Do you have enough of sliding off the road to anything more “glittery” than your goal? If yes, then this article will help you catch that moment and divert back on the road to reach your goal and achieve success.

Recently I have experienced something that many of you have probably experienced. Even if you have your vision board, your goals, your journal and your planner filled in and moving forward, there comes days when you are blocked, you don’t have enough creative energy as you like and start procrastinating.

We don't like this word not only because of its negative connotation but also because we know that when procrastination “creeps in” it means that we are slipping off the road which then means that once we get off that road we would need more energy to come back which feels even more overwhelming. So we start: one day, one week, few weeks until a colleague reminds us of the goal or a deadline becomes real. 

Why is this happening? Why do we procrastinate while we know that what we want to do makes perfect sense and brings us where we want to be? When this happens usually the reason lies in these 3 key areas: physical, mental and social. Here are few examples:

• Days off have not been well planned and there are not enough of them so we do not feel fully rested and valued.

• Our goal or dream has become a bit blurry and we lost the connection with it.

• We have let others (also through the media) talk us out or distract us from the goal or dream.

If you have caught yourself procrastinating in one or more of these areas the first thing to be aware of is that you are not where you want to be. This is important because if you are not aware then you cannot possibly get back on track and so yourself, someone or something will need to remind you of that. The second thing is to accept the situation, like for example, I was supposed to be writing that script or a code but instead I was playing video games. Or I was supposed to exercise but instead I was watching TV. And more importantly, stop blaming yourself. You are a human being and not a robot so even though you have “programmed” your day and life, be aware that there will be outages from time to time/on the way. The third thing is to start setting very little goals to get back on track. So for example, after I finish watching the 3rd episode of Netflix, I will exercise for 5 min. Or tomorrow at 3 pm I will complete 10 lines of the code or will write for an hour. And the last thing is to write these down to your calendar. By writing this down we strengthen a “promise” to ourselves that we do it and we also save it to our memory. After doing these small goals you are more likely to get back on track and it also serves by giving you instant relief. It is simple but not easy, definitely worth giving it a try.

If you need more specific steps, I wrote another blog post about how to get back on track for further guidance and more specific steps covering visualisation, journaling and taking small actions every day.

Life is a gift and you have a choice how you live it, so choose wisely.

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