Those of us who watched the lunar voyage of Apollo 11 were transfixed as we saw the first men walk on the moon and return to earth… to get there, those astronauts literally had to break out of the tremendous gravity pull of the earth. More energy was spent in the first few minutes of lift-off, in the first few miles of travel, than was used over the next several days to travel half a million miles. Habits, too, have tremendous gravity pull—more than most people realize or would admit. Breaking deeply imbedded habitual tendencies such as procrastination, impatience, criticalness, or selfishness that violate basic principles of human effectiveness involves more than a little willpower and a few minor changes in our lives. “Lift off” takes a tremendous effort, but once we break out of the gravity pull, our freedom takes on a whole new dimension. - Stephen R. Covey. “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”

There have been many things during my life that I’ve wanted to change. In some cases I’ve been successful but for many I have not. One thing I’ve noticed that can impact upon the ‘sticking power’ of a personal change to whether it’s adopting Unit Testing, exercising regularly or giving up refined sugar to is the ability to make it through those first few days. Generally speaking I’ve found that the ability to do (or not do) something for perhaps a week will mean that I’ll be able to stick with it for much longer, and that it becomes easier to or even entirely natural to to do it.

For a long time I’ve referred to this as giving a habit or behaviour time to gain sufficient momentum. I think that’s an OK analogy but I prefer this one from the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People because it better reflects the pull our previous behaviours can have upon us.

Another thing that I’ve found to be really important for me to achieve change is consistency. But that a different topic.