This one started as a comment. A fella who'd been talking about stopping for thirty years — and his word was always the same. Maybe. Maybe this time. He was six days in, hoping a small regret now might be enough to hold him, before the big one turned up that he couldn't take back.
There's more sense buried in that comment than he probably realised. Because the thing that kept him stuck for three decades was never willpower. It was one word, and a trap almost nobody names out loud.
Starting asks nothing. Stopping asks everything.
Think about how a drink actually begins. No thought. No effort. A hand reaches out and it's done in a second. Starting is the easiest thing in the world — it asks nothing of you at the door.
Stopping is the opposite. It asks for a decision, and then it asks you to hold that decision, day after day. That's the asymmetry that catches everyone: the two things feel like a fair fight, and they never were.
The word doing the damage is "maybe"
Thirty years of "maybe this time" isn't thirty years of trying. It's thirty years of leaving the door open. "Maybe" keeps one foot in and one foot out, and a decision you haven't fully made is a decision you get to unmake every single evening.
That's the real work here, and it's smaller than people fear: not more willpower, but killing the word. Not "maybe I'll stop" — a line you step over, at one hundred percent, and then stop renegotiating. The tentative frame is what kept it running for three decades. Take the "maybe" away and there's nothing left to argue with.
Two regrets — and you only get to choose one
Here's where his instinct was sharp. He talked about a small regret now versus a large regret later. He's right, and it's not pessimism — it's the smartest way to use the ache.
The small regret is the one you feel on day six: the pinch of missing something, the discomfort of a new evening. It passes, and there's a road back from it. The big regret is the one waiting further down if nothing changes — the one with no road back at all. Let the small ache do its job now, and it saves you from the version there's no undoing.
Day six is already ahead
So here's the part worth sitting with. Six days of actually doing beats thirty years of talking about doing. Those thirty years went round in a circle and never left the start. Day six is a straight line, and it's already moving.
Day six is already further than thirty years of thinking about it ever got you.
If you're at the start of your own six days, don't wait for the "maybe" to resolve itself. It won't. Make the decision, step over the line, and let the small regret carry you past the point where you'd have talked yourself out of it. That's the whole move.
▶ Watch the video: https://youtu.be/bzHGTFCUqlY
If you'd rather not do the forward work on your own, the next round of group coaching starts in August — four live calls a week and my personal WhatsApp. Come and take a look at habitsv2.com.
Day six beats thirty years of maybe. Keep going.
Kevin — onwards and upwards.
