.1
But guess what? 99% of us aren’t Seinfeld.
Most people you see who have cultivated successful habits have tried and failed dozens, even hundreds of times over a period of years before they “stuck” for a while.
Habits take way longer to “stick” than you think.
But It Takes 21 or 250 Days to Develop a Habit, Right?
Wrong.
Someone, somewhere started some ludicrous idea that there is a magic number of days to establish a habit for good.2
Excellent, you’ve worked out for 550 days in a row so now it will be a habit for life and you don’t have to worry about pushing yourself to do it anymore. Because, hey, it’s a habit now. Right?
Bullshit.
I worked out for nearly 600 days in a row, never missing a single day. And then, one day, I missed a day. Then another. Then another…
I don’t care if it’s 28 days or 10,000 days. It’s all nonsense.
The narrative around “habits” is misleading — you might even feel worse off than before because you think you can do something every day for weeks, months, or even years, and then the thing will become a permanent habit.
Sorry. Not gonna happen.
But why?
So, How Long Does It Take to Develop a Habit?
Forever.
It takes forever.
You will have to restart habits again, and again, and again. Forever.
Habits come and go — it’s about timing and seasons.
The reality is that establishing a true, lifelong habit that sticks forever doesn’t exist. You’re going to have to start again and again and again. Life changes. You change. Shit happens.
Yes, I know that some days you forget to brush your teeth. Why? Because life. That’s why.
Don’t Try Building Habits Until You Learn the Habit of Starting Again
I know what you’re thinking: If habits take forever to create, why bother trying?
Okay, so you’ve tried to start exercising and you failed. Then you tried again after convincing yourself that “This time I’m serious. I’m going to do it!” Then…
You failed again.
And again.
But here’s the thing: you didn’t fail anything. Yet.
Your perspective is everything — what you focus on becomes your reality. If you focus on the times that you don’t show up for yourself as failures, you start to train your mind to expect failure.
You need to focus solely on restarting: the real skill is starting again, and again, and again.
The only habit you’ll ever need to cultivate in your life is the habit of starting again.
Sounds simple enough.
Not easy.
You’ve probably tried to establish a consistent exercise routine for…let’s see now…your whole life. I know, me too.
Eating healthy consistently? Work in progress.
Being present? Errr — working on it. Promise.
You might even get a “habit” to stick after a few weeks, months, or years. Great! But, guess what? Life is going to happen and that habit is going to go to complete shit. You will have to make the decision to start again over and over and over again.
The point is that it takes these failed attempts to build a habit. The dozens of days that you stop and start again matter — and those days aren’t considered in the science of habit formation.
How Do You Create the Habit of Starting Again?
Well, simple.
You do it by learning everything you can about your emotions, feelings, and biology, and then finding the precise methods that work for you across all different circumstances and situations in your life and you’re good to go.
Hmmm…right…
I can’t believe I am saying this as an (ex)overthinking addict, but sometimes that mild, irritating, lingering disappointment that you feel and think about for days, months, or even years when you want to restart something, is a necessary component of habit-building. Sometimes, you need to hate yourself just enough to finally commit.
Better yet, a good place to start is, not surprisingly, action.
Whatever activity you are trying to turn into a habit, just take the tiniest action in that direction, And do it again, and again, and again.
You’ll need to learn the tools that work for you to motivate yourself again. We are all motivated by something — why all have our own Why.
Maybe the real secret is to want something badly enough to start again. Over and over and over again.
What About Un-Starting Bad Habits?
As Twain once said, “Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it a thousand times.”
Well, it’s not any easier than creating good habits.
I quit smoking a bunch of times before it actually stuck.
As for drinking? I’ve learned that going without a drink for over two years doesn’t guarantee that you won’t have a drink every now and again.
I guess nothing is meant to last forever.
The Habit of Starting Again Is Actually “Self-Discipline”
Essentially, a habit is just the ability to have self-discipline to return to something that is meaningful and important to you.3
Self-discipline is not, “I have to smash this every single day and be perfect and never miss a workout or a healthy meal.”
Not at all.
Real self-discipline is to talk to yourself, realign, and start again.
Goggins—love him—but people like him have preached the incorrect narrative around discipline.
When you go to disciple your children, do you push them to be perfect every single day without making a mistake? Or do you instill the idea that “taking a day off” makes them weak souls?
Of course not. That would be absurd.
When you discipline your children, you help them see what they did wrong, create awareness around the mistake, and then adjust the course accordingly.
And then, you have them start again.
Remember that the next time you miss a day of exercise, don’t eat healthy for a while, or just forget to brush your teeth (Err — not me, you).
Just start again.
- https://lifehacker.com/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret-281626 ↩︎
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.674 ↩︎
- https://markmanson.net/life-purpose ↩︎
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