Article

The Second Mistake by James Clear

According to a study published in the European Journal of
Social Psychology, missing any single day of a particular habit
has no impact on your long-term ability to stick to the habit. It
doesn't matter when it occurs, making a mistake and slipping
up does not alter the long-term outcome… if you find a way to
get back on track.
Furthermore, top performers in all fields make mistakes all the
time. Athletes skip workouts. CEOs forget to meditate.
Nutritionists eat unhealthy meals. Artists loaf around in bed all
day and ignore their craft. These people are human, just like
you and me. There are many points during their careers when
they make a mistake, skip a session, and approach their tasks
with the enthusiasm of sleep-deprived manatee.
What separates the elite performers from everyone else? Not
perfection, but consistency. This is why the most important
thing is not to prevent mistakes altogether, but to avoid
making a mistake twice in a row. Errors are part of the
process, but they shouldn't become part of the pattern.
One mistake is just an outlier. Two mistakes is the beginning
of a pattern. Killing this pattern before it snowballs into
something bigger is one reason why learning how to get back
on track quickly is an essential skill for building good habits.
How to Get Back on Track
Here are some of my favorite strategies for getting back on
track quickly and avoiding repeated mistakes.
Put all of your energy toward starting the good behavior.
If you make a mistake or forget to practice a new habit, it can
be easy to convince yourself that you need to do twice as
much work to make up for it next time. This approach has
never worked well for me. I find it more useful to release the
focus on results and direct your energy toward getting started.
Don't worry about having a fantastic performance next time.
Just focus on getting back into the swing of things. I like to
use the 2-Minute Rule to help me start behaviors easily.
Set a schedule for your habits. Many people never get
around to building new habits because they are always
wondering when they will be motivated to do the new habit.
Take motivation out of the equation and set a schedule for
your behavior. Without question, setting a publishing schedule
for my writing has been the biggest win for my creative habits.
Why does this work? Because of the science of
implementation intentions.

Eliminate the things that take you off track. Some

emergencies can't be avoided, but there are many daily
distractions that can be eliminated. If you find yourself missing
a habit, then take a moment to determine why that happened
today. There is no need to judge yourself. Just examine your
day with open eyes and determine what took you off course.
Once you begin to discover the things that take you off
course, you can eliminate them whenever possible. Improve
by subtracting. It is much easier to make the right decision if
you are surrounded by better choices.

Link: https://jamesclear.com/second-mistake
 The article entitled “The Second Mistake”, by James Clear focuses on
addressing that a mistake does not ruin our long-term goal, it is the
consistency of our habit that matters to keep ourselves on track of our
objectives. Mistakes make us realize what's wrong we have been doing for
so long. They're an integral part of our life because without making a
mistake we can never grow up in life. The article constitutes persuasive
information on how to avoid making the same mistakes twice in a row and
how to maintain concentrated on our path.

So often, we make the mistake of believing that sticking to good

habits is an all-or-nothing game. Either we assume that if we make lapses
in our endeavor, then we have ruined the whole thing, or we use our lack of
motivation to work out as evidence that we don't have the willpower to
make change happen. These beliefs are incorrect. Habits are behaviors
that we repeat consistently. However, they are not behaviors that we repeat
perfectly. This small idea—that consistency does not require perfection—is
important. It is explained in the article that people, even the top performers
in all fields, make mistakes all the time; an error is just an intruder, but the
second mistake begins a pattern. The author discussed that at some point
in our life, it is fine to slip up on our goals as long as we know how to get
back on track. When it comes to building good habits and breaking bad
habits, individual mistakes do not matter in the long run. Instead, it is the
second mistake that is far more important. It is also pointed out that the
most important thing in the process is not to eliminate mistakes, but to stop
making a mistake twice in a row. Furthermore, it is argued in the selected
text that inconsistencies are part of the process, but they're not supposed
to be part of the pattern. It is also mentioned in the article that cutting this
habit until it spirals into something worse is one reason why learning how to
get back on track quickly is an important skill in developing a healthy habit.
Lastly, the author suggests some tactics to get back on track efficiently and
avoid frequent mistakes which include: putting all of your energy toward
starting the good behavior, setting a schedule for your habits, and
eliminating the things that take you off track.

The article provided information that is very persuasive and

motivating. The author was very careful in citing suggestions to the
readers. Clarity, relevancy, and accuracy of some points were evident in
the article, making the readers allot some time to read the text. Although it
is short, it is still very convincing for those who struggle on preventing
successive errors. The author sends a meaningful message to those who
have a poor mindset about making mistakes. The strategies mentioned to
get back on track when you are lost in the process were very helpful and
informative. The written details on the techniques were applicable for
everyone but after citing facts, the author contradicts the idea by saying
that it ‘neither works for himself or to other people’. Such statements like
those tend to ruin the persuasive approach of the article. Instead of building
up a feeling of being motivated to some readers, the act of being
contradictive to the suggestion can distort the whole idea of giving ways on
how to get back on track. But we all know that mistakes are inevitable. We
may build a series of errors, still, we already know how to cope up with
them. We are aware of the process and each time we make a mistake, our
mindset gets stronger. The author missed some points, but all in all the
article was very promotive. The selection may have said something that
could ruin the motive for other people, but the whole article speaks of
things that can encourage and help a lot of people in this kind of matter.
The article itself is very reliable and easy to read.

I think that making mistakes is one of the ways a human can learn.
We all grew up making tons of mistakes, we try again countless times
before making things right. Learning by doing and from trying, and
subsequently making mistakes as you do, is an awesome way to learn on
many levels, not to mention build your confidence and expand your
resilience in life. There is no doubt of the idea that—we all learn better from
our mistakes than anything else.

Whenever a mistake has been recognized and acknowledged, the

opportunity then exists to discover a truth we needed to know to prevent
ourselves from making that mistake, otherwise, we are condemned to keep
repeating that same mistake. The author explained the issue of making the
same mistake twice and how to overcome that starting pattern of error. It
was mentioned that a mistake doesn’t matter when it occurs because
slipping up does not alter the long-term outcome as long as you find a way
to get back on track. Moreover, it is not perfection that keeps us from
avoiding mistakes but consistency. Consistency of good habits can help us
kill the error patterns before they snowball into something bigger. Once we
know that we are lost on our track, keep in mind that we should develop
such acts that can help us not to destroy ourselves or what we have
worked hard for. A mistake can be experienced by everyone, be it the top
performers in all fields or the ordinary people around us. It is within our
mindset which good and flawless works depend. If we maintain good habits
and be smart in a situation, surely, we can avoid making patterned errors in
life. Lastly, it is okay for us to experience different kinds of errors in life. But
if you repeat those errors over and over again and never learn, then you
may not be able to overcome such problems in life.