1000 - 1500 / Francis Bacon / Habits and Habit Tracker

How to Form a Habit, Comparison of Approach from 1500s to Now

By Effluo | Published December 27, 2021 | No Comments

Francis Bacon lived in the 1500s in England. He was a philosopher, Lord Chancellor of England, and a writer. In his Essays, he covered many subjects, one of which was “Of Nature in Men,” which discusses habits. He prescribed specific practices for self-improvement and defined an approach on how to form a habit. 

Multiple research studies have been completed on this subject as well. This comparison will take the quotes from the Essays by Francis Bacon and compare them to today’s research.  

Francis Bacon was a contemporary of William Shakespeare, so his English will be difficult to read, but it is worth it.  

Begin With One or Two Habits

Examine thy customes of diet, sleepe, exercise, apparell, and the like; and trie, in any thing thou shalt judge hurtfull, to discontinue it by little and little

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon pointed out that it is essential to examine and review your current habits. Habits make you who you are, and only you can influence who you will be. Areas of focus should be habits related to diet, sleep, your personal style, and can expand into exercise and the like. If you find that something should change or improve, begin working on it little by little.

The key in the statement is to begin small, focusing on one or two habits. There can be nothing worse than beginning too many new habits and failing at all. According to the Psychology of ‘habit formation’ reported by NIH, the ‘small changes’ approach was the best strategy for habit formation.   

Work on Moderate Improvement Steps

Hee that seeketh victory over his nature, let him not set himselfe too great nor too small tasks; for the first will make him dejected by often faylings; and the second will make him a small proceeder, though by often prevailing.

Francis Bacon

Once you identify the habit to form, be realistic in how you choose to approach habit formation. If you make the task too difficult, you will fail. Conversely, if you make it too easy, you will not see results and give up. Therefore, it is essential to make moderate changes, and the meaning of ‘moderate’ differs between people. Only you can tell what is realistic for you. 

Modern-day research supports this idea. In the Psychology of ‘habit formation,’ the strength of the habit and ‘automaticity strength’ peaked with simple actions such as drinking water than more difficult routines like doing 50 sit-ups.

If you are looking to create a habit, make sure that you take the route that will work for you. If you never ran a mile in your life and decided to begin running, you should set the goals according to your current health. You could walk 30 minutes, with a 5 minute run in the middle. Or do intervals with a one-minute run and a two-minute walk for 30 min.  

Do what will work for you and gradually grow from there. DO NOT say that you will run non stop 30 minutes every day. That is not realistic, and you will set yourself up for failure.  These improvement steps should challenge you but not overwhelm you to the point of giving up.

Stay Consistent But Take Breaks 

Let not a man force a habit upon himselfe with a perpetual continuance, but with some intermission. For both the pause reinforceth the new onset; and if a man that is not perfect be ever in practise, he shall as well practise his errours as his abilities; and induce one habit of both: and there is no meanes to helpe this but by seasonable intermissions.

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon recommended taking breaks in habit formation. He understood human nature and that no one is perfect. He explained that pause would allow rest and give you the opportunity to continue on with regained strength. If you do not take a small break, being human, you will most certainly fail at some point. This failure will make you focus on your failures, not your achievements.  

According to the Psychology of ‘habit formation,’ missing an occasional day or opportunity to perform the specific habit did not impair the habit formation process.     

Current day research suggests that missing a day in the process of habit formation does not reset all of the work you have done to build a habit. Better yet, according to Francis Bacon, planning for rest days may benefit you more than hurt your progress.

Therefore, going back to the example of running, continue your progress at a moderate pace, but make sure to take breaks and regain your strength. 

Length of Time for Habit Formation

But let not a man trust his victorie over his nature too farre; for nature will lay buried a great time, and yet revive upon the occasion or temptation….Therefore let a man either avoid the occasion altogether; or put himselfe often to it, the hee may be little moved with it.

Francis Bacon

According to Francis Bacon, your old habits do not entirely go away; you form new habits and replace your old ones. That does not mean that old habits will not show themselves occasionally. Temptations or triggers may be present, and your old habit may again see the light of the day. You can either stay away from temptations or surround yourself with a temptation to the point that it is no longer a temptation. Just know, an occasional show of the old habit is natural; it is part of being human. 

So how long before a habit is formed and becomes automatic. You may have heard that habits take 21 days to form; however, this information is based on anecdotal evidence, not actual research.  

According to the Psychology of ‘habit formation,’ new habits formed and automaticity plateaued on average around 66 days; however, there was a considerable variation. Depending on circumstances and the habit, it was much longer for some and shorter for others. It has now been generally accepted to expect a timeframe of around ten weeks. This research also showed that learning a new habit gets progressively easier with time.

Summary 

It was refreshing to see that the recommendations provided by Francis Bacon are supported by modern-day research. The advice for how to form a habit can be summarized into a few steps. 

1. Examine your current behaviors and decide what habits to form.
2. Do not begin with more than 1 or 2 new habits at a time. 
3. Work on moderate changes, which should challenge you but not cause you to fail. 
4. Stay consistent in practicing the new habit.
5. Plan for breaks and rest days to regain strength.
6. Give yourself time; it takes about ten weeks to reach automaticity. 
7. Celebrate your accomplishments!

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