Mohini Kundu

Falling off the wagon seems like an appropriate topic as I missed my weekly writing commitment last week for the first time (this year). I ended up not liking the topic I picked and I didn’t leave myself enough time to turn the draft into something I felt good about sharing. It would be easy for me to say, “Welp, that resolution’s ship has sailed.” I vowed to post every single week this year, and I can no longer say I’m doing that. Mission failed.

Old me absolutely would’ve been derailed by missing a metric such as this. It’s a classic all-or-nothing mindset. We carry the mental load of the entire undertaking, so one misstep feels colossal. I’ve also historically had a bad habit when it came to getting back on the wagon. I would tell myself I need to make up for the missed workout, for example, with a double day. After many cycles of this, I can confidently say that sets you up for even more failure.

Say you do manage to hit the double. You’ll almost certainly be too sore and tired to manage the next day’s workout. But even before that, when you get to the same point of the next day, when it’s time to do the hardest thing and just get started, you’ll be even more daunted by the prospect of two workouts when one managed to elude you last time. It’s not like gambling; doubling down next time doesn’t actually make things add up.

Now, I have a new approach to falling off the wagon: I enjoy it.

I realized that beating myself up and doing mental gymnastics to try and win back my gold star inevitably made it ten times more appealing to give up entirely. I am here to commit to the journey, not the metric. I won’t win a Pulitzer for posting on my blog every week without fail. I’m here to hone my craft, and all that takes is showing up. The sooner I show up after a miss, the better. But even if it takes some time, that’s okay.

I’ve come to accept that I simply need periods of rest and reset. I would go an amazing couple of weeks where I hit every single habit and goal. And I would be riding the high of my streak — two days, four days, a perfect week, then two. But the universal truth is that life happens. Energy and hormones fluctuate. You WILL have an off day. For me that would look like waking up with a migraine, not being able to get off the couch, turning to comfort shows on Netflix, and eating my feelings. That may actually sound amazing and restful, but I wouldn’t enjoy any of it. I would be hating myself and filling up my bin of evidence that I’m lazy and incapable of hard things — no matter if the previous two weeks spoke to the contrary.

I now live by something Roger Federer shared in his 2024 Dartmouth Commencement speech: “It’s only a point.”

“In tennis, perfection is impossible. In the 1,526 singles matches I played in my career I won almost 80% of those matches… What percentage of points do you think I won in those matches? Only 54%. In other words, even top-ranked tennis players win barely more than half of the points they play. When you lose every second point on average, you learn not to dwell on every shot.”

I am not putting myself anywhere near his level of discipline and commitment, but his words have helped me break the vicious cycle. Or rather, I’m fully embracing the cycle. I KNOW I will need to miss sometimes. And when that happens, I refuse to stress. I also refuse to require that I make up for it. All I plan to do is get back on the horse as soon as possible and call that a win. I also plan to follow my inspiration. If there are weeks when I’m called to post twice because I have a lot to say, I will. I hope to treat these metrics as data rather than a scoreboard.

So if you fall off the wagon, just try giving yourself grace and see what happens. Is it easier to come back the next day? And depending on the wagon, I recommend leaning into the fall. Enjoy the cheat day of meals, the afternoon binging a show, the midday nap instead of a workout. These, too, can all be part of giving you the fuel to move forward in your journey.