4 Reasons You Should Keep Going On The Bad Days

Do you ever have a day where you just feel DOWN? Maybe you're tired, or feeling blue, or something isn't going right in your life. Maybe you even feel ILL, and you're thinking about calling out of work, taking off school, and going back to bed?

I know that feeling. In fact, I'm in that place today. I've been tired all week, and I'm feeling a bit blue myself. In fact, I can't seem to eat without feeling sick.

I gave some serious thought to not writing my journal today. To not blogging. My mind went to those dark places: "Maybe nobody will miss me..."

You build power on the way up, so the ride will be smooth sailing once you've built habits and trust!
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Then I realized that the commitments I've made aren't about others: They are about ME.

I committed to my daily journal because I discover ideas there. I committed to a daily tarot card draw because that's how I learn the cards. I committed to writing in this blog three times a week because this is how I learn about it all falling together.

Maybe your commitments don't feel so self-serving, but you get something out of everything you have committed to.

If you've committed to a job (even if it's not one you love), surely your job pays you. (If it doesn't, it's time to contact a lawyer, get out, and find another job!)

If you've committed to school, you attend because you hope to get a good education that will make itself useful one day in the form of a better job and higher wages.

If you've committed to a creative endeavor, you work on your project every day in the hopes of creating something beautiful in the end.

Your commitments are important. When you keep a promise to yourself and others, you build trust that you keep your word. You begin to trust that you will keep your word not only about the small things but also about the big things. You will begin to find it's easier to see projects through to completion and to meet goals and deadlines.

But what about the bad days when you don't want to follow through on your commitments? 

DO IT ANYWAY!

Here's a few reasons why.

1. Good Habits Are Harder To Form

Good, strong, POSITIVE habits are harder to form than negative behaviors. It's relatively easy to become addicted to nicotine, but more difficult to develop a habit of daily journaling. This often due to an addictive component in the negative habit, while it can take longer to see results from the more positive habits.

When you "take a break" from a habit-in-formation, you may find it more difficult to return to doing the habitual practice. It might be just one day off work today, but what about tomorrow when you find it more difficult to return to the groove of work life?

Any habit worth forming requires time and practice to gain consistency. When you take a break from something you're trying to change about yourself, you break that consistency and may find yourself having to start over again in order to establish that habit.

2. Bad Habits Are Hard To Break

There's nothing wrong with taking a break from something occasionally -- don't get me wrong. Some people believe that frequent breaks might help people to focus better on a task, in fact! However, when you make a habit of taking a 'down day' when you're tired or not feeling well, it will become easier to take a 'down day' just because you feel like it?

When this becomes a habit, it may be difficult to find the momentum to pick up where you left off. It is better, when you can, to maintain your good habits than to break a bad habit that replaced them!

3. "Taking A Break" = "Failing To Commit" = Broken Promise

Some days you might not want to follow through on your promises. It's easier to stay in bed, sleep late, go out partying, settle in to watch a movie marathon than it is to do the thing you promised you'd do. Maybe it's reading for an hour a day or taking the dog for a long walk. Whatever the commitment was, when you "take a break" from what you've committed to, you've failed to commit.

You'd take a marriage seriously, wouldn't you? If you "took a break" from your marriage, is that not a failure to commit? Is that failure to commit not a broken promise?

While it may not seem as serious to give yourself an occasional day off from work or school, or even less serious to take one day when you don't read for the entire day, or don't exercise the way you committed to, you're breaking a promise with yourself and convincing your mind that you aren't worthy of trust. 

How should you then trust yourself when something big is going down?

4. An Object In Motion Tends To Stay In Motion

I love the law of inertia, and I use it all the time to describe the way that I'm feeling. When I'm active and doing something, I find that I tend to REMAIN active and engaged. When I have a lazy day and don't pick myself up off the couch, that tends to carry into the next day.

When you keep your momentum going, and you obey the law of inertia, you will find that every day it's easier to continue moving and to keep up with the promises and commitments that you've already made. When you keep up with those commitments, others trust you more, you learn to trust yourself, and you accomplish more!

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