The first mistake is never the one that ruins you.

Here is today’s Game and what’s going on.

Here is what I discovered today in our Dadly Daily Declaration readings from Chapter 16 of Atomic Habits by James Clear.  The title of this chapter is “How to Stick with Good Habits Every Day.”

Here are a few highlights from today’s readings:

• Making progress is satisfying, and visual measures provide clear evidence of your progress. They reinforce your behavior and add a little bit of immediate satisfaction to any activity.
• Visual measurement comes in many forms: food journals, workout logs, loyalty punch cards, the progress bar on a software download, even the page numbers in a book.  Perhaps the best way to measure your progress is with a habit tracker.
• A habit tracker is a simply way to measure whether you did a habit. The most basic format is to get a calendar and cross off each day you stick with your routine.
• Habit tracking is powerful because it leverages multiple Laws of Behavior Change; it simultaneously make a behavior obvious, attractive and satisfying.
• One benefit is that habit tracking is obvious.
  • Recording your last action creates a trigger than can initiate your next one. Habit tracking naturally builds a series of visual cues. When you see those cues, you’ll be reminded to act again.
  • habit tracking also keeps you honest. Most of us have a distorted view of our own behavior. We think we act better than we do. Measurement offers one way to overcome our blindness to our own behavior and notice what’s really goin on each day.  When the evidence is right in front of you, you’re less likely to lie to yourself.
• A second benefit is that habit tracking is attractive.
  • The most effective form of motivation is progress. When we get a signal that we are moving forward, we become more motivated to continue down that path. In this way, habit tracking can have an addictive effect on motivation. Each small win feeds your desire.
• The third benefit is that habit tracking is satisfying.
  • Tracking can become its own form of reward. It is satisfying to cross an item off your to-do-list, to complete an entry in your workout log, or to mark an X on the calendar. It feels good to watch your results grow and if it feels good, then you’re more likely to endure.
  • Habit tracking also keeps your eye on the ball: you’re focused on the process rather than the result. You’re not fixated on getting six-pack abs, you’re just trying to keep the streak alive and become the type of person who doesn’t miss workouts.
• Habit tracking provides visual proof that you are casting votes for the type of person you wish to become, which is a delightful form of immediate and intrinsic gratification.

• Tracking isn’t for everyone, and there is no need to measure your entire life. But you can benefit from it in some form.
• To make tracking easier, measurement should be automated. Your credit card statement tracks how often you go out to eat. Your Fitbit registers how many steps you take and how long you sleep. Your calendar records how many new places you travel to each year. Once you know where to get the data, add a note to your calendar to review it each week or each month, which is more practical than tracking it every day.
• Limit tracking to your most important habits. It is better to consistently track one habit than to sporadically track ten.
• Record each measurement immediately after the habit occurs.  The completion of the behavior is the cue to write it down.
• You can combine habit stacking with your habit tracking with this formula:
  • After {Current Habit}, I will {Track My Habit}.
    • After I finish each set at the gym, I will record it in my workout journal.
    • After I put my plate in the dishwasher, I will write down what I ate.
• Even if you aren’t the use of person who enjoys recording your behavior, you may find a few weeks of measurements to be insightful.  It’s always interesting to see how you’ve actually been spending your time.

Tweets by JamesClear

Those gems lead us to today’s Dadly Daily Declaration:

No matter how consistent you are with your habits, it is inevitable that life will interrupt you at some point. Perfection is not possible.

The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It is the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows. Missing once is an accident. Missing twice is the start of a new habit.

This is a distinguishing feature between winners and losers. Anyone can have a bad performance, a bad workout, or a bad day at work. But when successful people fail, they rebound quickly. The breaking of a habit doesn’t matter if the reclaiming of it is fast.

Too often, we fall into an all-or-nothing cycle with our habits. The problem is not slipping up; the problem is thinking that if you can’t do something perfectly, then you shouldn’t do it at all.

You don’t realize how valuable it is to just show up on your bad days. Lost days hurt you more than successful days help you. Even sluggish days or bad days maintain the compound gains you’ve accrued from previous good days. Simply doing something is huge. Don’t put up a zero. Don’t let losses eat into your compounding.