I love a good plan. I live by my systems and it makes me really happy when everything runs like clockwork. Like really, oddly, happy. Some might even call me a control freak, which is probably fair. For me it’s the little things that keep everything in good order: my Sunday planning, evening email catch-ups and quiet space in the morning to get my focussed tasks done. A well oiled-machine that sometimes feels held together by a few commitments that I do not compromise on.
One of my commitments is doing this newsletter. Draft it Sunday, send it Monday. Like clockwork. Until it wasn’t. Last week I sent it out on Tuesday. A day late. A perfect record ruined just like that.
Or was it?
It’s easy in these moments to admit defeat. Give up on something you have otherwise been doing really well at. Whether it’s a diet, a meditation practice, a financial goal, a project or a fitness program. One day, you broke the chain, you blew it. You are starting again. From. The. Beginning.
Most of us know it’s really hard to start running again if you stop mid-run. That time you thought it would be a good idea to pause and catch your breath on that really steep hill. The hill suddenly getting 10X steeper after those three recovery breaths.
We have all felt the pain of having to start back up again.
Starting back up can be hard. It’s never advisable to stop. Continuity is a win you can always count on; it shows you have discipline and it enables you to hone your skills. My darling friend told me my blogs just keep getting better - clearly I will keep her on the “friends of Claudia” payroll. They are getting better because I write them each week without fail. She’s a writer, she knows the power of the discipline of continued practice.
But sometimes, for whatever reason, you do stop. You pause to take a breath. You knew you made a mistake the minute you did it. Now it’s done, there is no taking it back. No DeLorean to take you back in time to that point of potential perfection. Now what?
Discipline doesn’t need to mean obsession or compulsion. Missing a day doesn’t matter. Eating a hamburger doesn’t matter. Pausing doesn’t have to matter. Sometimes it can even help you. Done that, learnt from that, now back to my regular programming. Back to my practice. Back to getting my newsletter out each Monday, I missed one - no big deal.
What is a big deal is beating yourself up about it. When we allow ourselves a discourse with our inner critic; that’s the exact point we put ourselves on a path to failure. The point where we create defeating stories about not being good enough. When we question why we even tried in the first place.
Thinking you need to be perfect creates a direct path to failure. A slip-up is just a slip-up unless you make it a failure. You can get going again. That glorious record is still there. You get to decide that. Don’t make yourself powerless in the face of a mere moment in time.