Giving yourself permission to fail

One of the many reasons 30 day trials are bad for creating habits is the fear that we might miss one day. To me 30 day trials are more like a test to see if certain claims are true or to try out a routine to see if it impacted you in any way. However we have these people who believe that all it takes is 30 days of doing something and it becomes a habit. They pick some hardcore lifestyle change and pray that they don't miss a day. Sure people with an iron will survive the 30 days but other people fail within the first week. Now what happen next is that person misses a day and then his little triall comes to a close because he was trying not to miss any of the days. His options is to give up or start over but because of his failure he loses motivation and gives up. You see the problem  with the 30 day method is it is better used to give something a trial run but not as good for building a habit. It also doesn't make sense because even though all of us brushed out teeth all our lives every now and then  we would be so sleepy that we fall asleep before we brushed our teeth. Does that mean that we won't brush our teeth ever again? Obviously not and the same goes for exercise. Do you think a bodybuilder who has been working out for 15 years has never missed a workout? Most likely not. What I am trying to point out is that it doesn't matter if you missed a day or two but you just need to do it long enough until it actually feels second nature to you which could be roughly 30-90 days depending on what habit your trying to condition. Now this doesn't mean that you can sit there and think its alright to skip a day. You should still try your best to make sure you do it everyday but if something happened that day and you weren't able to do it just keep going. You don't have to start over just because you missed a day because if you think about it once it becomes a habit your doing it for life so there really isn't such a think as "starting over".