Falling Off the Wagon? Here’s Why You Don’t Need to Start Over

A non writer .. writing.

Hello Friend,

Failure sucks. Not only do we suffer the immediate sting of its presence, but it is also the antithesis of motivation and will power. It discourages us from continuing on. The worst part about it is that failure isn’t even real! It’s not an outside force—it’s all in our mind. Our mind creates an imaginary stumbling block that doesn’t exist. “I failed, so why bother?” or “I failed, so I’ll start over next week.”

We’ve all had those moments when we set out to do something and vowed to be consistent. We start out strong, but when life gets busy or our day is derailed, we “fall off the wagon” (or at least that’s how we describe it). I started this blog with a commitment to post one weekly article. Last week, after about two weeks in, I hit a snag—and “off the wagon” I went!

So, what do you think, friend? What if we changed this thought pattern? What if we simply viewed it as a task that needs to be done, something we pick up and fit into our schedule at the first available opening. Simply put, we forgive ourselves and continue on—focusing on doing better instead of thinking we have to “start over” after unnecessarily bathing in our pool of guilt. This applies to healthy eating, exercise goals, attempts to break bad habits, and even more complex spiritual matters like trying not to sin. If you think about it, even the Bible teaches us that forgiveness is free; we just have to accept it by faith through grace, and move forward, doing our best to “sin no more.” We are reminded that guilt is not from the Lord but from the devil. If that’s the case with spiritual things, why can’t we forgive ourselves when we miss the mark in small, everyday tasks?

Fun fact: DID YOU KNOW there is a part of the brain called the “anterior mid-cingulate cortex” that is responsible for handling friction and difficult tasks? In a recent podcast, Andrew Huberman of the Huberman Lab podcast shared that engaging in challenging activities can stimulate and grow this part of the brain, which is crucial for leaning into and overcoming difficulties. The more hard things we do, the bigger this part of the brain gets, helping us tackle even more hard things. In other words, to build more willpower, we need to do hard things first.

You can read more in the paper: The Tenacious Brain: How the Anterior Mid-Cingulate Contributes to Achieving Goals [Link to paper: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7381101/]

So, if you’re feeling like you’ve flopped recently, I hope this encourages you to pick up where you left off instead of starting over. Let’s toss the shame of failure aside and move forward in grace!

Blessings!

Olya -