Remember your last New Year’s Resolutions? Maybe you wanted to eat healthier, avoid snacking, or exercise more?

If you still remember them: good. If you’re still sticking to them: wow!

The sad truth is that most New Year’s Resolutions fail.

I am no exception: I only had one for 2025 (because it’s easier to focus on only one at a time): working out at least 3 times a week.

Did I stick to it? During January, yes. I even exercised every other day! But then life happened. I was on vacation for a few weeks in February, and it kind of…got lost. So I’m now back at my typical workout frequency from 2024, i.e. 2 weekly workouts on average. Still better than nothing, but I wanted to achieve more!

Yes, with my psychology and neuro background, I should know better, but I’m still a human being. And a very busy one, juggling a job, a business, and kids. That’s not an excuse for sure, but it helps put things into perspective. It also helps to look further back in time because I’ve significantly improved my diet and exercise habits over the past years.

Research shows that building new habits is difficult and takes longer than expected.

The number circulating on social media (“It takes 21 days to form a new habit”) is wrong.

So, if you’re still struggling with your New Year’s Resolutions, don’t worry. You’re not alone, and establishing new habits takes time.

In this newsletter, we’ll dive into what habits are, how long it takes to create them, and how to optimize habit formation.

What is a habit?

When the term "habit" is mentioned, many people immediately think of bad habits such as smoking or drinking. But habits are way more than that, making your life much easier.

“If you think a bit about what life would be without them, it’s pretty clear that we would quickly succumb to decision paralysis”, wrote superstar neuroscientist Russ Poldrack from Stanford University in his excellent book*, “Hard to Break—Why Our Brains Make Habits Stick”.

Habits are all the actions you perform automatically without thinking about them. They have become hard-wired in your brain.

Habits are executed for their own sake, differentiating them from goal-directed action directly related to a goal.

How long does it take to form a new habit?

In a 2009 study, each participant adopted one new behavior from the following categories: healthy eating, drinking, or exercise. For example, this could be eating a piece of fruit with lunch or drinking a glass of water after breakfast every day.

Participants had to log daily whether they executed the behavior over 84 days.

Results indicated that establishing a new habit takes around 66 days, but with considerable variation: Some were successfully established after 18 days only, whereas others needed 254 days (yes, the data collection only lasted for 84 days, but this latter value was obtained through statistical modelling in case you were wondering).

The variation was due to personal factors (some people establish new habits more easily than others) and the habit itself (some are easier to establish than others).

But the bottom line is: Forming a new habit takes time, and in most cases, it takes longer than the 21-day myth spread on social media.

How to optimize habit formation?

A recent systematic review analyzed 20 different habit formation studies with a total of over 2,500 participants. The authors confirmed that habit formation takes longer than 21 days in most cases and derived practical suggestions from the studies.

5 tips to support habit formation:

1. Form a clear intention and plan how to implement the new behavior.

You must commit to your new habit and create a clear intention (and therefore, New Year’s Resolutions are still useful).

But apart from the intention itself, you must have a clear plan on when and how to implement the behaviour, either tying it to an already established behavior or a specific time of day (e.g., “every day after breakfast” or “every day at 12 pm”).

Define the WHEN and the WHAT. The more specific, the better.

2. It must come from YOU.

If you decide to implement a new behavior, your chances of success are higher than if somebody else tells you to. Of course, it’s not always possible (e.g. if you get a medical indication from your physician).

Still, even if it’s externally dictated, you can make it your own by thinking about how it will benefit you, how much you want it, and how you will implement it in your life.

3. Time of day matters.

According to the study, it takes less time to establish new morning habits than evening habits. So, if your chosen behavior can be added to your mornings, you should take advantage of this.

If not, don’t worry. But be aware that forming that new evening habit might take longer.

4. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Habits form through repetition. Repetition strengthens the behavior over time, so you must repeat it consistently to make it stick.

It helps to track your progress (e.g. using a habit tracker like this one* if you’re into Notion or this one* if you prefer a spreadsheet) and/or to configure reminders so you don’t forget to execute your new behavior.

A warning about sticky notes: After a few days, your brain will ignore them. If you use sticky notes as reminders, you must change their location daily.

5. Set up an environment that helps you succeed.

Willpower is overrated, and it’s a finite resource. To set yourself up for success, create an environment that helps you succeed.

For example, to facilitate eating more fruit, always have fruit handy and chop it up in advance so you have bite-sized pieces ready. To facilitate exercise, have your clothes and shoes ready.

Creating the right environment and reducing friction is crucial.

To sum up, establishing new health habits is possible, and you can do a few things to maximize your chances of success.

But it also requires patience because habit formation takes longer than expected. It’s time to debunk the 21-day myth.

For further reading, here’s an article about New Year’s Resolutions I wrote on Medium in December 2024 (although it focuses on New Year’s Resolutions, much of it applies to habit formation in general). If you’re not a Medium subscriber, you can read it here.

That’s all for today. I hope you learned something valuable from this newsletter edition!

Until next time!

Best wishes,

Patricia (Dr. Schmidt) from creatorschmidt.com.

*Disclaimer: This is an affiliate link, meaning I might receive a small commission if you purchase through this link. It’s a beautiful way to support my work at no additional cost to you. If you don’t want to purchase through this link, feel free to search for the product online.