Change
Human brains like the familiar. We repeat old patterns, even when they give us unsatisfactory results. We stick with the familiar – in relationships, spending, work and how we spend our time. The previous post had to do with voluntary discomfort vs. mandatory suffering and how to tell the difference between discomfort which is a part of growth and delayed gratification vs. the kind of moral injury that comes from denying our own integrity.
So if you have decided that the discomfort you are feeling is aligned with your values and in service of a greater goal you desire, how long do you have to suffer before it feels normal. No doubt a coach would ask you what’s your hurry. But I am a pragmatist and it’s nice to have a time frame to work with.
As a physician, we prognosticate end of life as hours to days, days to weeks, weeks to months and months to years. The same is the case for predicting how long change takes. A 2009 study published in the European Journal of Social Psychology found that habits take between 18 and 254 days to form. But it also found that all habits are not created equal and it takes longer to establish a habit of 50 morning sit-ups than the daily habit of drinking a glass of water.
Intuitively, we can appreciate that
- The more “costly” the habit is, the harder it is to establish it.
- Our nature and previous habits determine the “costliness” of a habit.
- Habits which are in alignment with our integrity will be the most impactful and less costly to establish and maintain.
The work required in order to determine the best path forward for you to make the changes you want to see in your life is to spend the time to get to know yourself. Know what your nature and your current habits are. For any goal you have, create a path which takes advantage of these strengths and moves you towards your ultimate goal with minimal friction with your integrity.
Seventeen
In my family we have a saying that you have to try a food seventeen times before you can decide if you like it. I don’t know if there is a magic number, but definitely it’s more than one or two. Expecting the discomfort of change and welcoming it as a sign that you are doing meaningful work to move your current situation closer to your goals will help you to tolerate the voluntary discomfort which is necessary to avoid mandatory suffering in the future.