Building Habits Using the 21/90 Rule

Are you ready to build better habits? The struggle to form new habits is real. It can feel nearly impossible at times. Yet, the benefits of forming better habits far outweigh the difficulty of doing so. Moreover, building good habits leads to happy, fulfilling, and productive lives that are more aligned with our values and what is important to us. That’s why it’s worth putting in the work! Luckily there are a few different strategies available to increase your chances of success. We’ve recently discovered a simple technique called the 21/90 rule that has been making waves in the world of self-help and productivity techniques. In this blog post, we are going to take a closer look at how you can use the strategy to build your own positive habits using the 21/90 rule as inspiration.

What is the 21/90 Rule?

The 21/90 rule is a simple strategy for building better habits. The rule suggests that to form a new habit, you need to engage in the desired behavior for 21 days in a row, and 10% of your day. The 10% rule is often referred to as the 90/10 rule. The terms can be used interchangeably, but they don’t refer to the same thing. The rule is a simplification of the research done by Dr. Phillippa Lally, a professor at University College London. Dr Lally used the rule to investigate the habits of Olympic athletes. The rule suggests that to form a new habit, you need to engage in the desired behavior for 21 days in a row. It also suggests that for each day you engage in the behavior, you need to spend 10% of your day on the behavior.

Why The 21/90 Rule Works

The main reason why the 21/90 rule is so effective is that it allows you to break big projects down into smaller, more manageable tasks. When you focus on one small task at a time, you tend to get more done, and feel more successful as a result. It also helps to reduce perfectionism and minimize the disappointment you may feel if you don’t meet your goal perfectly. Perfectionism often causes us to procrastinate on tasks because we don’t feel like we’re good enough yet. It’s a self-defeating habit! When you break projects down into smaller tasks, you can focus on each of them individually. You can put all of your effort into each task, achieving them with much more ease and little to no perfectionism.

How to Use the 21/90 Rule to Build Better Habits

Now that you understand why the 21/90 rule works so well, let’s talk about how you can apply it to your own life and start forming better habits! The first step is to decide on a positive habit you want to build into your routine. This can be any type of habit, so choose something that is meaningful to you. When deciding on a habit, make sure you pick something that is relatively easy to do so that you can succeed, and make sure it’s something that you value in your life. For example, you could pick something like flossing your teeth every night before bed. Flossing is relatively easy and quick to do, it has numerous benefits, and it’s something you probably value in your life.

Decide on your habit, and what you’ll sacrifice

Once you’ve decided on a habit to form, the next step is to decide what you’ll need to sacrifice in order to make the time for your new habit. This is an important part of the 21/90 rule, and it is important to be honest with yourself about the sacrifices you need to make. For example, if you want to write a novel, you need to make the time for it, and you need to decide what you’ll sacrifice in order to make that time. You may need to give up an hour of tv time each day, or a social outing with friends.

Build your habit for 21 days in a row

After you’ve decided on a habit you want to build, decided what you’ll need to sacrifice, and you’ve decided on what the new habit is going to be, it’s time to get to work! For this rule to work, it is important that you engage in the new behavior for 21 days in a row. You need to focus on your new behavior every single day for 21 days to form the new habit.

After 21 days, make a small change

After you have successfully built the habit for 21 days in a row, it is time to make a small change to increase your chances of keeping up the habit moving forward. For example, if you have been writing 500 words each day for the past 21 days, you could reduce the number of words you write to 350 words. This will help to prevent you from burning out, and it will also help you to slowly make adjustments as needed based on everything you’ve learned so far.

3 Habits You Can Build Using the 21/90 Rule

Let’s look at three positive habits that you can build using the 21/90 rule. Here’s what you need to do:

Write for 10% of your day

This is an excellent habit to build if you are a blogger, or if you are interested in getting into blogging as a side hustle or full-time career. You need to spend 10% of your time each day writing for your blog. This could be 20 or 30 minutes in the morning, or a shorter period at night.

Read for 10% of your day

This is an excellent habit to form if you want to improve your knowledge and ability to learn new things. If you spend 10% of your day reading, you’ll be amazed at how much you can get through! You can read blogs, books, magazines, or anything else that you find interesting.

Exercise for 10% of your day

This is an excellent habit to form if you want to improve your health and energy levels. You should spend 10% of your day exercising, for example, 10 minutes at a stretch. Or, you could do a 30-minute workout in three 10-minute chunks throughout the day.

3 Important Takeaways

Before we go, here are three takeaways you should keep in mind as you try to use the 21/90 rule to build better habits.

Exact time frame is not important. It can be 21 days or 90 days. You just need to keep building the habit for a period of time.

You can build more than one habit at a time. There are many people who have been able to successfully build multiple positive habits at the same time.

You do not have to wait until you have a bad habit before you build a positive one. You can do both at the same time.

Bottom line

The 21/90 rule is a simple strategy that can help you to form good habits. You need to engage in the desired behavior for 21 days in a row, and 10% of your day. This is an excellent strategy if you are trying to form positive habits.