Habit #5 — Take it Easy

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Photo by oliverkendal http://bit.ly/1dwQhdx
Licensed Attribution http://bit.ly/K6GIVm[/caption]

I’m taking these two weeks off from adding a new habit. This “habit” is going to be the hardest one for me to write about, mostly because of my pride.

I really wanted to introduce a new habit once every two weeks over the course of the year, for 26 habits total, but the in the last week of my writing habit I realized something: I can’t.

Maybe it was because I was transitioning from a long vacation back to work, or maybe something else. But last week I just felt like everything was too much. So, while keeping my first three habits going (I haven’t written in the last week), I took a short break to think about what to do.

One of the main reasons I was approaching things this way was because, in the past, I’ve pushed myself to do too much too fast. The result being that I would give up after a few weeks and revert back to my old ways. So my idea with the 52 week challenge was to slow down, take my time, and aim for change over the long-term rather than changing everything at once.

Sometimes that means pausing to rest when you’d planned to move forward. It’s painful at the time, but it pays out in the end.

So far it’s been working really well. Over two months of consistency in habits like these is probably a new personal record. But, I’ve realized, perhaps I’m still pushing it a little more than I should. So for this two-week chunk of my 52 weeks, I’ll be taking a break from adding new habits and focus on solidifying the habits I’ve already started over the last two months. Maybe a break like this is something I’ll do periodically throughout the rest of the challenge, or maybe it isn’t. For right now, at least, it seems like the best decision for accomplishing long-term success.