Try This If You Need More Mental Energy!

For the month of February, our theme is HABITS and I’ll be sharing a four-part series all about them – the importance of habits, habit stacking, habit tracking, and adding effective habits to your morning and evening routines.

First, let’s define what exactly a habit is.

A habit is a routine of behavior that is repeated regularly and tends to occur subconsciously.

A Duke University researcher found that 40% of our actions performed each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits… and that leads us to understand why habits are so important. Habits reserve our mental energy and they prevent decision fatigue. At the end of the day, if you have been making decisions all day long, your brain is ready to shut down. It’s called decision fatigue.

Yes, that is a real thing!

​In the book The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg, he says that since the brain is constantly looking for ways to save effort, habits can emerge, and the brain can stop fully participating in decision making. This makes perfect sense! Just think about brushing your teeth in the morning. You get your toothbrush and you put toothpaste on that toothbrush without thinking about it. It’s a habit. You don’t need to use any mental energy to figure out what’s next after picking up the toothbrush – you automatically put the toothpaste on it.

But how long does it take for a habit to form? James Clear says in his book Atomic Habits that, on average, a habit takes 66 days to develop. That’s about two months. It could take a little less time or it could take a little longer, but on average, it takes 66 days.

Clear also says it’s important to understand that habits are a process, not an event. They are small action steps taken and not actions done all at once, so it will take a little bit of effort each day in small steps for a habit to form after a two-month period.

Since we want to have habits to preserve our mental energy and prevent mental fatigue, I’m curious what habit do you want to develop in the next two months? I would love to hear!

You can tag me on Instagram @realconnectionministry.com.