Day 21: See a Lapse or a Relapse as an Opportunity to Begin Again, Stronger

“A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.”
— Albert Einstein

“Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Today is the last day of your 21 day coaching program! I hope you feel a huge sense of accomplishment!! Please be sure to let us know how you did on the Facebook page: https://goo.gl/Zj35ZD!

I’d venture that all of us start this process of forming a new habit from the context of having failed before, often many times. So what do we do if we’ve tried this before, or if we just spent 21 days forming the perfect exercise habit, only to go on vacation—or something else that disrupts our normal routine—and come back feeling like all is lost?

All Is Not Lost. Anytime we get into a habit, or even start to get into a habit, we start to carve a neural path that we can retrace again later. So think of each time you start a habit cycle as an upward spiral that has circled back to where it began but is now one level higher. It may feel like you are back at square one, but neurologically you aren’t. You’re actually in a better place than you were before (maybe only slightly, if it is a perennial New Year’s resolution that lasts only a couple of weeks, or maybe you’re in a much better place if you actually got into the habit for a while). So if you relapse, simply begin again wherever you are, keeping in mind that you are now armed with lots of new knowledge about what worked and what didn’t.

In sum: Instead of seeing a lapse or a relapse as an indication that you aren’t good enough to establish a habit, see it as a clue that will help you better create a good habit that will stick with you for the rest of your life—and help you become a good habit creator who can do this again and again.

What To Do Today…and every day from here on out.

If you are still slowly expanding on your BTN exercise routine in tiny turtle steps, YAY YOU!! Every 3 to 4 days, consider adding a minute or two to your routine (or otherwise grow your habit in infinitesimally small steps) until you reach a point when you are getting as much exercise as you’d like to be getting AND it always feels fun and gratifying in some way.

When you feel resistance, drop back to your BTN routine as often as you need to. I mean it. Your baseline BTN habit really is better than nothing, and if you expand too quickly, I can promise you that you’ll eventually end up with nothing.

Have you relapsed? If so, go to the last page of your workbook to rededicate yourself. Begin this program again and with a less ambitious goal.