Life happens. The beginning of the school year has finally found a rythym–Lesson plans, PowerPoints, assignments and grading. After putting everything else on the side to focus on work, I have found a groove. This means that I now have to work on establishing all those habits I put on hold. Blogging, cleaning the apartment, the gym…. That consistency I had was lost and now I need to get it all back. As we know, all good plans are met with some chaos. Mine were met with the ‘beginning of the school year sickies’. Now, I’m a hot mess (no selfies for Instagram, today).
So, what now? Well, life happened and now I need to get back on track with creating some healthy habits.
Motivate
You need to build up your gumption and start to care about all of those goals, again.
- Take a ‘pause’. Give yourself time to wallow over any progress you’ve lost, but 5 minutes should do the trick.
- Get inspired. Remind yourself of what you wanted to achieve– create a Pinterest board, make a vision board or just do a quick Google search.
- Find the inspired. Look up people who are succeeding where you need to grow. They’re just people, which means if they can do it, so can you.
Now that you’ve found a little energy to pursue all of those habits you’ve left behind, you have to have the right mindset. Once you’ve built your motivation, keep hold of that positivity for the next step– you’ll need it.
Evaluate
The toughest step can be the one that places you on the scale. Knowing you’ve probably lost progress can be discouraging; knowing just how much it is can be absolutely defeating.
- Determine where you are. Where did you stop in your progress? Look at all of the goals you had set and measure where you stand.
Now that you know where you’ve regressed and by how much, you’re set up to begin mapping out your growth.
Set New Goals
Starting over fresh means you have to figure out where you want to be all over again and not going back to the old ones. If you’ve found new inspiration, then you’ll need to different goals; new directions for a new location.
- Start off small. Give yourself some small goals and then work yourself up to the bigger ones. This will give you success right off the bat and build your motivation as you go.
- Start off with a few. Before tackling big goals, focus on just a couple; then, you won’t get burnt out. Also, this will require you to choose which one’s you care about the most.
- Put up reminders. Now that you have a list of goals, place them in plain sight (a desk, in a planner/journal).
Now that you have your goals and you’ve begun to work on them, you have to keep up the energy.
Rewards
Energy and motivation will run out, unless you keep offering incentive.
- Create a list. Maintain a list of rewards, ranging in price and value.
- At first, all the time. Even the small goals will need rewards in the beginning. Then, you can maintain motivation from the get go.
Then, you can increase the rewards along with the goals.
Assess Your Habits
Now that you’re working on setting those habits, you have to give yourself a chance to achieve them.
- Set mile markers. Establish set moments to check in on your goals.
- Celebrate the successes. This applies to rewards and for pats on the back.
- Assess your failures. Use your failures to determine what you need to change.
Set new goals as you go and constantly go through this cycle, to keep moving forward.