PLANNING/ROUTINE: Set-Up or Fail-Safe? How to use a plan for good, not evil. So many folks are getting planners and calendars and apps and they're joining accountability groups, and doing all the good stuff that helps us follow through with our decisions, to create a new habit. That's great! All these things DO help create new habits! Right on. We decide, for example, that we are going to work out 6 days a week. So we start off like gangbusters, 6 days a week, gleefully checking off the boxes on our tracker-of-choice. Until. . . . one day the kid is sick. Or the meeting ran long. Or you have an injury. Or something. And you are so MAD! You can't stick to your plan! Or you are so SAD! You've disappointed yourself again. You lost your momentum. Why bother. Chuck the whole thing. You can't finish what you start anyway. It was all a SET-UP. (Bonus - you get to keep telling yourself the old stories that keep you stuck! ;-) ) You have set yourself up for failure by creating this routine - and expecting it to be life-proof. And by thinking of it as a terrible effort to stick to, something you have to force yourself to do, or worse, a means to an end (I'll do this until I lose 20 lbs.) But what if we look at plans/routines as a FAIL-SAFE? If you decide that exercise is part of your life now and will be forever, because that's what bodies are made to do in order to work at their optimum, then having a 6 day a week plan is brilliant because - You know you probably won't always get those 6 workouts in. And you know that means that you will always get at least 4. Which is fantastic! It doesn't matter if you miss a couple because you created a FAIL-SAFE where if you do miss them, it hardly matters. You will be working out joyfully for the rest of your life, so missing one here and there is to be expected and doesn't mess with a thing. It's routine - (definition - a normal procedure.) It's just part of life that you workout - who you ARE. So as you're planning and creating your routine - try changing it from a chal