There’s a classic idea that the key to flossing regularly is to floss just one tooth. The key his this: it’s much easier to show up every day if you can reduce the task down to something so small and simple that it requires next to no effort. 

In Creative Doing, I share a prompt, “Complete Your Operation in Seconds.” Some examples:

• If you’re making music, your tactic could be to record a 10-second voice note of a new melody, or to write one bad line of a song lyric.
• If you’re working in photography, take a still life of an object within arm’s reach.
• If you’re writing, write one bad sentence.

The saying goes, “The hardest part of running is putting on your shoes.” So if you can just make sure you put your shoes on, and run even 10 paces before you go home, you’ll be ahead of where you were before. 

In case you do slip—and everybody slips, somehow—remember, that’s perfectly normal. A quarter of people will fail to do what they set out to do within the first week. On average, people slip 14 times in a 2-year span. 

If you want to make a lasting change, it’s important to shift the focus away from beating yourself up when you fail, and towards showing up after a slip or two.

In other words, show up again after you slip. Sometimes, before you get good at something, you start off badly. Before you can show up consistently, you may start inconsistently. That’s normal.

If you’re slipping, you’re trying, and that means you’re heading in the right direction. You’re going to improve. Slipping is just a step along the way.