I used to hate that I could never stick to things. I'd set a schedule for myself, feel good while I was on it, and then I'd fall off and go back to hating mysel

I used to hate that I could never stick to things. I'd set a schedule for myself, feel good while I was on it, and then I'd fall off and go back to hating myself. One day I was making nasty fun of myself for being really good at starting things, and something clicked. "Sticking to" something is functionally same as starting it over and over again. Which I'm good at. Am I ever going to stop starting to work out? No. My only problem is that sometimes there's a significant interval between "stopping" and "starting." What am I doing during those intervals? Hating myself on one hand and also trying to whip up irrational confidence that the next time I start will be the time I actually stick with a schedule. I could dispense with those things and reduce the interval. It turns out I can reduce the interval between starting and stopping to basically nothing. This approach isn't systematic enough to produce amazing results, but I'm happy to now be working out 3-4 times per week, and more importantly, I'm happy that if I miss a few workouts, I'm back to normal right away instead of spending weeks or months licking my wounds. Later I made a connection to how people say that great athletes have short memories, in the sense that success and failure don't leave a lasting emotional mark on them. When a great athlete completes a difficult pass or gets it slightly wrong, strikes out or hits a home run, hits a shot or misses it, they process the information, but any sense of triumph or failure has to be gone in seconds by necessity because it can't be allowed to affect the next shot they take. I apply that attitude to a lot of my daily life. I'll have time to feel proud or downcast after the game is over. Right now I have to take my next shot. For me, I feel like that's a better emotional cadence. I don't instantly drop the judgment hammer on myself for a mistake. Not only does that stop knee-jerk emotions from wrecking my subsequent decisions, but my reactions at the end of the day are usually more moderate, thoughtful, and productive.