My signature coaching programs are designed to be 100 days in length. While time is arbitrary, there are reasons behind why I chose a 100 day timeline.
On the one hand,100 days will pass regardless if you put in the work or not. It’s the action and the effort that will bring results, not necessarily the amount of time.
On the other hand, results can take time to manifest. You can’t just drop 20 lbs or lower your cholesterol in one day without taking extreme measures. These health outcomes take consistent and persistent actions.
Overall, I like the 100 days because it gives you enough time to implement, have setbacks, pivot, and see results. Allow me to extrapolate below…
Anecdotal Observations
I chose 100 days because changes will not be evident right away. In my experience when implementing a new behavior change, I personally start to feel or physically see changes manifest in 4-6 weeks. Therefore, 100 days allows for 2-3 opportunities to cycle through a habit implementation and have 2-3 opportunities to pivot as needed!
100 days also leaves enough room for falling off and getting back on the wagon. I like to have checkpoints within the 100 days because each checkpoint is an opportunity that allows you to learn how to set goals, evaluate progress, and make changes accordingly.
Now Looking at the Science
Spoiler: There’s No Definitive Amount of Time to Form a Habit
I would be remiss if I did not give a nod to the King of Habits himself, James Clear, author of Atomic Habits. James looked into the science for us and wrote the following article: How Long Does it Take to Form a Habit? Backed by Science.
Scientifically speaking, per James’ article, there’s been countless studies on this topic. The consensus is that it takes ~66 days to form a new habit. However, the range of time to form a habit varies by so many factors like person, the behavior itself, the environment, etc. and can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days.
It’s important to recognize that, especially when it comes to your physical health and wellness, we are all unique individuals and will respond to different stimuli at different rates. What takes someone 6 weeks could take another person 6 months to achieve. Habits and results don’t manifest until you repeatedly do the behavior and put in the work.
By having a 100 day timeline, we will likely have ample time to implement some behaviors and start forming some habits which will bring us the wellness results we’re looking to achieve. The 100 days allows us some runway to implement, have setbacks, evaluate, and pivot, if necessary.
3 Reasons Why Deadlines Are Necessary
Creates a Sense of Urgency
Deadlines give you a sense of urgency. Urgency creates an imperativeness and an importance to get the task done. Without a deadline, there’s less incentive to put in the work right now. The action can be deprioritized. Countless reasons to put off the work will become available without a deadline. If you don’t have an end date, you’ll keep pushing out the task and as a result time passes without any progress. Even if you don’t hit your goal within your deadline, you’ll at least have accumulated data to evaluate and make informed decisions about how to move forward.
Something to Work Towards
If you’re doing something out of your comfort zone, it gives you a timeline that makes tolerating the discomfort possibly more tolerable.
Friedrich Nietzsche is said to have said “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” I think you could even venture to say, ‘He who has a when, can tolerate almost any how’ as well. When there’s a finish line you will be more motivated to tolerate the struggles, the challenges, and sometimes even temporary pain. Simply because you will know it’s temporary. After a set amount of time, you may not need to abandon the habit entirely, but you may want to loosen the reins after.
For example, if you’re reducing your calories you may not need, nor want, to reduce them forever. You may only reduce them for a short time frame and then maintain your calories at a higher amount a majority of the time. Not all behavior changes, or the degree of the behavior changes, need to be forever.
Allows You to Measure and Evaluate Progress
Often when making a goal we’re encouraged to make them “SMART” meaning that your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Notice that when we create SMART goals, they are both measurable and time-bound. In order to measure progress effectively it helps to have a beginning and an end to compare against. Hence, a deadline. You can have checkpoints along the way to your deadline that keep you time-bound as well, but either way we need a start and a finish to be able to measure progress.
100 Days is Not the End All Be All!
Ultimately, my goal is to teach you how to create maintainable, sustainable habits. The program is also supposed to help you learn how to orient your goals and game plans into realistic time frames. In other words, once you’ve seen what you can accomplish in 100 days, then you can apply this to your next objective and goal.
Furthermore, extreme tactics can actually end up having detrimental side effects to your health and well-being! I fiercely believe that gradually making changes can actually help you in the long run so you don’t go to any extremes that will have undesirable consequences. Remember, consistent and persistent action is most likely to bring the longest lasting results.
It is my hope that in graduating my program and engaging in my content that you can take the educated action to make the best plans of action. To begin, we’ll experiment with 100 days and from there you can better understand what you’ll need to, in what amount of time, in order to see the results you want.