Novelty pays upfront
When you decide to run in the mornings, you get a reward before your first run. You already have a picture in your mind: getting up at seven, feeling lighter, a different you in a month. It feels good, and it feels good now. The run itself will come later, and it will be hard.
Dopamine neurons have a feature described back in the 1990s: they respond less to the reward itself than to the difference between what was expected and what happened. Unexpectedly good - a strong signal. The same thing, but predictable - almost nothing. By the second week of running, there is nothing unexpected left: you know the route, where it will hurt, and what comes after. No signal - and it feels like your "motivation" has disappeared. It is not motivation that disappeared, but novelty.
That is why Mondays and the first day of the month are so appealing. A milestone date lets you separate your old self from your new one - and get that upfront reward again. Researchers called this the fresh start effect: after such dates, people are noticeably more likely to take up goals. Notice: more likely to start, not more likely to follow through.
Interest by day: a peak at the start, then a dip once everything became predictable. This is the shape of the phenomenon, not measurement data.
Starting is one decision, continuing means deciding again every day
Starting feels like one act: you bought running shoes, set an alarm, done. But the promise to "run" is not one action - it is dozens of separate choices, each made in the morning, in bed, with no witnesses and no beautiful picture in your mind.
Until an action becomes automatic, it takes a separate effort every time. How long that takes is an open question. In a study by Phillippa Lally and colleagues, people repeated a chosen everyday action in the same setting; for those who reached automaticity, it took about 66 days, with a range from 18 to 254. The study was small: 96 people started it. The "21 days" often repeated has nothing to do with these data. These findings do not give an exact timeframe for an action to become automatic: the evidence is weak, and differences between people are greater than any average. Rely not on a number, but on "longer than it seems."
What keeps you going when novelty runs out
If starting is sustained by an upfront reward, continuing depends on making the decision less often. What works is not willpower, but reducing the number of choices: one time, one place, an action so small that skipping it costs more than doing it.
And one more thing: a slump in the middle is not a sign that you chose the wrong thing. It is exactly the point where novelty has already run out, but automaticity has not yet begun. People who ultimately keep going pass through it too.
Starting rewards you for the idea; continuing rewards you only for repetition. Boredom in the second week is not a sign of failure, but a sign that you have reached the point where everything is decided.
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Sources
- Schultz, Dayan, Montague, Science, 1997 - on dopamine neuron responses to prediction error. Lally and colleagues, European Journal of Social Psychology, 2010 - habit formation, 96 participants at the start. Dai, Milkman, Riis, Management Science, 2014 - the fresh start effect