REINHARD: 21 Day rule: Startin over or continuing on?

gettnbusy · Post by **gettnbusy** » Tue Aug 22, 2006 8:30 pm

Reinhard, I was wondering about the "spirit" of the 21 day habit forming rule (which comes from psychology class, I know). My question is that how "bad" do we have to mess up to start the clock over again on the 21 day of habit forming.

As far as my personal belief goes...if we mess up & continualy have to start over it puts our minds in a very bad mindset and I think that is contrary to what you are (trying) to achieve here. Am I totally off base? Some have said that when you mess up, you have to start over.

So is the 21 day to form a habit different from our success/failure succession days or is it a Do-Over kind of thing where we must continually start it over at every human mistake ?

What are your thoughts?

gratefuldeb67 · Post by **gratefuldeb67** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:08 am

Hi Christy

I'm not Reinhard but I'm sure he'll pop in soon enough..

Just wanted to tell you that I personally couldn't do 21 days straight flawlessly until a whole year.. I tried it and each time I'd make it to like 7 days and then have some S! LOL.
But I eventually got it..
Just try your hardest!

21 days is only a goal that seems doable..
Now keep in mind that there are six S days in those 21 days on habit..
They also count.. So it's really not terribly hard if you think about it in single weeks with a 2 days break..
Still I couldn't do it until a whole year of partial attempts..

Do whatever you need to do to stay motivated and positive and do your best!

Peace and Love,

Debs

ThomsonsPier · Post by **ThomsonsPier** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:51 pm

I'm not Reinhard either (most of us here aren't. All of us, in fact, except him), but here's my unwarranted input.

To me, that question is irrelevant. If you're trying to build a habit, counting the days won't make a blind bit of difference. Say you 'fail' six times after five days each, then succeed in establishing the new routine.

By starting the count again each time you 'fail,' the habit took 21 days to build and you took seven tries. Well done for sticking at it! By continuing the count, you had one go at it and suceeded in 51 days. Well done (again) for sticking at it!

You don't fail until you give up. Anything else is 'deferred success' (in a probably futile attempt to make that stuipd phrase worth something).

Post by **reinhard** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 1:55 pm

Christi,

21 in a row is primarily a motivational tool -- if it's not motivating, but depressing you, then use something else.

Here's a good alternative, or something to use in parallel: keep a baseball style "habitting average." Just 3 numbers to keep track of: success days, failure days, and "exempt" S days. You can express your score as either :

1. pessimistic metric: success days / (failure+exempt)
2. optimistic metric: success days / failures

or just give the raw data, say:

13/2/6

(success/failure/exempt)

and let readers do the math.

The advantage of this is that you can still get a sense of how well you are doing without your having to be quite perfect.

This was discussed here and seems to be working well for people:

http://everydaysystems.com/bb/viewtopic.php?t=1039

I really do need to move this to the home page I think...

The con is you have to keep track of 3 numbers instead of one, but that's not too awful.

Reinhard

flsunshine · Post by **flsunshine** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 2:55 pm

I must note that I have been "keeping score" and that seems to work well for me. But, after several trials that involved 1) counting weekends as success, 2) counting a half-score success (1 point vs. 2) for weekends, 3) adding the weekend as one point for success or failure, depending on the overall affect...

I finally just don't add weekends (s-days) to either side. It's easier to keep track of and they're "free" and don't really need to be counted anyway, right?

Well, it works for me

and is very motivating to see that 'success' score climb. Dare I go so far as to say it gives a sense of empowerment? Ha.

want2bhealthy · Post by **want2bhealthy** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 1:27 pm

hi, for me, i really need a huge fresh start. i need to prove to myself that i can really commit to something for 21 days. not gonna go over any excuses why i strayed from this plan,i am sick of talking about them. i just need to move on with a fresh commitment to myself, excercise included. so heres to a great first day.

Post by **reinhard** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 2:18 pm

Best wishes this time around, want2bhealthy!

It's tough when you're struggling to build the habit, but think you great it will be when you get there. And strictness does make it easier. If you sometimes get mad and your cat for jumping on the table and sometimes let it, it'll never learn. Appetite is the same way.

Reinhard

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Thu Oct 12, 2006 2:29 pm

I'll add my two cents worth. I think the problem lies in keeping track, or at least in counting days as successes or failures. While it does matter for weight loss, it doesn't matter for anything else. If you consistently get to the end of a day and see it as a failure, pretty soon you see yourself as a failure.

Do you get to the end of the day and measure if you were a success or failure as a parent, a spouse, a religious person, an employer or employee?

The goal isn't to be perfect; the goal is to keep working at it consistently. Get to the end of the day and determine to do as well or better the next day. Then, forget the previous day. If you do the best you can on any day, you can't ask for more.

Or, as Emerson said, "Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

want2bhealthy · Post by **want2bhealthy** » Fri Oct 13, 2006 1:21 am

thanks guys, i had a great first day on track.