How to Get Back on Track
Have you ever been doing really well in a particular area of life, and then a weekend, a week, or a month goes by, and you suddenly realize you’ve “fallen off the wagon?”
I tell people, only half facetiously, that it takes months to develop a habit, but only about five minutes to get out of one. Does this sound familiar?
Why does this occur, and what can we do about it?
To be fully transparent, this is something I’m going through right now. So, it’s “fresh.” I’ve turned the corner, and I’m back on track now. But it took a minute. It’s not the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last time, either. Hopefully, sharing my insight will help you to get back on track quickly, when facing a similar situation.
For the past few months, I’ve been working on a program called “Living Your Best Year Ever.” It’s a program I’ve wanted to create for several years, and I’m super-excited about it. I’m also writing a book on the topic of goal achievement. Both projects are coming along well, and I’ll share more about them soon.
I’ve always felt – and I’ve even written about this – that there is no such thing as “life balance.” I believe that, while we can look back and assess in hindsight whether or not life was basically balanced, we get into seasons of our life when we are hyper-focused on a particular area of our lives. When this happens, for me anyway, other areas of life have the tendency to slide a bit. Perhaps you’ve experienced this phenomenon in your life, too.
An example of this is training for a big race, like a marathon or a triathlon. The training for such an event is demanding, and time consuming. Because the required time commitment is “above and beyond” one’s normal schedule, it might cause another area of life to slip.
For me, it happened most recently because of my investment in creating content for the course and the book. This obviously requires considerable time and energy. Because time is limited, the area that has “fallen by the wayside” for me has been cardiovascular fitness. I wasn’t running, playing squash or spinning as much as I was prior to the start of these projects.
In the short-run, the trade-off is okay. We can’t do everything, and certainly not always all at once. There’s simply a capacity constraint that limits what we can accomplish.
The challenge with reducing, or eliminating, attention on important parts of our lives is the consequences of that trade-off. For things like exercise, it’s harder to get back into the routine of working out regularly after just a short hiatus. Lack of attention in other areas of life have other consequences.
So, what can we do about it? How can we “get back on track,” to make sure we’re investing sufficient time, energy and attention into the areas of life that are most important, even when we’re being stretched thin. Here are a few suggestions that might be helpful:
1. Awareness. Recognition of the issue is the first step in changing it. Sometimes, considerable time goes by before the realization hits us that we’ve been off track.
If you’re not sure where you stand, make a list of the major areas of your life. Rate each area on a scale of 1 to 10. This quick assessment will help you to identify areas that might be suffering, if any.
2. Decision. The next step is to decide what you’re committed to changing. Once you make the decision to do something, you interrupt the previous pattern.
For me, I made the simple decision that I would exercise 30 minutes each day, despite my busy schedule. 30 minutes is a short amount of time, and a small investment for such a big reward.
3. Just do it. The Nike slogan is very simple, and very clear. Oftentimes, we get into a “ready ready ready aim fire mode.” Down south, they have an expression called “fixin,” which is getting ready to do something. Instead of “fixin” to do something, just start doing it. By taking one step – even a small step – toward creating a new habit, you’ll begin moving in the right direction.
4. Create a trigger. Triggers are small reminders of what we want to do that prompt us to do it. If you want to exercise every morning, laying out your workout clothes the night before will trigger you to exercise the next morning.
If you want to start flossing again, put your floss next to the sink. Notice I didn’t say, “… in the drawer next to your toothbrush.” By leaving it on the counter, which in my house is out of place, it stands out, and serves as a reminder to floss.
5. Remember your big rocks, and put them first. One thing that always gives me leverage is the reminder of what’s truly important in my life. I’ve found that, if you invest time in what’s truly important, the other things that need to get done also get done. You can read more about this in my article, “Big Rocks”.
Make a list of your big rocks. Then create a plan to ensure that your big rocks are put first. Block out the time in your schedule for those activities. Amazingly, the other stuff will get done, too.
If an important area of your life has slipped, there’s no need to feel bad or guilty about what’s happened. Treat falling off the wagon as merely a temporary setback. In fact, pat yourself on the back for noticing it, and making the decision to reorient your life. You can correct the course, and you’ll soon be back on track, and moving in the right direction.
Feel free to contact me, and let me know about times when you’ve found yourself in this situation. What happened, and how did you get back on track?
