Why You May Feel like Skipping Today

Harsh Pandey

— 2 min read
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Why You May Feel like Skipping Today

If you are looking at your headset right now and negotiating reasons to skip today's session, we've been there too. Data consistently shows that the middle of the first week is the exact point where new routines face the highest failure rate.

Let's take a deeper look at what you are currently experiencing:

1. Novelty Decay: During your first few sessions, excitement dopamine was driving the behaviour. The headset was an interesting, novel experience. Today, that novelty has expired. The headset has now transitioned from a new experiment into a recurring daily chore.

2. The ROI Lag: Neuroplasticity is biological work that takes time. You are investing 20 minutes a day, but the benefits (better focus, a calmer mind) have not surfaced yet. Our brains are a highly efficient system running a continuous cost-benefit analysis. Right now, it may see upfront effort with zero immediate payoff. The natural response is to suggest you abandon the task.

Marching Ahead

Whether you are finding it difficult to carve out time today, or you are breezing through the week without a second thought, the goal right now is exactly the same: protect your momentum.

Since every one of us on the Mave team has hit this exact wall, we shared notes on how we personally got through our own first weeks. Here are the top three notes we'd like to share with you:

  • Decouple from the ideal setup: Waiting for a quiet, perfectly calm window often creates unnecessary friction. We learned quickly that the device does not require you to be in a meditative state to do its job.
  • Attach it to existing routines: You don't need to carve out a dedicated time slot. Most of us simply wear the headset while clearing our inboxes, scrolling through our phones, or folding laundry.
  • Measure the right metric: The only success criteria for this week is hitting the start button.

You do not need to carve out a high-quality environment to get the physiological benefits of a Mave session. The technology is designed to work in the background of your life so that you put the device on, and go about your day.