The 30 day rule to make a habit

Posted by Chris on September 23, 2009

A pretty popular method in self development and getting the most out of your potential is to create new and improved habits. The 30 day rule comes in very handy for this. First: 30 days is only a month, even if it seems tough its only a month to give it a try. Its easier to stay focused and keep enough willpower to stick with it for the 30 days than to say:"well it will take me at least x months to accomplish x goal".

One such example would be Diet. Setting a new diet for 30 days and sticking with it as sort of an "experiment" is much easier then to tell your self your making a permanent change for the years to come. Polyphasic sleep would be another good example. If you set your self a goal for 30 days its much easier to get up every day knowing you just have to last 30 days rather than indefinitely.

Second:You get 30 days worth of results. It is a great evaluation point for your progress to see if things went the way you had hoped or if the new habit isn't really for you.
If after the 30 days are up you decide that what ever you where testing out didn't work for you, you can always have the peace of mind that you really tried it out and gave it a shot. It wont be stuck in the back of your mind nagging you to try it again.

Now you can start as many of these as you'd like but sometimes less is more. You have to self evaluate and know your will powers limits. Each 30 day experiment will take a certain amount of willpower to complete. If you split it into to many pieces you may end up not completing any of them.

So if you want to try something new or want to change some of the habits in your life try it for 30 days.