How good are your bumpers?

Habits will break.

The real question is what happens in the aftermath.

Most of us are familiar with the pattern. You have built something solid: a consistent routine, a meaningful commitment, a streak you're proud of. And then life intervenes. A travel schedule, a demanding week, an unexpected obligation. One missed day becomes three. Three days become two weeks. And somewhere in that gap, the habit quietly dissolves.

The disruption is not the only issue. Recovery time is just as important.

Suzee and I recently had the opportunity to sit down with her longtime personal trainer, Tommy, for an in-depth masterclass conversation. Among the many topics we explored, one concept stood out for its simplicity and its significance:

How quickly you return after a habit is disrupted is a strong predictor of long-term success.

Consider the difference between returning to a commitment after two days versus two weeks. The physical or mental effort required is not the same. The longer the gap, the greater the resistance. This holds true whether the habit in question is exercise, a morning routine, consistent client outreach, or any other practice you have been working to sustain.

Recovery time, it turns out, is the number worth watching.

Bowling with Bumpers

It may sound silly but I often tell my clients to think about bowling with bumpers: those inflatable rails they put up for little kids so the ball doesn't disappear into the gutter before it ever reaches the pins.

The important thing to understand about bumpers is this: they do not prevent the ball from veering off center. They prevent the ball from going completely off course.

The ball still drifts. That is expected. But with bumpers in place, the drift is contained, corrected, and the ball continues moving toward the target.

This is how sustainable habits work in practice.

The goal is not a perfect, unwavering performance. The goal is a system that does not allow a temporary drift to become a permanent derailment. When the right structures are in place, like routines, accountability relationships, a supportive community, and professional guidance, they function as bumpers. They shorten recovery time, because the drift never gets far enough to become a crisis.

Prepare for the failure

Failure and veering off course can be seen as information. When we can critically think about what led to the failure, we can help to safeguard the system and add the "bumpers" needed. As a helping professional, it's typically easier to see where bumpers are needed for our clients and assist them in shortening recovery time.

We dig in more to this and other points in the masterclass with Tommy:

• How we are sum of the all the parts
• How plans train the planner
• Failing "up"
• Automation

The conversation was a reminder of the recurring topics that helping professionals encounter, and it was fun to hear his spin on them.