You may miss one day. Not two.

People who keep a habit going for years are not the ones who never fail: they are the ones who fail short. They miss a day — flu, travel, life — and come back the next, even in a minimal version.

The difference is not cosmetic. One isolated miss is an accident, and the habit absorbs it without breaking stride. Two misses in a row are something else: the beginning of a new habit — the habit of not doing it. By day three it's no longer you deciding; it's inertia.

The enemy here is perfectionism, which treats every stumble as a verdict: "the streak is broken anyway, what the hell." Psychologists actually call it the what-the-hell effect, and it has wrecked more diets than birthdays have.

The rule defuses it by changing the question. It's no longer "am I consistent?" but "what's on for tomorrow?". And for the comeback day, one trick: lower the bar to the floor. Ten minutes at the gym, one written sentence, one euro saved. They are not there to make progress. They are there to prove you're still one of those who come back.