Alright, it's another ungodly hour of the morning, and here I am, staring at my laptop screen again with that familiar feeling, the resistance, the mental negotiation, the "do I really have to do this today?" monologue playing in my head. Day 66 of daily blogging, ladies and gentlemen. According to science, I should be on autopilot by now. Spoiler alert: I'm not.
The Myth of the Magic Number
Remember when I wrote that "21 Days" blog? Back then, I was clinging to this popular notion that 21 days is all it takes to cement a habit. "Just three weeks," they said. "Push through for 21 days and it'll be smooth sailing from there," they promised.
Well, they lied. Or at the very least, they grossly oversimplified.
Here I am, triple that timeframe later, and my alarm still feels like a personal attack. The blank page still taunts me. My bed still whispers sweet nothings about "five more minutes" that mysteriously transform into an hour.
Turns out, that 21-day rule is about as reliable as a chocolate teapot. According to that oft-cited 2009 study from University College London (because nothing says credibility like mentioning a study, from a University, of London), the actual average time to form a habit is 66 days.
Sixty-six days. TODAY.
So where's my certificate? Where's my "Congratulations, you've officially automated this behaviour" trophy? Where's the promised land of effortless execution? Where people? Where is it? It's still hard, it's still f*ck'n HARD!!!
Me vs Free Will
I've planned to be a habitual blogger. I've committed to it. I've shown up for 66 consecutive weekdays. But somewhere between divine establishment and human nature, there's still this daily wrestling match between Me and my Free Will.
Free Will is winning more rounds than I'd care to admit. I still worte the blogs though and every single weekday even.
It's like that story of Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32. All night they struggled, and Jacob wouldn't let go until he received a blessing. I'm still in that wrestling match with my own nature, and blimey, it's exhausting.
So that study I mentioned? The one from UCL? It found something rather interesting. While the average was 66 days, the range was absolutely averagely estimated general:
For some lucky folks, habits formed in as little as 18 days. For others (hello, my people), it took up to 254 days. TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY-FOUR DAYS. That's almost an entire year of daily negotiation with yourself.
According to James Clear, author of "Atomic Habits", habit formation is highly individualised. It depends on:
- The complexity of the habit (Writing daily blogs? Complex.)
- Your personality (Prone to overthinking? Welcome to the slow lane.)
- Your environment (Working from home with Netflix just one tab away? Good luck, mate.)
- The consistency of execution (Missing a day resets the clock... or does it?)
Clear argues that it's not about perfection but consistency. Miss a day? No worries. Just don't miss two. Well if you miss three you are done for Champ!
Easy for him to say. He probably formed his writing habit in those mythical 18 days.
The Marathon, Not the Sprint (Although I Hate Both)
My mentor used to tell me a story about a farmer who planted bamboo seeds. He watered them faithfully every day for an entire year, and nothing happened. Not a sprout, not a leaf, nothing. Second year, same thing. Third year, fourth year still nothing visible.
But in the fifth year, the bamboo suddenly shot up 90 feet in six weeks.
The question is: did it take six weeks or five years to grow? The answer, of course, is both. While nothing was visible, the bamboo was developing an elaborate root system underground that would eventually support its rapid growth.
Is that what's happening with my blogging habit? Am I developing some elaborate neural network that will suddenly make day 254 (or whatever my personal magic number is) a breakthrough? Or am I just spectacularly bad at automating behaviours?
The Ecclesiastes Perspective
"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." - Ecclesiastes 1:9 (NIV)
Perhaps this struggle isn't unique. Perhaps every blogger, writer, and creative throughout history has faced the same daily battle. Perhaps Ernest Hemingway also stared at blank pages with dread. Perhaps C.S. Lewis also negotiated with himself about whether today could be a day off.
Perhaps the habit isn't the absence of struggle but the commitment to showing up despite it.
Moving the Goalposts (A Speciality of Mine)
So if 21 days was a myth and 66 days isn't my magic number, what now?
Do I aim for 100 days? 200? The full 254?
Or do I accept that for some habits, particularly creative ones that require mental and emotional energy, the "automaticity" the scientists measure might look different?
Maybe my habit isn't writing without resistance. Maybe my habit is showing up despite the resistance.
In Galatians 6:9, Paul writes, "Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." (NIV)
I'm not giving up. I'm just adjusting my expectations about what "harvest" looks like.
The Way Forward (Or Just the Way)
So here's what I'm thinking. Perhaps instead of waiting for some mythical milestone where writing becomes as automatic as brushing my teeth, I embrace the struggle as part of the process. (Fool yourself Mr Mfundo, fool yourself Sir).
Perhaps the daily negotiation with my Free Will is actually making my writing more authentic, more human, more real. (That's what I'm telling myself anyway. Is it working?)
In his book "The War of Art," Steven Pressfield talks about "Resistance" as this force that pushes against creative endeavours. The more important the work is to your soul's growth, the stronger the Resistance.
By that measure, this daily blog must be practically changing my DNA.
The Final Word (Until Tomorrow's Battle)
It's now approaching 7 AM, and I've wrestled another blog into existence. Day 66 complete. No habit miracle, but another day of showing up.
So here's to day 67, and 68, and all the days that follow. Here's to embracing the struggle rather than waiting for it to disappear. Here's to understanding that maybe, just maybe, the struggle is the point. Which to be quite honest is not mentally pleasing at all. But we do it anyways, we do it either way, we do it all the way!
Because This is What We Do NOW!
(Even when we really, really don't want to.)
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