You have just heard the most fantastic speaker or practice management coach share a step-by-step process for 5 systems that will make your business thrive!  Instant success right?  Wrong!  The problem is we learn what we need to do to implement our goals but we don’t learn what we need to do to sustain what we implemented.  All the good intentions and great ideas in the world won’t make a difference if we can’t maintain and sustain them!   

 I love the quote by Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act but a habit.”  Therefore, if we want to achieve excellence we must make it a habit.  A habit is doing without thinking.

 Here are 5 steps to take what you implement and make it a habit!

1. Cleary define the process/system/protocol to the entire team

2. Establish as SOP (Standard Operating Procedures)

3. Be consistent & realistic with routines & repetitions

• What we do and what we say, when, where & how
• Every day, every visit, every patient, every team member, etc
• Don’t settle – 3 out of 5 is not good enough, 5 out of 5 is

4. A habit forms after 18 to 254 days of repeated practice (average is 66 days)

5. Schedule regular check-ups

• Quarterly – just like bacteria, old behaviors may surface

Dr. John Grohol wrote in an article that when researchers examined different habits, many of the participants showed a curved relationship between implementation practice and automaticity (automatic processing of information).  On average a plateau in automaticity was reached after 66 days. In other words it had become as much of a habit as it was ever going to become.  Although the average was 66 days, there was marked variation in how long habits took to form, anywhere from 18 days up to 254 days depending on the difficulty of the habits examined in this study.

So 66 days later, a simple habit might be in place and on automatic pilot. But as the research shows, it could as long as 8 1/2 months for more complicated habits to take hold.  This is why it is so important to continue to remind and reinforce new SOP’s at your Daily Huddles and Monthly Team Meetings and Quarterly Workshops!