How to change your life and not stop there? The 21 day effect in psychology.

The method by which absolutely anyone can change their life, was invented by a simple priest, Will Bowen. He observed people for a long time and came to the conclusion that our lives largely depend on what we say, what emotions prevail in us, and what thoughts are hovering in our heads.

One day Bowen invited his parishioners to change their lives for the better. The essence of his experiment, which later became known as "A world without complaints", was as follows: you had to put a regular purple bracelet on your hand and wear it for 21 days. All this time he must refrain from swearing, insults, complaints, dissatisfaction, gossip and condemnation. If a person nevertheless uttered “forbidden words” within 21 days (started to complain, swear, etc.), then he should change the bracelet to the other hand and start all over again. This practice should be continued until the bracelet has been worn on one hand for 21 consecutive days.

All those who were able to undergo this experiment to improve their own lives have changed beyond recognition! But what is the secret of this, it would seem? simple method?

Your mood. By putting on a bracelet, you make a contract with yourself. It gives you the ability to control your thoughts, words and emotions. And this is worth a lot. Talking about the negative is forbidden, and you inadvertently switch to the positive and begin to look for the positive in troubles. As a result, you will begin to notice positivity in yourself, in those around you and in every day you live!

21 days is not taken lightly. Psychologists have proven that in order to develop a new useful habit (or vice versa, get rid of a bad habit) you need exactly 21 days. So if you survive this time without negative emotions, you will forever gain a positive attitude and self-confidence.

Are you ready to change your life? Then don't waste a minute and join the millions of people who have already started doing this! We wish you good luck and don't forget to press the buttons and

20.02.2015 09:31

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Successful, healthy, beautiful people were unlikely to be like this from birth. Most likely, they had to make a lot of effort in order to become an example and model for many.

Any goals in life will be achieved faster and easier if you learn to develop healthy habits. Start getting up early, eat healthy, do a set of physical exercises at least 3 times a week, make a weekly financial plan and so on. Are you already scared, and life didn’t prepare you for this? The problem is that introducing a new habit into your daily routine is extremely difficult. If you have been eating pasta or potatoes for a long time when you come home after work, then switching to vegetable salads and herbal teas may seem like an impossible task. But that's not true.

Why does the 21 day rule work best?

If you are constantly wondering how to develop a habit, but it still doesn’t work out, and you quit what you started after a week or two, then start using a simple, but effective method. Indeed, in 21 days a habit can be formed and brought to automaticity. You will simply stop acting the way you did before. The difficulty is to, and then not leave the race for 3 weeks. By the end of this period, you will notice that you adhere to the new rules without much effort.

How good habits can change your life?

You can start with something small and insignificant, and then gradually change more and more significant aspects in your life. For example, acquiring the habit of cleaning for 15 minutes every day will definitely transform the house and will not take much effort. Now you can receive guests at any time of the day. In addition, you will find it more pleasant to be in a living space that is free of clutter, debris, dust and dirt. Agree that a person can implement this kind of useful habits constantly. In this way you can lose weight, learn a foreign language, and launch own business or just start getting enough sleep.

How do you develop good habits in practice?

If you have already heard about the 21 day rule, then it will be easy for you to get started. All you need to get started is desire and a little determination. Remember that you are responsible for the changes that may or may not happen in your life. The choice is yours. We will give just a few tips on how to achieve habit formation in 21 days, and do it effectively and painlessly!

1. Keep a notebook.

Since it takes 21 days for a habit to be developed, during this period you need to take the task as seriously as possible. Write down everything that happens regarding the desired healthy habit, every nuance. And in the evening, sit down and analyze. If you decide that you want to practice waking up early at 6 a.m. every day, then sleeping in just once will ruin everything you've worked on. But don’t give up ahead of time: flip through your notebook, see how productive you were towards your goal, and try not to stumble again. Forming healthy habits is a simple but responsible step.

2. Work on motivation daily.

This is the key to success in any endeavor. It will help you not to quit what you started. A person can ignore the most useful habits if the first steps are not easy for him. In this case, the body tries to remain in a state of comfort and safety and refuses to experience stressful situations. Consciousness begins to compare your situation with what is happening around you. For example, you decided to do exercises every day, but at some point you realized that it was very difficult for you to acquire the habit. Therefore, you begin to compare yourself with others and discover that nothing catastrophically terrible happens to those who do not exercise at all. These thoughts can destroy your decision regarding a skill. This is why the 21 day rule is so important. It roots the very mechanism of action at the subconscious level.

3. Implement several habits at once.

This allows you to see the result faster. In practice, it has been proven that the sooner a person sees the fruits of his labors, the less he wants to quit what he started. Noticing results in any area of ​​life, we are ready to move on, and motivating ourselves becomes much easier than it was at the start.

Useful habits can change your life. Is 21 days to form a habit that will affect your entire life? Or is it still worth pushing harder and reaching the goal?

However, remember that harmful skills are also formed using exactly the same principle. For example, during an emergency at work or while taking a test at the university, you can forget about healthy eating and get hooked on fast food. After 3-4 weeks, you will discover not only that you have gained weight, but also that you no longer crave healthy food at all. It is for this reason that it is important to be careful with repetitive actions. Sometimes it’s worth stopping and thinking, how much are your habits bringing you closer to? Perhaps they should be changed?

How to develop a habit from scratch?

First, analyze your existing habits. To do this, you need to take a close look at your own daily routine. Then write down what you want to change. Using the 21-day rule, you will be able to quickly displace bad habits and replace them with useful and creative ones. At first, be guided by the fact that all this is for a good purpose - to achieve more and enjoy life, and all restrictions are temporary. In the future, you will find that seemingly unbearable restrictions no longer matter to you, and you are painlessly ready to eliminate them from your life and make room for new activities.

Greetings my dear reader! Let's talk about good habits or skills, or more precisely, how to develop a habit in 21 days without harm to the psyche. I wouldn’t even mention this method if I didn’t know for sure that it works great. And after defeating myself, there is a feeling of pride that I can do everything, well, or almost everything. To do this, we’ll find out where to start, learn to negotiate with ourselves, and discuss whether it’s worth starting alone.

In my opinion, the path to success goes to preparing the consciousness that this is simply necessary. Throughout my life, I tried many times to start a new life on Monday, but I never managed to reach the end of my intended goal. Why do you think? The answer for me turned out to be simple, the ground was not prepared, that is, within myself I was not ready for change.

There is a lot of material on the Internet, so the question is, but in practice this period of time does not reinforce the habit, and the person only subconsciously understands its existence. And if you continue on the chosen path, the result will definitely come. Although successful experiments have been conducted aimed at developing new skills in just 21 days, these are easy habits, in my opinion.

Preparing the mind is important. Otherwise, you shouldn’t start, it won’t work anyway.

Convincing yourself that a future new habit is just the beginning of changes for the better may not be easy to convince your other self, but you will have to try. Just please, don’t complicate this, so as not to be disappointed and lose your temper over trifles.

By the way, complicating things is also a habit and a harmful one at that.

Before you start, read or watch a movie about how others achieve their goals.

I have a proposal, let’s prepare consciousness using a primitive example. Since many people want to restore health, and this includes 2 main factors: nutrition and exercise, we will direct the development of habits to achieve these goals.

• Do exercises every day to restore stretching and flexibility.
  For what? Let’s ask ourselves and we need to answer.
  To prolong the youth of the body. So as not to be a burden to children in old age. Look like this at your age to be proud of yourself. And many other answers. Give it a try.
• Get up early before work so you have time to study.
• Refuse sugar and flour, as a result, extra pounds are removed. This is very useful for the spine, joints, and brain.

Conclusion: we understand why we need to develop habits. Of course, to improve the health of the musculoskeletal system and correct the figure accordingly. And also, think about how this can change your life (upgrading your status, putting a stamp in your passport, changing your place of residence, visiting abroad) your imagination is not limited.

Pick up several new skills at once. Start today, not tomorrow. The saying goes: “Why put off until tomorrow when you can do it today.”

What reasons might prevent you from developing a habit today?

1. Lack of motivation.
2. Fear of failure.
3. The presence of laziness.
4. I don't understand why this is needed.

Watch the educational video.

How to develop a habit in 21 days? Find a teammate for the project

To make it less boring to start what you have planned, try inviting your family members into your project. Maybe your husband will get lucky and agree, for example. Convey to your future ally how easy it is to develop a habit, and in just 21 days your life will change beyond recognition. Get up together, do exercises, and don’t eat sugar and rolls. Cool! And with the money saved, go to the cinema, buy two bicycles or. Offer to a friend, colleague, there will be someone to discuss, support, and consult with.

Think positively

1. First, you need to take the first step, try to hold out for 1 day according to plan.
2. Leave written reminders at eye level, audio reminders on the phone, etc.
3. Then repeat for 2-3 days in a row. After 3 days it will be easier.
4. Last a week without days off. Super!
5. 21 days, a turning point, the awareness of the habit is already there.
6. 40 days, the habit has taken hold, but if you give up everything at this moment, all your efforts will be in vain.
7. 90 days will pass. There is no turning back. The goal has been achieved.

Be able to negotiate with yourself

Learn to negotiate with yourself - this is 90% of success. It may happen that the project is about to collapse. You have to deceive yourself somehow, give several versions.

For example.

• I’ll hold out for 21 days, and then I’ll give up everything.
• When I reach the end, everything will be as before.
• Very soon life will change beyond recognition for the better.
• You can't wait to give up.
• Your friends will be jealous...

My plan

Goal: Excess weight leads to complications in my health.

I bought electronic bathroom scales for weight control. I chose a day to start the project.

1. My motivation: to be healthy and prolong my life as long as possible in full movement. To achieve the goal, do exercises and change your diet.
2. Set your alarm clock 15-20 minutes earlier in the morning, and go to bed earlier in the evening. Subsequently, it will not be needed, the body will use up this time and the body’s biological clock will wake up at the right time.
3. Morning exercises 8-12 minutes.
4. Exclude: sugar and no sweets, rolls (I left the bread). If you really want something sweet, then I eat 2 dates for tea, they replace one cake.
5. Important. On the scale, the needle should show 500-600 grams of your main weight during the day, this is if you need to adjust your body weight. And in order not to gain weight, the difference should be 1 kg. If it exceeds, it means there was overeating. Forcibly, even if I don’t feel like it, I go to exercise physically (gardening, cleaning, exercising). It was the first time, but then I got used to it. But this is my example, each person is different.

Later, I began to do more complex exercises for endurance (squats for 1 minute 3 times a day), but did not include fasting days.

I didn’t start actively working out right away, I gradually got used to it. The set of exercises I do is described.
Believe it or not, the weight is slowly going down, my mood is good, exercise gives me energy, my legs no longer hurt. The most important thing is not to lose your spirit and hold out for 21 days, and then it will go on as it has always been.

I don’t have the habit of complicating things, torturing myself with diets or running in the morning. Everything will come on its own. You just need to take one step. Starting to work on yourself, if you think about it, is not at all difficult.

Remember, being healthy is fashionable!

Offer your projects, how do you achieve your desired goal?

Nutrition is of great importance in a person’s life, but it is not always possible to eat what is healthy due to ignorance. That's why there are many books. I recommend reading one short but informative one. Download.

I suggest you listen to the Russian cover of the song by BIG BANG, performed by my son.

You won't regret it, it's translated and sings perfectly. Happy listening!

I’ll end this article here. If it was useful, share it with your friends and subscribe to updates.

Come in! Until new publications!

I'm sitting drinking coffee. The girl at the next table emotionally tells her friends the story that she has been trying to quit smoking for a year: she tried all kinds of ointments, patches, pills, but nothing happens. And then her interlocutor with charming long eyelashes and blue eyes, drinking fresh pineapple, declares: “Well, you understand, the main thing is to wait 21 days, and then the habit will disappear.”

And where, one might ask, does such conviction come from? The answer is logical - it happens public opinion. Back when I was studying at the directing department at VGIK, I had an actor friend who made a huge banner on the wall at home with the phrase “Habits are formed in 21 days.” But his efforts were in vain. Is your willpower weak? Maybe.

However, let us consider the nature and roots of this approach to achieve certain results. In 1960, the American plastic surgeon Maxwell Moltz published his book “Psychocybernetics,” where he summarized his research. He found out that after a change in appearance (!!!) the patient needs 3 weeks to get used to his new body. Having studied Moltz’s works in detail, you can understand that it was not about switching to a healthy diet, changing your lifestyle, and even more so, horror, about how you can be fresh, full and boundlessly happy after a divorce in 21 days.

In fact, by going this route, a person is guaranteed to encounter disappointments and think that the system failure happened to him. Moreover, some people with low self-esteem will quietly add “I can’t do anything” to the negative experience, while the strong will either claim that they succeeded and prove with foam at the mouth how great they are (placebo effect), or they will not get the expected result and will deceive themselves into the “unique” cohort.

And if you think that such a myth has a strong basis, then understand a simple thing. This is a case where PR worked well. What are the 60s for America? An aggravated racial issue, hippies “high”, bell-bottom jeans, wind in the head and encouraging slogans from Elvis Presley’s song “It’s now or never”. The masses demanded a guru and enlightenment and psycho-training entered the arena. And people wanted results. Quick. Sudden. Enchanting.

The idea of ​​21 days worked, and one smart marketer realized that such a period was short enough to inspire (and make a certain number of sales). Who wouldn't like the idea of ​​changing your life in 3 weeks? It's so easy. I have no questions for the specialist who masterfully manipulated the facts and created a myth.

But there are a huge number of clients who ask “how long does it take to form a new habit?”

English scientists suggest that 66 days. Philippe Lally conducted an experiment on 96 volunteers who wanted to change. Empirically, it was found that on average, a person needs 12 weeks to introduce a positive habit instead of a negative one. Many managed it faster, but the average result was 66 days.

So, in order to develop a new habit, you need to replace the existing negative one with a positive one. So that the focus of attention and the vector of attention shifts. Have you probably noticed that when you are passionate about work, creativity and enjoy the process, then you have less desire to overeat? And remember that “a holy place is never empty.” Very often, when people get rid of one stupid habit, they immediately find another no less stupid one. The principle of “substitution” should be optimized, and not exchange an awl for soap.

I have come to the conclusion that changing a habit requires: desire, determination and persistence. For example, if you want to lose weight by summer, then first understand why you need it. If the reasons are not obvious (“I want to look good”), then the motivation is rather weak. And if you have a dance competition or a photo shoot on June 1, then you will have a better chance of achieving results.

However, you can set a goal and continue to sit straight. And that's not how it works. Here you should take steps: buy a subscription to a sports club, create a new diet for yourself (not in your head, but on paper), choose the right trainer who will help you implement your idea. And forward: 12 weeks to change.

Is it possible to achieve changes in your personal life during this period? It is possible, but everything is individual. And here we draw your attention to the fact that to build harmonious relationships, not only the strength of habits is important, but, often, global internal changes.

Recently a client came to me who has been working for 10 years without vacation, without days off. Of course, she has no sleep schedule, no time to rest, she doesn’t take care of herself, and the fact that she yells at her subordinates, loudly stomps her feet and throws hysterics around her is a consequence of such a stressful lifestyle. And here 12 weeks will not help, because you need to deal with the reasons and internal fears and blocks. Let’s also be realistic and take into account the fact that stress is a release of cortisol and other hormones that affect well-being and remain in the body for up to 2 years (but the “hormones of joy” endorphins “live” for several hours), which means the path to global the changes will be long and serious.

Don't try to get rid of them all right away. bad habits and immediately change your diet, sleep patterns, implement 10 workouts a week and also study Japanese every day at 5 am. Many “inspired” people have already been burned by this. And also, be consistent and measure portions of changes.