The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)

[Days 11-20] Phase Two: Uncomfortable
After you get through the first 10 days—the most difficult 10 days—you
begin the 2
nd
10-day phase, which is considerably easier. You will be getting
used to your new habit. You will also have developed some confidence and
positive associations to the benefits of your habit.
While days 11-20 are not unbearable, they are still uncomfortable and
will require discipline and commitment on your part. At this stage it will still
be tempting to fall back to your old behaviors. Referencing the example of
waking up early as your new habit, it will still be easier to sleep in because
you’ve done it for so long. Stay committed. You’ve already gone from
Unbearable to Uncomfortable, and you’re about to find out what it feels like
to be UNSTOPPABLE.
[Days 21-30] Phase Three: Unstoppable
When you enter the final 10 days—the home stretch—the few people

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that make it this far almost always make a detrimental mistake: adhering to
the popular advice from the many experts who claim it only takes 21 days to
form a new habit.
Those experts are partly correct. It does take 21 days—the first two
phases—to form a new habit. But the third 10-day phase is crucial to
sustaining your new habit, long term. The final 10 days is where you
positively reinforce and associate pleasure with your new habit. You’ve been
primarily associating pain and discomfort with it during the first 20 days.
Instead of hating and resisting your new habit, you start feeling proud of
yourself for making it this far.
Phase Three is also where the actual transformation occurs, as your new
habit becomes part of your identity. It transcends the space between
something you’re trying and who you’re becoming. You start to see yourself
as someone who lives the habit.
Back to our example of waking up early: you go from having an identity
that says I am not a “morning person” to I am a morning person! Instead of
dreading your alarm clock in the morning, now when the alarm goes off you
are excited to wake up and get going because you’ve done it for over 20 days
in a row. You’re starting to see and feel the benefits.
Too many people get overly confident, pat themselves on the back and
think: I’ve done it for 20 days so I’m just going to take a few days off. The
problem is that those first twenty days are the most challenging part of the
process. Taking a few days off before you’ve invested the necessary time into
positively reinforcing the habit makes it difficult to get back on. It’s days 21-
30 where you really start enjoying the habit, which is what will make you
continue it in the future.