DISCLAIMER: THERE ISN'T ANYTHING MUCH WRITTEN IN THIS THAT YOU DON'T ALREADY KNOW. INSTEAD OF WASTING THE NEXT 15 MINS OF YOUR LIFE, JUST GO ON WITH IT. WELL IN CASE YOU WANT TO WASTE IT ANYWAY, DO NOT READ ANYTHING IN BRACKETS OR IN RED TEXT, THAT'S A BIT OUT OF CONTEXT USUALLY MY MIND OFF RAMPING. IT WILL SAVE YOU SOME TIME TO DO MORE IMPORTANT THINGS. (SOMETIMES IT'S GENUINE LINKS TO ARTICLES WITH MORE INFO SO READ AND CLICK IT).
You said: Tell me about the “21 days it takes to adopt a habit thing, how it came about and the scientific, biblical, social or psychological evidence behind it. In brief please , it’s for my blog extract and I don’t need any Ai traces in it. GO!”
ChatGPT4o said: The idea that it takes 21 days to form a habit comes from Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s 1960 book Psycho-Cybernetics, where he observed that patients adjusted to changes in about three weeks. However, modern research by Phillippa Lally shows habit formation takes an average of 66 days, with a range of 18 to 254 days, depending on the complexity of the habit and consistency of practice. The 21-day myth persists because it’s simple and motivating. While some biblical traditions emphasize transformation over weeks, true habit formation requires persistence beyond a fixed timeframe.
Alright whatever the wise ChatGPT has confirmed it! The thing is I believe I am more of a societal controversial figure myself because I rarely take things at face value. I mean think about it, ‘if enough people say that 21 days is the number required to adopt a habit to the point that they even convince ChatGPT himself’, Is it possible that that’s the lie we tell our brains so that by day 21 they actually do believe that that’s how long it takes ?
Like I said I’m more of a controversial figure myself and well I’m not the smartest even (emphasis on the ‘st’). Riddle me this, all things going on in your life considered, if you woke up at 8am this morning to a call saying that you just got a job that you are so in need of and you are starting tomorrow at 5am. How long will it take you to actually get used to waking up at 4am ? 21 days? Maybe. I think the truth is, it actually depends on a number of factors really. For one is the job exciting, do you wake up to the fact that you are going to work or does the fact that you have work to do wake you up ? (Too much English inconsistency in that line, read it thrice you will get it eventually).
Here is what I believe it takes 1 conscious decision in your mind to adopt a new habit. Because in as much as you can take 21 days to develop a habit of waking up at 4am everyday to go to that lousy job that pays the bills. The day you get fired from that job ( because obviously it’s not like you have a critical skill or anything, anyone can make a McDonalds burger), you might not wake up at 4am the next day. In fact you might not even sleep that night (stressed about how you are going to pay the rent).
Often a times we underestimate or we don’t even realise the power and the potential of our subconscious minds. We go day by day feeding it with habits that we we not really fond of that eventually work against us. For example eve heard someone say ‘I’m just not a morning person’, then later on same person says ‘Wow this day flew by really fast!’ (Mate you woke up at 10:30am, that’s like 7 hours after the fellow blogger over here. 7 hours is like a full working day, you can imagine). It would be a very futile exercise for the course of our lives if we don’t make the subconscious decision to change our habits.
21 working days ago I made the conscious decision to wake up at 3:30am every single workday and leave a blog up this page before I get get back to my day to day errands (I like the phrase ‘I’m running errands’, feels like you are doing some world changing shit doesn’t it?). When the alarm rang on the 6th of January 2025, I said to myself and every being within me that ‘This is what we do now’ and I woke up and wrote. When the alarm rang today at 3:30am I said to myself and to the beings, ‘this is what we do now’, I’m here writing.
Many (including ChatGPT) will have you believe that this in now a habit because I have been doing it for 21 days, but guess what? If the alarm rings tomorrow and I say (to the members of my parliament) ‘not today folks’. I promise you I won’t wake up. Chances are very high that I might do the same thing again tomorrow or get back to the blogging, but at the end of the day what will really determine the output is that small voice in my head that will either say ‘This is what we do now’ or ‘Not today’. If you are wondering which voice, that’s the one.
In closing I will leave you with Proverbs 19 vs 21 “ Many are the plans in a person's heart, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails”,, as a humble reminder that in our conscious decision making let us remember to ask the Lord to guide us so that we may align with the purpose that he has for us. It would be even great if the habits we develop serve God and his people. Amen !
Because this is what we do now!
Apologies for the grammatical errors and senseless sentences in today’s article my laptop charger is dead hence and I’m lazy to edit using this device it’s very slow. I will probably make a conscious decision some other day to come and edit it, or not.
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