There you are and everything is going as planned but… life has a way of happening. What you do next makes all the difference.
No matter what goal, plan or direction you have you are occasionally going to stumble. I have this on my mind today because I have had a small set back. Some of you know I had set a goal to get back in shape. To do this I have joined a gym, work out 5 or 6 days a week, and changed what I eat. Over the last month I have made good progress… until yesterday.
Monday I was feeling great. I really pushed hard doing my workout. I felt great all day. Then Tuesday I woke up feeling like someone was sticking a knife in my lower back. I knew then that I pushed too hard and I was paying the price. I had to skip my workout. My back hurt all day yet I had things to do. I did them….carefully 🙂
Yes it does get frustrating when you have a setback. It can be a business deal, a personal relationship or just a project. What you do next is vital. The temptation is to get lost in the moment and indulge yourself in crap feelings. You could beat yourself up or find someone to blame. You could just give up.
One of the reasons getting in shape is so important to me is that I like being active. Over the past 5 years I have has some injuries that have stopped me from enjoying those activities. It was frustrating to think that I might be getting to an age where I would have to give them up. I started having thoughts of how fragile I had become. I would miss all the fun things I like to do. I was on the edge of resigning myself to the reality that I just couldn’t do it anymore. In other words, I was indulging in self pity and was on the edge of letting it sink me.
We all have these times. Even with all the things I know I was about to give in. It was a pretty low point for me. One of my friends had just had a stroke. Another had open heart surgery. Others had back problems. My environment was starting to effect me decisions. I could feel my life starting to spiral into something I did not want. I needed to take charge before that happened.
The first thing I needed to do was change my mindset. When you mind is tuned and directed you can do anything. I had to do some mental house cleaning on the 4 basics that you need in order to get your life moving.
Next I had to make a plan. Unless you have a blueprint for what you want to do, you have no direction. My blueprint was to start rebuilding my body and get my life back. I knew what the problems were and I had an idea what it would take. I also knew here would be problems along the way.
Third, I needed a resilient mindset. When things happen, like yesterday, I needed to be able to make good decisions and keep in mind that this is also part of the process. In order to have a resilient mind you need to be able to see past the present problem and open the door to find solutions
Forth, I set baseline marks to show me when I was making progress. Without a beginning unit of measure it is easy to fool yourself into thinking you are making progress. I need solid progress points.
In other words… I had some changes to make. Over the past few years as I have gone through this we have developed it into a system. Yeah I know, everyone says that 🙂 What we have done is change our focus from teaching a set of skills that you go out and use, to a life transformational process that integrates those skills while transforming who you are. That has become our Total Life Transformation Seminar that we will be holding this October.
So here I sit thinking about how my back hurt. In the past it would have stopped me for a week because I would have been too afraid to do more damage. What I did do is stop for a day. I woke up and accessed how I feel. My back is tight but not bad enough to stop a work out. I will avoid things would be tough on my back BUT….there are a lot of things I can do. So I am going to go do them.
Yes I had a setback. Here is how I handled it.
1 I accepted that I had a problem.
2 I did not let my agenda dictate my actions by forcing myself to do something that could make it worse.
3 I focused on what I could do.
4 I will pay attention to the process. In this case how my back feels.
As soon as I am sure I can… I will go back on a full workout. I feel good about the plan of getting past this little setback and now it is just a bump in the road instead of a impenetrable wall. With a little preparation and a productive mindset you can handle setback more easily.
Giving up is not quit so easy when you have a strategy for success.