Coming back after a hard week
Most people have weeks when plans stop happening. Illness, a busy stretch, or a dip in mood can pull everything back. That’s part of how this goes, and it doesn’t mean you’ve failed.
Starting again works best small. Pick one easy thing for today or tomorrow, smaller than feels necessary. Plans from the days you missed don’t need answers, and there’s nothing to catch up on.
Your Keeping it going plan, at the bottom of This week, is there for this. Look at what you wrote about early signs and how you’ll restart, and do the first thing on it.
If the dip lasts more than a couple of weeks, or keeps getting deeper, that’s a good time to talk with someone. When to get more help has more on that.
A slip isn’t a slide
Researchers who study relapse draw a line between a lapse, a short slip back into old patterns, and a relapse, a full return to where things were. Much of that work comes from addiction treatment, but the idea travels well.
How people respond to a slip matters a great deal. Thinking “I’ve blown it, so what’s the point” can turn a lapse into a full relapse. Seeing the slip as a bad week, caused by things you can name, makes it easier to get going again.
Knowing your early signs
Most people have their own way of sliding. It might be sleeping in, skipping meals, letting messages pile up, canceling plans, or more time on the phone. Noticing these early, while they’re still small, makes restarting easier.
Martell’s manual ends treatment with this kind of planning, going back over what helped, naming the early signs, and deciding ahead of time what to do when they show up. The Keeping it going plan holds the same things. If you haven’t written one yet, a good time is after a few weeks of plans, when you know what tends to help.
How therapists restart
When someone comes back after a hard stretch, therapists tend to go back to basics rather than picking up where things left off.
- Routines first. Get up at your usual time and eat a real meal. These hold the rest up.
- One plan a day. Maybe less. One thing, in its smallest version.
- What worked before. Your past ratings and Patterns show which activities have gone well. Start with one of those.
- No catching up. The missed plans are gone, and that’s fine. Plan forward.
- Tell someone. Saying “I’ve had a rough couple of weeks and I’m getting back into it” can make the first step easier.
A missed week doesn’t erase the work
In a study of how habits form, missing a single day didn’t set people back in any lasting way. That study looked at simple daily habits, not mood. Even so, what you’ve practiced, like planning small and looking at what got in the way, is still yours after a week off.
An example
Someone had the flu for ten days. Plans stopped, which made sense. Once the fever was gone, mood stayed low, and the couch was hard to leave.
The first day back, there was one plan. A shower and breakfast at the table. The next day, a walk to the corner. By the end of the week, a call to a friend. Nothing from the missed days got made up. By the next week, there were three or four plans, mostly ones that had gone well before.
References
- Witkiewitz, K., & Marlatt, G. A. (2004). Relapse prevention for alcohol and drug problems: That was Zen, this is Tao. American Psychologist, 59(4), 224–235. doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.4.224
- Martell, C. R., Dimidjian, S., & Herman-Dunn, R. (2021). Behavioral activation for depression: A clinician’s guide (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
- Lally, P., van Jaarsveld, C. H. M., Potts, H. W. W., & Wardle, J. (2010). How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world. European Journal of Social Psychology, 40(6), 998–1009. doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.674
Helpful links
Everyday Insight’s tools are for education and personal reflection. They are not therapy or medical care, and they are not for emergencies. In an emergency, call 911. If you are in crisis in the United States, call or text 988. Mental health resources