I got off track. And guess what happened? I lost my mojo. I was not consistently completing my “5 Little Things” and now they are harder to do. The thing I really fell off on was reading everyday. The silver lining here is that I really see the value in reading everyday now. When I’m not feeding my mind I had less to write. My inspiration was not being sparked. I didn’t have any new ideas. Mostly I felt guilty that I had started this project of writing a blog to share my story with you, and I couldn’t stay consistent. But I also thought, “great, another thing I started and couldn’t finish because it got hard.” Story of my life: when the going gets tough…just forget about it. I’d need a whole other website to list the things that I’ve started and quit. But we cannot dwell on the past. What’s done is done. This is something I feel like I do a good job of believing. I realize it can be difficult for many. We cannot continue to punish ourselves for things not, or no longer, in our control. All we can do is manage our actions going forward. For example, because I stopped reading consistently I probably have not made the process in myself or my business and I’ve neglected my blog. The consequences: I probably won’t show up on any “mental health” blog discovery pages anytime soon, I could’ve lost a sale because I haven’t spent time developing my business skills. I could’ve messed up in my relationships because I haven’t been developing my interpersonal skills, etc. A whole slue of things could or couldn’t have happened because I neglected one of my 5 little things for a month.
Finding the silver lining is something I think I have been gifted with. With anxiety and depression this can be very difficult. Anxiety makes me think of all the possible outcomes and often focus on the worst outcomes. Depression makes me dwell on the negative things that have happened or might happen. Focusing on the negative can actually be toxic for our brains, according to Dr. Caroline Leaf, in her book, Think Lean Succeed. Believe it or not we have the power to decide what thoughts we allow into our minds. “The thoughts we focus on will grow,” Dr. Leaf says, so our challenge is NOT to focus on the negative thoughts that are constantly clouding our anxious and depressed minds. If you can find a way to focus on the positive or the silver lining, your positive thoughts will grow and you will pay less mind (literally spend less of your limited mental cash) on the negative thoughts.
So now what?
Well I could sit here and feel sorry for myself. Punish myself for my lack of discipline, but what will that achieve? Often depression or anxiety lets us punish ourselves for far too long. We feel the guilt and regret so deeply and for so long. But in the journey to better ourselves we must remember the we are only moving forward and not looking backward. And maybe, if you are lucky, you can me the silver lining. In my case, my lack of self discipline gave me something to write about. See? Silver lining. So now I recommit to my goal. I will read everyday. I will do my best. Hopefully reading everyday will help me to write more, and if not I will have to come up with another plan.
The moral of the story was started by a friendly warthog:
You gotta put your behind in the past.
Pumba
When I am setting goals it is easy to think of other times I have failed and use those as reasons to limit myself. But we can never make improvements to our personal lives if we limit ourselves based on the results we’ve had in the past. We have to take risks. You have to focus on the positive. I may have neglected my reading for a month, but in the past 3 months I’ve probably read more books than I’ve read in my entire adult life. So that’s something to be proud of, I think. Set a goal, strive for it with all your might, and if you miss, pull up your boot straps and try again. But in the meantime, remind yourself that you have made progress in your efforts to go after the goal in the first place.
To the Limit 