My productivity has been abysmal for the past three days. I haven't stuck to my crossfit schedule. A couple meals weren't vegan and Ty-approved. I fell off the wagon.

Sure I was on a plane for most of one of those days and jetlagged for the others, but those are excuses and I don't want to excuse myself. Excuses don't put food on the table.

At the same time, I'm not going to dwell on on the past. I had stuff to do, I didn't get it done, and now I'm where I am. It is what it is, and all that matters now is the present.

The reason I bring this up at all is because I see people get in this situation ALL the time. Nine out of ten times (or more?) they use it as an excuse to give up.

Think of the smoker who "quits" and then has one cigarette and then says, "Well, I guess THAT didn't work" and is totally back to normal. Or the dieter who falls off the wagon and then isn't on the diet anymore.

"I couldn't stick with it."

Here's the thing - it doesn't really matter how you deal with success. Success is relatively easy to deal with so it's no test of character. Failure, on the other hand, requires that you take the best part of you and put it to work.

So today we did our crossfit. We did a tough one (deck of cards). We went to the supermarket and bought our vegan food and tried to go to a vegan place (but had to settle for vegetarian when our place was closed). I'm sleepy now but I'm banging out the blog entries that will get me caught up for the week.

Tomorrow it will be like we never fell off. More crossfit, more work, 100% vegan, etc. No big deal.

The only thing that matters to me are habits. My habit is to eat 100% vegan. If I find myself in a tough situation (like being stuck on a plane with nothing but a gross ham sandwich), I might not eat vegan. Those occasional lapses won't make me unhealthy, just like eating a salad once a month won't make someone healthy.

My other habit is to bounce back as fast as possible. When I make a mistake I acknowledge it, try to decide what I should have done, and then I move on and continue to do what's best.