The 21 / 90 Rule

Day 231 / 365

I have written about so many rules like this on this blog. The 5-second rule, or the 80–20 rule and whatnot. Today I present to you, the 21 / 90 rule. Simply put the rule goes as follows

It takes 21 days to build a habit, and 90 days to build a lifestyle.

I was first introduced to this rule in a little book titled “21-day miracle”. According to the book, to build a habit you need to work on it for 21 continuous days. If you miss a day, you set the counter back to zero and start again.

When we normally think about developing a habit though, we have a different goal in mind. We want it to become second nature. We want to become a person that feels good waking up early every day to exercise, or that plays the piano really well, or something along those lines. You won’t get that in 21 days. That’s where the ‘90’ part of the rule comes into play. If you want a habit to feel like second nature to you, you need to work on it for at least 90 days.

Just a fair warning though. I have been writing this blog every day for 230 days now. Most time it does seem to come easy and feel like second nature, but there are still days where I have to use all my willpower to get through writing a blog. While on average things get easier, you still have to use your will power and work hard to maintain a good habit.

This post is part of my 365 Day Project for 2019. Read about it here

Yesterday’s blog — Raining Cats and Dogs