Don’t break the chain

I was inspired to do the daily blog channel last year when I searching the internet on 1st Jan, looking for a good new year's resolution to keep. I realize how sad that sounds, but I had a pretty boring job and loads of free time. So I knew I had to do something or else I’ll go insane.

I came across a blog by a girl, who had a similar challenge. She had to write a blog each day, although they were more diary entries than blogs. When I looked at some of them, I noticed there were days where she had written just single word blogs, clearly just to prevent her from ‘losing’ the challenge.

Seeing that, I felt the same thing that you might be feeling. Surely this has to be cheating right? If just one-word blogs were allowed, then what’s the point of the challenge. Anyone can do it then.

I realize now how wrong I was. That girl did it not because she wanted to cheat, but because she knew that missing even a single day would snowball into quitting the whole thing altogether.

If you are trying to get into a habit of doing anything, you have to remember one thing. One day of doing something doesn’t have the same magnitude of effect as one missed day. If you skip a day, it won’t just set you back for a single day. Depending on the task, it might as well set you back for a week, or even a month. You can’t simply work twice the next day to make up for it.

It might take you years to develop a good habit, and you could break it in just a few days. Which is why it is so important not to break the change. No matter how you feel about it, you’ve got to show up every day.