Day 2: Passes

This is the second day of Habitspark Diet Foundations.  Good work so far, now let’s start getting down to the nitty gritty.

Step 5: When to Use Passes

It’s pretty clear whether you’ve kept or missed a habit, but it is a bit more complicated to decide when to use a pass.  There are 3 reasons you might use a pass:

Planned day off

You can use a pass for habits you intend to keep less than 7 days a week.  For example, some habits may only make sense while you are at work, so you would plan to use a pass on Saturday, Sunday, and holidays.  Other habits you might want to give yourself 1-2 days off per week, for example some people following a strict diet find it helpful to have 1 day off per week.

Circumstances prevent keeping the habit

The second reason to use a pass is because you couldn’t reasonably keep the habit that day.  An emergency might have come up, or you might be sick.

Come-back pass

The third reason to use a pass is when you didn’t keep the habit, but you turned it around somehow.  For example, you might be working on a habit of only eating junk food outside of the house, however one day a friend gives you a big food basket full of goodies.  You start to eat the chocolates and have trouble stopping. This would normally be a miss, but you might give yourself a pass if you stop yourself at some point & deal with the situation.

** The come-back pass is very important! This is one of the keys to long term success, learning how to recover when you start to get off track.  Do not feel guilty about come-back passes; it is a great sign if you use them.  Think over your goals and consider some ways you might get off-track and some ways you might “come-back.’

Awesome!  You’re done with Day 2. Come back tomorrow for Day 3.