I have obsessive, perfectionist tendencies whenever I set myself a habit-based goal.
If I decide not to drink alcohol for a year, there is no way you can convince me otherwise.
If I decide to do push ups when I make my morning coffee, I will do push ups regardless of how my body feels that day.
If I decide not to eat meat, I will live off room-temperature tin beans if I have to.
The upside is that I am good at keeping myself accountable.
The downside is that I become very rigid in my approach. I force these habits, regardless of how logical or appropriate. Times when skipping a day would make sense if for nothing else than to increase the joy in life.
And the more days I string together, the harder it is for me to break the habit. Because doing so makes me feel like failing.
A few years back, I started to feel like I was being held hostage by the healthy habits I kept setting. I felt like my past self controlled my actions instead of my present self.
So I started to break long strings of habits intentionally. More so, I became more conscious of not letting myself build a habit into a super long string in the first place. Just to release the pressure of having to keep going with a perfect record.
And for someone who was often held back because of perfection, this has been one of the keys to learning to be ok with just good enough.
-J