How do you know your practice is working?

Two weeks in, the new behaviour still feels like something you’re doing on purpose. You remember it in some conversations and forget it in others. Nobody has said “you’ve changed”.

It’s easy to read that as failure. Usually it isn’t.

How long should it take?

Longer than most people expect, and less evenly than they hope.

Lally and colleagues followed 96 people who each picked a small daily behaviour and repeated it for twelve weeks. The typical time for it to feel close to automatic was 66 days. The range ran from 18 days to more than 250. These were simple health habits, like a glass of water with lunch, not changes in how you talk to a colleague under pressure. Workplace behaviour is unlikely to be quicker.

Two things from that study are worth holding on to. The curve is steep at first and then flattens, so the early repetitions do the most work. And missing an occasion now and then didn’t set people back in any meaningful way. One forgotten attempt isn’t a reset.

So if it still feels deliberate at two weeks, you’re on schedule.

What are the early signs?

Look at the other person before you look at yourself. The first signs usually show up in how they respond.

They stop checking. They no longer ask “are you sure?” or chase you for an update you’ve already given. This is often the earliest sign, and the easiest to miss, because it’s an absence.

They give you more. A fuller answer, an earlier warning, a problem they’d previously have kept to themselves. People share more with someone they expect to handle it well.

They come to you first. Something goes wrong and you hear about it from them, not from someone else.

They say something small. “Thanks for the heads-up.” “That helps.” It’s not a review. It’s a sign that something you did registered.

None of these proves the relationship has changed. Their workload might have shifted, or someone else might have said something. But taken together, and dated, they’re the most honest evidence you’ll get in the first month.

What are the signs in you?

Fewer, but they matter.

You notice the moment before it passes. Early on, you realise afterwards that you meant to use the behaviour. Later, you catch the moment as it arrives. That’s progress, even if you don’t always act on it.

It starts to sound like you. The words stop feeling borrowed. You adjust them to the person and the situation without thinking about it.

You use it when it matters. The real test is the harder conversation, the one with more riding on it. If the behaviour turns up there, the practice in easier moments has done its job.

What if nothing seems to be changing?

Check three things before you give up on it.

Did the occasion come? Sometimes the opportunity you planned for simply didn’t arrive. That’s a planning problem, not a behaviour problem. Find an occasion that will happen this week.

Did you actually use it? Honest notes help here. If you meant to and didn’t, ask what got in the way. Often it’s that the behaviour was too big, or too vague to recognise in the moment.

Was it the right behaviour? If you used it several times and nothing in their response shifted, you may be working on something that doesn’t matter much to them. Go back to what they need to rely on you for, ask them if you can, and choose again.

Changing behaviour on the evidence is part of the process. Changing it because it felt awkward isn’t.

Where do scores fit?

After the signs, not before.

A score on a Trust Map or a self-assessment is useful for seeing direction over time. But it’s a summary of your view, and it moves slowly. The sentence “she told me about the problem before she told her manager” will usually arrive weeks before any number changes, and it tells you more.

So write the sentences down as they happen. When you come to review, the score will make more sense with them beside it.