Starting Up Your Routine… Again
Sometimes we just stop doing a healthy/fun/life-giving behavior because of, well, life. Here’s what we can do to get back to what we want.
This isn’t the usual conversation about starting a new routine or habit. This is an actionable guide about starting back up after you’ve stopped a behavior you had going.
I haven’t written a blog post in a couple months. Ouch, that gets into my heart just typing that sentence, thus making it real.
I was in a groove with writing for a few months in a row. Then, I stopped.
Have you experienced being in a groove with a healthy habit or hobby and then life just kind of changes and you stop doing the thing?
Maybe you were in a groove with your workout routine and then work got busy and suddenly you look up and it’s been a few weeks (or months or years) since you’ve lifted weights.
Maybe you were in the groove of meal planning during the school year, and then during the summer months when your kids are home, meal planning somehow fell off.
Maybe you were eating whole foods, focusing on protein and veggies and fiber, but one birthday party led to days of many foods you wouldn’t normally eat.
This happens with workouts, meal planning, healthy eating, hobbies, sleep, stress management, etc
Life changes. Seasons change. Things fall away.
What do we do when we've fallen out of the groove?
For many of us, we don’t have a solid process to help us back up when we’ve fallen off doing the thing. Instead, we blame ourselves for our lack of discipline. Or we think the solution is to get more willpower. We read online that we just need to be consistent to make our healthy habits stick.
Maybe the goal isn't to become someone who never falls off. Maybe the goal is to become someone who knows how to return.
The skill of returning to your desired routines is laid out below to give you a starting place, instead of feeling like you are starting over from scratch.
Ask a Better Question
The question isn't always “why did I stop?”
When I finally sat down to start writing again, my brain immediately ambushed me with thoughts and questions like, “see, you don’t have any willpower to keep going! You’re never going to make this work. Why did you stop anyway?”
Asking why is just a delay tactic your brain takes to prevent you from taking action and possibly experiencing failure, again.
Yes, there are many reasons why we stop doing what we want to do.
Life gets busy. Seasons change. We lose momentum. Priorities change. We didn’t have the time or the energy.
But we don’t necessarily need to solve the entire mystery of why we stopped in order to begin moving forward.
The more helpful questions are:
What can I do now?
What works in this season of life?
Do I want to do this now?
Do I want to restart the same thing, or restart the same intention in a different way?
Sometimes starting back up with the exact same routine or strategy isn’t the way to go. You may need to pivot a bit.
Maybe you stopped because your life changed. Maybe the habit isn't serving you anymore. Maybe you still want the outcome but the particular strategy you were using isn't realistic for your current season.
For example:
You want the outcome of being and feeling strong in your body. You used to go to the gym 3 days a week. Now, you want the same outcome but you need a new strategy, which can be going to a new class, lifting at home, and dancing with your friends.
You want the outcome of having nutrient dense foods ready-to-go. You used to meal-prep every Sunday. Now, you’re in a season of life where you need to plan on Mondays and Fridays.
The key is to figure out how to return to your desired outcome in this current season of life, without blaming yourself for past “failures.” Remember, there are no failures, there are only opportunities to learn and continue growing.
The Gap in Action Doesn’t Have to Become a Verdict About Who You Are
But before we can figure out how to return to our desired behavior, there’s one more thing we need to address: what we make the gap in action mean about us.
There is a difference between what happened, and the story we tell ourselves about what happened, and what that means about us as a person.
Definition of Story: the words, thoughts, sentences that pass through our head about a particular event
What happened:
“I didn’t work out on Monday or Wednesday like I wanted to”
The story you tell yourself about what happened:
“I’ve failed”
“I’m so inconsistent”
“I never stick with anything”
“Well, the whole week is messed up so might as well not work out today, either”
The gap - in time lapsed, inaction, falling off the wagon - doesn’t have to become a judgment about who you are.
It doesn’t mean you’re weak or lazy.
It doesn’t mean you’re incapable of consistency.
It doesn’t mean you’ve lost all your progress.
It doesn’t mean you have to wait until Monday, or “start-over.”
This is simply information. It just means that some time has passed. Nothing has gone wrong.
Instead of believing the story in your head about failing to remain consistent with your habit you can tell yourself: “This is where I am right now. What do I want to do today?”
It can also be helpful to do this thought experiment:
Tell yourself, “OK, the past months are gone and I didn’t write/workout/eat enough fiber. I can’t go back to change that. Why didn’t I meal-prep? Who knows, the why doesn’t really matter. What I can do now however, is decide to get back on the horse, and try again. Without shame, judgement, or beating myself up over my lack of discipline.”
That’s the crux, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter if I’m talking about writing, eating vegetables every day, strength training, or getting 8 hours of quality sleep.
If we don’t do these things, we can’t beat ourselves up in an effort to get going again.
The most important thing we can do is acknowledge the feelings we’re having about “falling off the wagon” or having a set-back, and let those feelings move through us, without letting those feelings dictate what we do next.
If you’re feeling shame for not following through on your plan to eat less processed foods, let the shame move through you without trying to block it. The feeling will move on, and you will be ready to try implementing your meal plan once again.
If you try to block or resist the shame, it will persist and won’t allow you to put your attention back towards meal planning. Any time you think about what foods you want to prepare, that shame will pop up again and you will avoid the topic altogether, eating whatever comes up without a plan. The vicious cycle will continue and you will not move closer to your health goals.
Here is where we have an opportunity to break the “screw it, I won’t ever be able to do this” cycle.
This cycle comes in many different flavors and words that your own brain will create, but the steps creating the cycle are the same:
you want to feel better
you set an intention to workout, eat better, sleep more, spend time on a hobby, de-stress, etc
you aren’t able to fit these activities into your busy working-mom life
you beat yourself up when you don’t follow through on what you said you would do
the feelings that come from “failure” like disappointment or shame are so strong that you don’t want to try again
Been stuck in this cycle? We all have.
Here is where we have an opportunity to break the cycle of beating ourselves up over our past “failures” into new opportunities for growth, called reframes.
Use Reframes
Instead of calling our actions (or inactions) “failures,” reframe it as a learning opportunity, potential for growth, or to remind yourself that you are human.
Here are 4 other reframes to help you move from lamenting falling off track, to getting going again.
Just do the thing today.
What if we didn’t need to have the thought, “well shoot, now I have to start all over again”? How would you feel if you weren’t starting over, but just doing the thing today? There would be a sense of freedom in choice, because you aren’t lamenting over the failure of stopping your habit in the first place. Today, you’re going to workout, without thinking you are “starting over.”
Two days a week is a habit.
You don’t have to do something everyday to make it a habit. You get to decide what constitutes a habit, and how frequently you perform the action. What if you always kind of struggle with doing the thing you want to do? That’s ok, nothing has gone wrong. You don’t have to bounce out of bed joyfully to get your workouts in, but you can do the workout anyway. You know you’ll feel better afterwards.
Don’t let previous events influence future decisions.
Read that again! Don’t let what you did in the past decide what you will do today, or tomorrow. So what if you didn’t maintain that “diet” someone put you on in the past? It was probably too restrictive anyway. Take the learning from that experience, let go of the rest, and decide that today you are caring for your body. One way you do that is by eating whole, unprocessed foods.
You can handle the difficult emotions that come with struggle, failure, and inconsistency.
There is pain associated with failure, usually emotional pain. We feel defeated or embarrassed that we didn’t keep up with our food plans. And those emotional pains are real, and unfortunately can prevent us from trying again. So remind yourself what an emotion is: it’s a sensation in your body. Shame feels like a hot neck, dry mouth, a deep pit in the stomach. Failure can feel like a sinking stomach.
When you read these sensations out loud ask yourself, can I handle a sinking stomach feeling? Yes, you can! And when you are willing to feel these emotions, you can do anything. Including starting back up with your habit now.
Handling the Difficult Emotions of “Failing”
One of the biggest things holding us back from starting back up with a routine isn’t that we don’t know what to do. Or that we need a new strategy or a new organizational planner.
The biggest thing holding us back is difficult emotions.
When we stop doing something we intended to do, it's easy to turn that experience into a story about ourselves. I didn't work out, so I'm undisciplined. I didn't stick with my meal plan, so I must not have enough willpower. I stopped writing, so maybe I'm just not consistent. But there is a difference between what happened and the story we tell ourselves about what happened.
The fact is, I didn't work out on Monday.
The story is that I've failed.
From the story we tell ourselves come the feelings: disappointment, frustration, shame.
These feelings can be uncomfortable enough that we don't want to experience them again. So we avoid the thing altogether. We don't open the laptop. We don't make the meal plan. We don't put on our workout clothes. We tell ourselves we'll start again next week. And the longer we wait, the harder it feels to return.
This is where we have an opportunity to do something different.
Instead of trying to push away the uncomfortable feeling, notice it.
What does disappointment feel like in your body? Maybe it's a sinking feeling in your stomach, a heaviness in your chest, or tension in your shoulders.
You don't have to make the feeling go away before you move forward. You can feel disappointed and still go for your walk. You can feel embarrassed and still open your laptop. You can feel frustrated with yourself and still make tomorrow's lunch.
The feeling is allowed to be there, but it doesn't get to make the next decision for you.
And maybe this is what consistency really means. Not that you never stop. Not that you perfectly follow through on every intention you make.
Consistency can mean that when life interrupts your plans, you know how to return. You don't have to fix the past or start all over again.
You consistently work with the normal curve-balls life will inevitably throw our way. Part of this process is learning to work with our emotions, too.
Process to work through emotions and start up with your routine again
1. Acknowledge: “Yep, I stopped doing the thing, nothing has gone wrong.”
2. Feel: Allow the disappointment/shame/frustration to be there. If you don’t resist the emotion, but just allow it to be there, eventually it will fall away.
3. Separate: “Feeling bad doesn't mean I have to make another decision based on that feeling.”
4. Decide: “What do I want to do today?”
5. Scale: “What's the smallest step you can take to get you moving toward your goal?”
6. Do: Do that thing today and notice how you feel in your body and brain.
Start!
At the most simplified form, process through the feelings of shame and failure for falling off track, pick one place to start back up again, and go. Think of how you will feel in 10 minutes after making the decision to get going again. Future-you is waiting and will be so grateful you had the courage to try again. You’ve got this.
I know it isn’t always easy to start back up with a routine that you used to do, and want to get back to. Remember why you want to do this thing in the first place…what’s your vision for your health and life? How do you want to experience life, instead of just reacting to it?
Remembering the answers to these questions will help you to get back into your routine again too.
And if you feel stuck with getting started again, ask for help from someone who works in behavior change as a career…a health coach!
Looking for more ways to get back into your habits and routines? Join us inside the Selfish Giver newsletter where we talk all things health and the busy momma. See you there!
