No matter what your goals, or how you’ve chosen to pursue them, chances are you will get off track. Probably several times. Sometimes you take meandering side trips that add to your journey, and sometimes you hit a brick wall so hard it knocks you off your feet and you have to recover, back out and find a whole new way to go.
How do you know when you need to reassess and try something different? It depends on what you are trying to do and your personality. Maybe you start to feel depressed or grumpy or just as if you are sort of running in place. Maybe the methods you use to measure your progress are showing a flat line. Maybe you are even losing ground.
Part of the problem is that when you are faltering or struggling with a goal or in an area of your life, you can begin to see everything in a negative light. It’s so easy to fall into thinking about what you aren’t doing right and how you aren’t meeting goals.
Regret and feeling bad don’t help, though. Take time to figure out a different way to approach your goal, set a more realistic time table or decide if the goal is really worth pursuing instead of beating yourself up for lack of progress.
For about four years or so, I’ve tried every approach I could think of to eating a healthier, more nutritious and wholesome diet and getting more exercise into my day to day life. The problem is that I seem to be able to implement only small changes for limited periods of time. For instance, I have no problem tracking my caloric intake and staying within reasonable limits. For about a month at a time. Same thing with exercise – I have no problem with daily exercise for about a month.
It’s time to try something different. Instead of spending my time feeling like a failure or mentally berating myself, it’s time to come up with a new plan. I’m not sure yet what shape the new plan will take, but I am sure that doing something will be better than doing nothing.
Do you have a goal you’ve failed to meet time and time again? Did you find a way to prevail or are you still struggling?