When we’re creating a new good habit or breaking a bad habit — say, practicing mindfulness, quitting smoking, exercising, or eating better — we often try to encourage ourselves by creating an unbroken streak.
100 straight days of mindfulness! 30 straight days of exercise!
These are great and amazing accomplishments
We should let ourselves feel encouraged when we have consistency like this.
However, what happens when the streak is broken? When that streak goes down to a Big Zero?
You miss a day and the slate gets wiped clean. I know it happens. It has happened to me.
This can be incredibly discouraging, and you often want to give up. I get it.
But think about it like this, even more powerful than the consistency of a streak is something some call Practicing with Zero.
When you miss a day, when the streak is broken, when we don’t exercise, when you smoke a cigarette, or eat the “no-no” food … this is when many of us hit the “Ah screw it” moment.
It’s like, “Ah well, I blew it, I might as well just give up and blow it even more!” It’s as if we’re happy to throw away all of our gains because we had a moment that didn’t go well.
Some of my stop-smoking clients will go from smoking 40 a day down to 2 in a week. That’s 278 cigarettes less than they would have normally smoked, but they feel like they failed. Then use that feeling as an excuse to go back.
What if the “Screw It” moment could be turned into a “Dust myself off and start again” moment or a “here’s a chance to practice what I am learning” moment, or an “I choose to love and accept myself” moment, or an “I made a mistake, but can still make better choices for me and those I love” moment?
Every time we missed a day, slipped up, or made a poor choice we would just simply start again.
We would let go of whatever we thought our streak was, whatever we were hoping for … and simply take the smallest next step.
This is Practicing with Zero.
When we stumble, Practicing with Zero is simply taking a breath, and righting ourselves.
When things aren’t going according to plan, Practicing with Zero is simply pausing, and deciding how we want to proceed from here. With intention.
Consistency and things going to plan are amazing.
Practicing with what happens when things fall apart — that’s probably the most powerful thing we can learn.