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Since November I have been working out four to five days a week. Well, for the most part.
This last week I did absolutely nothing on my health related goals. Unless hurling chips and salsa into my mouth counts as a workout. I was feeling a whole lot of awesomeness about myself and my goals this morning. It’s really motivating having a week of failure.
When we set new goals, we often don’t plan for the failures and setbacks. When I wrote my goals I was convinced my biceps grew and my abs became shredded with a mere writing of the goals. I went from dad bod to Arnold in two seconds. I have found this isn’t quite an accurate picture of goal setting.
The road to goals is bumpier with a lot more failure involved. There are a lot more LOWS on the path to victory.
Overcoming those lows is really the key to achieving goals and in turn dreams, but how do you turn a week of failure into a bump instead of an end of a goal?
I have found that five guidelines help me to press through moments of subpar, sodium enriched weeks.
Grace. Often it is easier for me to give grace to other people than to give grace to myself. Instead I should on myself. I should be beyond this, is my favorite record to play in my mind.
You will have moments of setbacks and failures. Give yourself grace. You aren’t perfect and that is never going to change. Here is a secret; no one else is perfect either. If you don’t apply grace to your own journey, you will focus on your failures more than the goal.
Grace allows you to get back on the pony and ride into the sunset.
Stop-loss. A stop-loss in finances is a predetermined sell price of a commodity or security to limit a loss. So if you are losing money on a stock, you have a certain low price to sell no matter how you feel.
With my goals Sunday is my stop-loss.
On Sunday I look at the last week and reestablish my time calendar for the next week. You can read about that here. If my last week sucked, it’s time to stop the slide and reestablish the schedule and goals that I want. This makes sure a heart attack is not my wake up call to change.
Establish a stop-loss to limit the dip in your goal performance.
Vision. Vision is crucial to any journey. Along the way it will get clouded and we need to dust off our why behind our actions. I take care of myself physically so that I can live a life full and overflowing no matter my age. I want to be able to walk my daughters down the aisle and play with grandkids. Also, my wife deserves the best version of me and that includes my physical appearance.
Stay rooted in a vision that fuels your action.
Accountability. You know what’s a whole lot of fun? Admitting to people you respect that you didn’t live out something you told them you would do.
Accountability is about as fun as a root canal.
The effectiveness of accountability is beautiful though. I find that it is most successful when you are asking someone to hold you accountable in an area where you are both working to become better at a similar goal.
Find like minded individuals to tell when you are awesome and when you are less awesome.
Celebrate. The journey is long. Celebrate wins along the way or you will burnout and give up.
I’m celebrating that my system worked and I will wake up at five in the morning and pump some iron. That’s right, I’m pretty much celebrating a loss. That’s how I roll. In all actuality, I am celebrating my corrective behavior.
What can you celebrate along the way that will be impactful and get you to move forward?
Celebrate to have the energy to push through the failures.
A week or longer doesn’t stop your journey. The only thing that stops your journey is stopping. Call it a break, call it letting the field lay fallow. Just don’t stop and don’t give up. Push through the end of your story. It could be the best part of the story. Be blessed on your journey.
How do you push through failures and setbacks?
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This post was previously published on zechariahnewman.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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Photo credit: Istockphoto.com