Ep. 90: Breaking Down the “Never Skip a Day” BS
EPISODE 90
Breaking Down the “Never Skip a Day” BS
About the Episode:
Have you ever heard the saying, “Never skip a day,” if you've tried to create a new habit, started a New Year's resolution, or have had any sort of health or fitness related goal, you've probably have. But on today’s episode of the Purpose & Profit Club™, I want to share why I hate this saying and why I think it's just a perfectionist trap. And instead, we’ll talk about how to create new habits, set better goals, how to stick to them, and how I've done this in my own professional and personal life. Plus, if you do like the mentality of never skipping a day, I’m covering what to do if life happens and you inevitably do have to skip a day. I want you to think of one goal you have, decide the habits you’ll create and the guardrails you’ll put in place to achieve them. Then, I want you to ditch the idea that you’ve got to be perfect at implementing it.
Topics:
Why the idea of “perfect” is a red flag, especially if you’re not living solo
How to actually create sustainable habits without the “never skip a day” BS
Acknowledging that it takes about 60 days to create a habit and how to create a realistic timeline/goals
Motivating yourself through the times where you don’t see instant feedback/gratification
Why the inner work is more of a barrier than anything tactical when it comes to habit creation
Giving yourself the freedom to break the rules to find what serves you and your audience the best
Remembering to celebrate the small wins
Think you’ve reached out to “everyone” in your network? Out of ideas to get noticed and get funded? Generate leads for your nonprofit or social impact business: https://www.splendidcourses.com/prospect
Christina’s Favorite Takeaways:
“They see that it's not catastrophic when they skip. It's not catastrophic, when they had all the best intentions, and they didn't do the thing—they literally just got back on.”
“But what I find with this “never skip a day” mentality is that it is not anything tactical that keeps people from actually developing and sticking to the habit, it's the inner work.”
“One of the biggest things that I've done in creating habits and systems in my own business is giving myself the freedom to break the rules.”
Episode Resources:
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How to Work with Christina and Splendid Consulting:
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Christina Edwards 01:06
In this episode, we're going to talk about the concept of never skip a day. If you've ever done any sort of habit, research or read any books on habits or started stopped in New Year's resolution, you've heard this saying, Never skip a day. It's especially prevalent prevalent in fitness. It's especially prevalent in any, any habit formation. And I really hate it. I really hate this idea of never skip a day, I think it's very masculine. And I think it presupposes a framework that we all have the same access, which we know so we're going to dig into the idea of creating and keeping habits how I've created and keep, keep how I've created and let's just start over. All right in this. Have you ever heard the saying, Never skip a day, if you've tried to start and create a new habit started a new year's resolution or especially have had any sort of health or fitness goal, you've heard this thing ever skip a day? Right? And here's why I hate that saying we're gonna dig into why I think it's just a perfectionist trap, and how to create new habits, new goals, stick to them how I've done this, and my own professional and personal life. And what you do if you in fact, skip a day because life happens, doesn't it? So the first thing is never skip a day total perfectionist trap, right? It's something that gets shared and thrown around from a lot of the bro fitness gurus of like, Wait, what is it my husband and I joke about rise and grind right? Of this, like you have to be part of the 5am club, you have to do it this way. If you're going to have the perfect more morning routine, the perfect blah, blah, blah. And this should be a red flag just the idea of Perfect, okay, so if you're like me, maybe you're a parent, maybe you're a caretaker, maybe you have more, two more you live under a roof with more than one person, right? You know, that being part of the 5am club, or getting up early to journal and create the perfect menu for the week or meal prep or anything like that. Life gives you a lot of curveballs and plot twists that make that pretty impossible to happen. I remember there was a time when I did try and get up before my kids would get up. And inevitably what would happen is they would get up when I got up. So I just moved the entire I shifted the entire routine to where now everybody's getting up at 6am when in fact we could just get up at seven instead. Right? Because of the The layout of our house like if one person's up even gonna hear him and then the it would like the domino effect. Okay, so how do you create and stick to habits, what is a better way than this never skip it ABS if you're like me, you were taught that it takes about 30 days to create and stick to a new habit. And before I was recording, I did a bit of research about this. And I've heard like a really big range. But the latest research that I've read, and I've seen in a couple of different places, it's actually about 60 days or in this 2009 study, it says about 66 days is the kind of about 66 days is the average on developing and creating a new habit. So this could be drinking more water eating a piece of fruit with lunch, it goes on to say, according to this study, and then it stretches out and said, it can take as long as 18 to 254 days to create and stick to a habit. Now, I think that that range is really, really important. Because when we go into creating something new or creating a new goal for yourself, and you don't see that immediate win right out of the gate, or it doesn't feel like second nature right out of the gate, then we feel like it's a failure, then we give up, right? It's the same mentality of never skip a day. Well, crap, I skipped a day. I guess I should just throw the whole thing away. I was working on the workbook. So inside the purpose and profit club coaching program, we do monthly themes, which are just ways to deepen some of the work we're doing throughout the year together. And I'm working on June's workbook. And in it we talked a bit about this concept of new habits we talked a bit about paying on. And in it, there is an opportunity there's a fork in the road with with June's theme, which is really around dares and saying crap, I skipped a day, I guess the whole thing's done and giving up or you can say, and we go, and we get back on. And this is something for me. Last year, last January 1, I decided that I would start doing weightlifting. And that would be something that I would carry through the entire year was I had this weightlifting goal strength training goal. And I had in my head how often I wanted to go to the gym and how often I wanted to lose weight. And it is I had this very clean, very simple habit tracker. And it was fascinating to see that habit tracker, because not only did it end up tracking, when I was able to lift weights and how often you know how much I did stay on my goal, which was three to four days a week. But you can actually see in the gaps of when I got sick when I went on vacation, or when I had to caretake. So when my child was sick, right? They were literally on there. And it was really fascinating to be like, Oh, that's when I had that surprise, Oral Surgery up. That's the week that I got that sinus infection, right? You could see it and it's really easy in those moments to go, well, there's 10 days of nothing, right? I've failed. But instead, I knew ahead of time I knew because I've been doing this vertical for so long. I knew that that would happen. Also, because I have kids, I knew that I could go in to a certain month with all you know intents and purposes that it would go this way. And in fact, it went this way. And these unexpected doctor's appointments or unexpected whatever time off. And for me to not make that like a big deal for me to not make that a problem for me to not make that mean that I didn't reach my goal, which is the biggest thing or that it wasn't a habit, right or it wasn't working was really really essential. So never skip a day now. I had a coach once told me she was kind of with me and she was like, you know, never skip a day can be I'm with you like it's a little intense, right? She's like, but never skipped two days. That's that's the thing. Never skipped two days. And I it really kind of like needled me a little where I was like, I don't think that's the thing. Because remember what I just said she was like I'm always you know, I always do something active every single day. And we were talking about just in general like when you're doing new habits, never skip to case was like, Oh, right. She doesn't have anyone she's caretaking for her in her life. Right. And so, yeah, there are going to be times and circumstances where you can say, you know, at 5am Club, here I go, and there are going to be life. Life. That is like, No, I had a kid that was up all night, I'm not getting up at 5am. Like, it's worth it to skip a day, skip two days, and I'm not going to punish myself for that. It's a lot of the work that we're doing in the club is this, like, Jerry, expensive, pushing action. And then when a day is skipped, when something doesn't go exactly how you hoped you don't make it something catastrophic. And as I continue to grow my business, as I continue to work with leaders who are growing their organizations, that's kind of Vika just underscore one thing. Two things. One, they have a strong email list, too. They see that it's not catastrophic. When they skip, it's not catastrophic, when they had all all best intentions, and they didn't do the thing that you literally just get back on. And that was the permission I gave myself last year, which is, again, I could see those gaps in the calendar, I was like, oh, that's where I got sick there. That's that fall cold. Right? And I could just be like, that's fine. It didn't mean anything about my whole goal and the habit I was creating. Now, the next layer of this, I want to make sure that we get into is this idea of When Will It feel like second nature, like brushing my teeth? Like other things you do like making a sandwich for lunch? Like when will it feel? When will they have it the new habit that I'm trying to create? Feel like second nature, when will it feel easy, I'm somebody who drinks a ton of water every single day. That's my, my baseline. I've always just been that way. But I know that there are some people who are like, I can go a whole day and have like half a glass of water. So you may be saying yourself like in that of like, well, when will it feel easy to have my eight glasses of water a day. And the truth is, from what I found, is depending on how far like depending on how stretchy the goal, the new habit is that you want to create, it can feel long, and it can take a long time before it feels second nature. And it might never feel second nature. So I'm now 12 1314 1516 months into my year strong, which is now years of strong. I am like pretty much in the habit of going to the gym, doing my strength training, etc. And it does not feel like getting my eight glasses of water a day. It doesn't. It's still I still feel that chatter of like, oh, not today, I don't really feel like going. And I still have to motivate myself through that. And so I feel like there are some habits that are just stickier than others, there are some habits that just are harder to, to feel comfortable and easy than others. And that's okay, right. And that's okay. I'm thinking about this, these these vitamins that I take it on the package. So funny. So they're like a kind of like a multivitamin. And it's like hair growth and skin and all the good things that you get from a wonderful vitamin, and it said up there, it was like, basically, don't bother taking us. If you're not gonna take it consistently for six months. If you want to see the results, we promise you need to take it consistently for and it was at least six months. I was like, Oh, that's so brilliant. Like they're just saying it upfront, like you're not probably gonna see results in month one, month two, month three, even month five might not see results. So go ahead and just plan on taking him for six months at the very minimum. And then on month six, you're going to start to see some progress. Now are now the progress we're really wanting as close to a year and I was like, Oh, that's so interesting. It's almost like fret loading ahead of time, that expectation of like, yeah, we're going the long haul on this one. This habit is a long haul and to that point. This is a subscription that I have. And I've noticed like I have the semi each month, like my monthly subscription. And I noticed that I have extras because I have skipped a day. I've skipped more than one day. It's like yeah, I've been taking it for six months and it is not a habit yet. I still forget. And that's okay. And I don't make that mean like I'm never gonna get the results of a vitamin promise. I just make that mean like I maybe I should try and time it and habit stack. It was something that is normal to me, or is already like a habit. So one of the things that I did in this instance was this is a vitamin that I was like, oh, I'll just take it at night and then I noticed that I was forgetting to take it so I'm like let me move that to lunch. We'll move it to lunchtime. I am. And so I keep it in the kitchen by the lunch. And that has really helped. And that is habit stacking, which if you've ever read atomic habits, he talks a lot about habit stacking is you almost want to sandwich the new habit between something that is second nature. So brushing your teeth sit, go ahead and say much flossing right after right? But put it right, if you brush your teeth, and then floss and then put on waist riser, you're gonna put it right in the middle. Right. So it's like, habit, you're familiar with new habit habit you're familiar with, see what I mean? So there are things that you can do to set yourself up for success that are very tactical. But what I find with this, never skip a day is this not tactical, that keeps people from actually developing and sticking to the habit. It's the inner work, it's the crap I skipped a day, I skipped two days, I skipped two weeks. So let me throw the whole thing out. And when we throw the whole thing out, it has huge, huge effects on your revenue. It has huge effects on your business, it has huge effects on you as a person, depending depending on what the habit is. So for example, let's say your organization, I'm thinking of one in particular, who said who said, we want to do weekly emails. That's our new frequency. Let's go. And they came out of the gate with weekly emails, and they were juicy, and they were good. And they've been keeping that habit up. And they skipped last week. They skip last week. So they are at a fork in the road, aren't they? They could say, Listen, we skipped that was too much anyway, I don't really feel like white writing one this week. No one even notice, like all the reasons to quit. Or they could say, and we go, and we get back on this week. Let's go. There's another organization that did something similar that was doing a little bit more of like, kind of a like ping pong of the narrative of the email where maybe the IDI would send one once a month, right. And then they would do a different type of update, you know, throughout the month. And same thing. Well, the IDI said one month to me, I don't really have anything to share this month, or like I didn't really like whatever, right? There wasn't really an email. So I didn't write one. And that was another fork in the road where she would have said, Yeah, okay, well, you don't have to do it. Or why don't you write about? Like, I want to say on this coaching call that I was like, why don't you write about that? What is it that's underneath that if like I didn't really have any thing to write this month? That's kind of interesting. Is it because you are pulled away in this direction working through programs? Is it because you were pulled away over here working on this is it because of something else, like there's actually a story and not having a story, which is kind of better. That's one way to go is actually like an honest take on? Hey, I'm not feeling it this month. But here's why. But there's a good story in there. Or you could say I'm not feeling it this month, and I'm writing one at the top of next month, and I'm gonna give myself a break. And that's fine. One of the biggest things that I've done in creating habits and systems in my own business is given myself the freedom to break the rules through through this concept of never skip a day being total BS. So with email marketing, we have all of the rules, you have to do it this way, you can't do it that way. The frequency has to be you have to send the same email each hour each day of the week. At the same time, it has to be Wednesdays, if you always send emails on Wednesdays, you can't you that's your email. Now I don't care. Sometimes I send them on Mondays. Sometimes I send them on Sunday nights, that's okay. Giving myself the freedom has been the best, the best way to expand and understand what my audience wants. And what I like to do like my own voice, my own platform and using it in a way that actually serves me. So I give myself the Liberty and I give myself the freedom to say this week, I'm sending three emails next week, I'm sending one. Okay, it's totally fine. We have to really sometimes go upstream and go who came up with these ideas to begin with? Who came up with these ideas to begin with? Do I even like this idea? Right on creating and sticking to goals or habits? Is this how I want to create and stick to a goal and habit? Right? Do I want to be punitive in the way that I stick to a goal or habit? Right? I don't want to be I certainly have done that before. And I know it feels like it's not very fun. So if there's another way, I'm going to do that. So that's really what I'm inviting you to do with this is really thinking about before you start anything new, maybe you're starting a monthly giving program, maybe you're starting a social street team, maybe you're even you have started it. And you said to yourself, I'm going to run a street team campaign once a month. I'm going to run a monthly giving campaign once a month and you've realized pretty quick, you skipped right? You skipped never skip a month. It's okay. It's okay. But how what's next? So instead of being rear view focus, it's a matter of saying how can I be forward focused in from the now on Okay, So, here's what came up for me. Here's why we skipped and we go, what is what, what changes do I want to make? But I'm not going to throw the whole thing away with me. I've had many, many clients come to me. And they're close to hitting their fundraising goal, but there was a timeline. So there was like a campaign container, right? So let's think of GivingTuesday. It's like, Alright, we're gonna raise $50,000, I'm giving Tuesday. Maybe they're coming in at 39,000. Okay, like, Christina is good, or 39,000, we didn't hit our goal, like stretch that thing out, we ain't done. We're not done. World Water Day just happened. There were quite a few organizations that were fundraising for that. And what I noticed was two types of organizations, there were the ones that came right out of the gate hot on World Water Day, only to never hear from them again, that was it was a one off, and that's okay. Sometimes you're just gonna have a 24 hour campaign. But the ones that really were resonant with me, were the ones that did a pre launch. So they actually did a warm up phase for their campaign saying, this is coming. They went all hands on deck, they had their straight team great emails for World Water Day, great ambassadors really awesome participation. And if they didn't hit their goal, they didn't stop. Right. They didn't stop they stretched out their goal. There was one in particular that I was like, oh, send one more email. I really wanted them to send one more email on World Water Day, they didn't end up sending another email that day. But they did end up sending an email that week. So what is one habit that you want to either get back on? Because we're now past the do the New Years, maybe it's something that you said, I'm going to do this this year, and maybe you kind of fell off? What is one habit that you want to stick to? Or get back on? If you've petered out? Or create for your business for your organization or for your personal life? Maybe it's when I'm off? I'm off, right? At the end of the day, I'm not checking my email once I leave the office, if that's you, and then you find yourself checking your email, don't throw the whole thing away. Right, right. Okay, where are some guardrails? What app can I install to help me achieve that goal? That actually, that is actually one that I'm working on as it pertains to social media. And I installed an app called Opal that has, it's like a more rigorous kind of screentime app. And it'll tell you how much time you're spending on social where you're, you know, just where your hours are spent. It's, it's pretty good. And that has been really helpful. Because just the idea of like, oh, I want to spend less time on social media is a great idea. But for me, that wasn't enough to create a habit. Right? So it's like, oh, well, we're, what else can I enact to help me create that habit. That's where coaching comes into, by the way. That's where we use in the club, we're using the profit and impact flywheel. So to give you a quick overview of that, to motivate, accelerate, celebrate, those are the flywheel steps. So for habits, it can be the motivation process part that keeps people stuck, accelerate, where it's like, Oh, I'm just not seeing momentum yet. It's not feeling normal. It's not feeling like second nature. It's not feeling like just, you know, brushing my teeth. That's okay, making that okay. Celebrate many, many of us when we're creating new habits, or sticking to new habits, we forget to celebrate because we're looking over here at the end goal of the habit, right? I want to lift 200 pounds, but it's like I can't lift 200 pounds yet, so therefore I haven't graded and stuck to the habit or this doesn't feel normal, like second nature or I'm not sending an email consistently once a week. So therefore I haven't achieved it versus the celebration part of where I was to where I am now. And really seeing that is key for sticking to habits so what should you do you should decide on some habits that you want to create, see what guardrails will help you actually achieve them. Totally ditch the never skip a day and never skip two days because if you're a caretaker a parent human in this world, there will be plot twists, there will be curveballs that mean you're going to skip a day sometimes you're gonna skip a week sometimes and that's okay. Get on the waitlist for the purpose and profit club because I want you to do this work with us. We're going to be doing this particular this like fun dare work in June. But Jill but may is focused on prospecting and outreach and I don't want you to miss that because that is the quickest way to make your money back right out of the gate. and a whole lot more get very very comfortable with taking bold action doing the outer work and the inner work to make it happen I'll see you next time bye.