should we punish ourselves when we drop a habit?
Look at the date of the last blog I wrote on here. June 19th. Oops.
I got really excited about my BearBlog when I first built it over 6 months ago, but then life got busy and I didn't establish a sticky enough habit of writing in it.
I went to Rome in July, August was full of events, September was Birthday Season, I was in Japan for all of October and in Canada visiting family for November/December. Then you know, The Holidays.
So, somehow I've blinked and it's December 27th. Wow.
But I'm back here right now, today, writing this. And that's something.
I've thought a lot about how to deal with my own guilt over dropping habits, failing to establish consistency or letting them lapse. And you know what? My thoughts around it have really changed in recent years.
I used to hold myself to a really high standard of perfection, and beat myself up a LOT when I didn't accomplish EVERYTHING I set out to do. And I usually aimed for too much, so I'd almost ALWAYS fall short. I would, therefore, be beating myself up very very often. It really sucked.
But after a lot of therapy and self-searching, I was able to detach my sense of self-worth from the number of things that I accomplished in a day.
And oh my god what a fucking relief that was.
It feels amazing that I can now take a sick day and properly rest and recharge, without guilt eating me up inside. It feels life-changing that now I end each day celebrating the things I did achieve, without feeling crushed under the weight of all the other imaginary things that I "could have achieved if I had just tried harder."
A previous version of me might be super apologetic and feel terrible about not blogging for 6 months. But you know what? It's totally okay! I was obviously doing other things that were more important to me at the time.
I've started to learn a few things about habits:
It's not about how perfectly you stick to the habit, it's about how good you are at "bouncing back" when the habit is interrupted.
Habits should serve your needs, goals and desires, not the other way around. If you're just doing it for the sake of "not breaking the chain" - then it's time to ask yourself if you're still getting any benefit from it. (Hence why I let my 747 day streak on Duolingo die, scary green owl be damned.)
Long-term consistency is better than perfection. It's better to do something a couple times a week for an entire year, than try to do it every single day and burn out after a couple weeks.
Celebrate what you DO achieve. I made a goal to read 35 books in 2024. That was kind of an ambitious goal, as it was more than the 31 books I read in 2023. But right now, there's 4 days left in the year and I've read 27 books. Oops. So, I will probably fall short of my goal. But at the end of the day, reading 27 books in a year is AWESOME! Setting the goal still reminded me to focus on reading, even if I didn't reach it.
I used to be afraid that if I stopped putting loads of pressure on myself to accomplish a ton of things, that I'd just end up being a failure who did absolutely nothing. But I've discovered this fear is irrational as well.
It seems to me that I accomplish roughly the same amount, whether I pile on the pressure and beat myself up about it or whether I am kinder to myself and celebrate my progress. The only difference? Whether or not I end the day feeling like a massive piece-of-shit failure lol.
So yeah, in this season of yearly wrap-ups and progress reports and goal setting and resolutions, I hope to remember these things and find the right balance when carving out habits and grooves for myself that will be long term and sustainable.
What about you? Feel free to tell me about it in the guestbook.
P.S. One of the books I read this year was Moby Dick. So, that's gotta count for like, at least 2 or 3 normal books, right? ;)