Every one of us gets an occasional desire to make a change. Whether it’s losing weight, quitting smoking or developing a new fitness routine, we want to see results.

21 Days?

You may have heard the phrase that it takes 21 days to make or break a habit. But does it really only take 21 days?

If it’s taking longer than 21 days for you—maybe even a lot longer—does that mean you’re doing something wrong?

Definitely not! Making and breaking habits is a highly individual process. Here’s what you need to know about successfully starting or ending habits.

How Long It Takes Is Totally Individual

Despite the common misconception, making or breaking habits can take much more than 21 days. In fact, the 21 days is a completely unreliable figure. How long it takes to create or change a habit depends on a lot of factors. In some cases, a seriously determined individual could successfully change a habit in a lot fewer than 21 days. But in other cases, it could be as much as 60 days…or even more.

Reasons Your Efforts to Change Habits Fail

Whether your efforts to change your habits will succeed or fail depends on many factors. Your level of determination is one of the most important factors that contribute to success or failure. It’s also easy for the unexpected to throw you off your game. Events like a birthday or work party can make it difficult to maintain the same drive to improve your diet, for example. Or the exercise routine you decided to start is a lot harder than you expected. Many of these reasons are valid. But even if the things that derail you are valid, you need to prepare for these contingencies. Create a game plan in advance of how you will deal with setbacks.

How to Improve Your Odds of Success

Being successful in changing your habits takes more than just the passage of time—21 days or otherwise. Try some of these tips to improve your chances of succeeding in what you set out to do.

  • Stop measuring your progress. Changing habits can seem overwhelming, especially when you look at the end goal. For example, quitting smoking sounds daunting when you think about never having another cigarette again. Instead, just focus on getting through one day without a cigarette (or even just an hour!)
  • Start with a really small goal. Even if your ultimate goal is to lose 50 pounds, just focus on making one healthy change every day instead.
  • Only focus on changing one thing at a time. You may be in feeling the urge to make a lot of changes all at once. But contrary to what you might expect, that zeal often backfires because it’s too difficult to make a lot of changes at once.
  • Make sure you have some buddies and accountability partners. Life is not a do-it-yourself project. We all need some help and changing habits is no exception. Get your most supportive and helpful friends on board to keep you accountable and to encourage you along the way.

Be in the Race for the Long Haul

We all want the magic quick-fix solution that helps us achieve our goals in an instant without much effort. Sadly, this type of result is only seen on late-night infomercials and not in real life. It would be nice if we could change our habits in 21 days. But the truth is that changing our habits is a result of long-term, dedicated efforts. Eventually, you won’t require quite as much willpower to maintain your positive changes. You just need to make your healthier habits the new normal.