Crossing the Bridges: Best Laid Plans…
Do you beat yourself up when you fail to follow-through on something?
Do you spend time berating yourself, getting upset over mistakes and failures to launch? Do you start to feel bad, to spiral negatively when you had all the right intentions but then don’t complete your plan?
Most people do. I know I do. I get annoyed with myself, and start to feel bad when I make a plan and then I don’t move on it.
Last week I had an excellent vacation. I was away from my life, and got to know some folks better whom I’d known only peripherally, and made some new friends, too.
I also fully intended to use last week’s vacation as a rallying point to start some new habits this week. Yup, I was going to live large, to move forward on a number of ideas and plans I had, and to really shift some habits in my life.
Reality met my plans. It began honestly enough – I did not get home until almost 5am Monday morning, following nearly 20 hours on the road. I was productive Monday night, and got some sleep. Tuesday morning, I was still wiped. But, hey, fencing on Tuesday night…which I attended. Wednesday morning…still sleepy, my motivation was pretty much non-existent. Thursday morning I was distracted by my cat, the one who rarely comes out of hiding, and failed to get out the door in time. This morning…overslept, and failed to get out the door once more.
So much for my morning trips to the gym. This week is now done.
I could get really annoyed with myself over this. I have no real excuses, I could have acted on this, I simply chose not to. Failure to launch, lack of motiviation…doesn’t matter what I call it, the point is that I got as far as planning, again, but did no actions.
Except, I DID take several new actions this week. I have not played my usual Facebook games in the am, and have actually gotten stuff done, like paying bills. I have turned off the TV when the wife goes to bed, and made attempts at, if I didn’t succeed at, working on writing, editing and SCA stuff. I started a new dietary regime, and have been really good about it. I have been getting decent sleep. I have successfully meditated now for 4 days in a row. I have been more keenly aware of what I am thinking and feeling, asking and answering questions of myself daily.
Partial success on new habits. Is this exactly all I had planned to do for myself? No. But rather than get mad at myself and get upset about what I have not done, I am instead going to look at what I HAVE accomplished.
Society is obsessed with looking at failure. Everywhere we turn all we see is failing this and unsuccessful that and such. The American government is so obsessed with things that are supposedly failing that they want to institute “fixes” that will likely be far worse than what they see as wrong.
The constant bombardment with messages of failure is disheartening, distressing, upsetting, and downright uncomfortable. Everywhere we turn the message is more and more negative, so much so that when we DO see something about success we comment immediately about the nice change of scenery.
If I choose to focus on what I have failed to do, there is a much higher chance that I will continue to fail at it. That’s how the Law of Attraction works. Consciousness Creates Reality, so if I give my focus to what I DO NOT WANT, it’s pretty probable that that is what I will manifest.
If, like me, you tend to beat yourself up when you fail, this can be particularly challenging. This takes a great deal of conscious, focused thought to change your tone, change your normal reactions. But I firmly believe that this is a worthwhile act, so I am going to work with that, and do my best to create better.
I do not know anybody who gets every plan right every time. We all make mistakes, but mistakes should be learning opportunities. Nobody is perfect.
Last but not least…just because I didn’t follow-through this week, that doesn’t mean I am giving this plan up. I will continue, every day, to struggle to make this happen, and to have the life I want to be the person I most want to be. Change takes effort, and I will continue to expend the necessary effort to be whom I want to be.
Can only be here and now, and go forward. So…onwards and forwards. As always, thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me!
GOAL LOG – Week 12:
Diet: I have been working on a new, low-carb high-protein plan. Not a diet – a lifestyle shift.
Exercise: I fenced Tuesday. I did a ton of walking Wednesday, so that should count.
Meditation: Four days in a row, never less than 5 minutes.
Gratitude: I have expressed gratitude for 5 things a day, four days in a row.
This is the twenty-sixth entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
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