Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of IHeart Radio.

Good morning.

This is Laura.

Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

Today's tip is that when you are trying out a new habit or routine, develop a spirit of iteration.

Don't assume that if things go wrong, you have to quit.

It may be that with a few tweaks, or a new approach, your routine might work, after all.

Today's tip comes from Sarah Hart Unger, who is the co-host on my other podcast, Best of Both Worlds.

When Sarah was a guest on a long-form episode of this podcast, she suggested that new habits

should be approached with a spirit of iteration.

Don't assume that a habit will work perfectly the first time around. You may need to experiment,

to find the best way to make it work for you. So, for example, maybe you have read somewhere that family meals are supposed to be good for kids.

So you decide your family is going to have dinner together every night.

You cook a nice dinner on Monday, which your kids promptly reject and demand grapes and string

cheese instead.

You could give up and announce that family dinner isn't for you.

But maybe you can approach this situation with the spirit of iteration.

Maybe family dinner doesn't mean that everyone has the same dinner.

Maybe you serve everything family style and people choose what they want and skip what

they don't. Or maybe you cook for you and your appreciative partner and the kid with the adventurous

taste buds and let the others eat buttered noodles and sliced apples every night. Even if your

plates look different, you are still eating together. Or you can adopt my

...