When doing anything new, things start to get a bit stale at some point. You've done the thing multiple times now and it's not as shiny as it used to be but it's not yet a habit that's been completely etched into your soul either.

Scrum is like that too. You've got your first breakthroughs, velocity has gone up, the features make more sense than before, the team is happier. Surprisingly there hasn't been that many conflicts with the management or the customers either. You have managed to wiggle out of giving exact estimates for large and unclear features and the management has been content to let your team mostly just do their thing.

So maybe you can stop having retrospectives, because the last two times you have just discussed same kind of issues and it's getting sort of boring. Maybe thinking up a new spring goal every two weeks is getting old as it's harder to come up with something brand new and exciting every time. At least daily scrums could be dropped as those are just status meetings anyways, right?

Maybe it's time to concentrate on the actual work instead of trying to Scrum so much.

At the moment I'm there with scrumlife.

The process works. Sure, I miss an occasional day doing the daily scrum but it doesn't really break anything. I miss quite a few sprint reviews and retrospectives as there's always something happening on the weekends and I planned to do those on Sundays.

I have found it pretty hard to concentrate on my literary blog, so maybe it would be interesting to get back to that after a while. Maybe I could try something completely new? I could read the whole Atomic Habits book. Or finish checking out what it would mean to be certified as a coach. Maybe it's time to try SAFelife, gembalife?

New things shine brightly when you're starting to get used to the previous thing. The problem is that usually most of the efficiency and real value comes only after you've really internalised a system or a process or a tool. There's always the initial burst of excitement and improvement when you start something new. Then you often plateau for a bit. But if you stick to the thing for a longer time, something magical starts to happen again.

There's some non-obvious inherent value in following the same way of doing things for a longer while. Wholly internalised structures/habits offer stability and diminish the amount of energy and effort needed to react to new situations. You've handled a lot of different situations already and you have a system for it. You don't need to decide separately how to act this time, you just fall back on your tried and true process.

Scrum is a pretty ideal process to fall back on. With Scrum you can react quickly and it gives you a ton of chances to absorb the impact of a new situation. You have retrospectives, daily scrums and sprint plannings to welcome the new thing and start creating plans how to handle it in a controlled manner.

Unless you decide to throw out half of the ceremonies because you need to concentrate on this new thing ASAP and it's all hands on deck time now!

The problem is that if you do that, you never get the chance to experience being the well oiled machine that you could have been if you just stopped changing things around and stuck to one idea for a longer period. Even when it might occasionally feel a bit stale or boring or like there's not a reason to have a retrospective right now. You don't practice for the boring times. You practice so you have tons of practice when times get interesting.

Plateauing is a separate interesting question. When lifting weights you have to vary the exercises and keep messing with the weights etc. Otherwise your body gets used to the same type and level of strain and won't develop after a certain point. It gets too comfy and efficient. You need to shake things up to push those limits further and get back to the uncomfortable zone.

I'm not completely sure how relevant this idea is for habits, processes and organisations. I personally dislike gimmicky "let's have a different type of retrospective each time, this week we are the Avengers, whoo!" type of stuff, but I realise I might just be boring. I haven't really thought this side out yet properly. I'll want to come back to this at a later date.

So, to sum things up, sticking to new habits so they become actual habits is important. Letting go of old and/or dysfunctional habits is equally important. Doing both of these things is hard. Identifying in which situation you are at any specific point in time might be even harder.

Good luck.