What a bad bounce taught me about habits
Every golfer knows the feeling. You hit a good shot, do everything right, and the ball takes a bad bounce into the trees.
The last few weeks, life gave me one of those. I lost my mother-in-law, and then my father. My routines fell apart with them: my walks, my sleep, my time on the course. And I learned something about habits I want to share with anyone going through a hard season of their own.
Here’s what I’ve learned about how to restart habits after a hard season.
Prefer to listen? I talk through all of this in Episode 23 of the Mid-Range Swing podcast. Listen on Spotify or find it on your favorite app.
How to restart habits after a bad bounce
1. A disruption breaks the cues, not you.
Much of what we do each day runs on habit, triggered by our surroundings: the same time, the same place, the same people. When a hard season changes all that, the habits tied to those cues go quiet. It’s not a character flaw. The setup changed.
2. Missing a day isn’t failing.
Research on how habits form found that missing a single day didn’t meaningfully set people back. That’s why I love the rule from Atomic Habits: never miss twice. One miss is an accident. Two in a row starts a new pattern. It’s like golf: one double bogey doesn’t ruin your round, but chasing it with hero shots does.
3. Be kind to yourself, and you’ll come back faster.
We tend to think being hard on ourselves keeps us motivated. Studies suggest the opposite: people who treat a setback with self-compassion are more likely to try again. Talk to yourself the way you’d talk to a playing partner after a bad hole: “Shake it off. Next shot.”
My reset, in public
I’m rebuilding three habits first, each with a small version I can do on my hardest days:
- Hydrate: water with every meal. Two-minute version: one full glass of water as soon as I wake up.
- Move: a daily walk, at a pace my back is happy with. Two-minute version: a walk to the end of the street and back.
- Sleep: a steady wind-down and a consistent bedtime. Two-minute version: phone on the charger with Do Not Disturb on.
I’ll share how it’s going in upcoming podcast episodes, misses included.
This week’s Mid-Range Move
Pick one habit that slipped during a hard season. Just one. Shrink it to a two-minute version you could do on your worst day, and do that small version every day this week. If you miss a day, no guilt. Just don’t miss twice.
Get the FREE tracker
I built the Mid-Range Reset tracker for exactly this: three habits, 21 days, and one rule. Never miss twice.
You don’t go back to the first tee. You play the next shot from where the ball lies.
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