Stay Focused
Life happens. I get that. I haven't blogged in almost a month because life happened. Work and school combined with a back injury really took control of my time and being inspired to blog just didn't happen. And while I'd like to think I'd be prepared and have a blog post ready in advance or find something to write about regardless, well, yeah. Reality can be quite different. No matter what, though, there's always a lesson if you're paying attention.
When things go wrong it's easy to lose your drive and motivation. It's easy to fall deeper and deeper down that hole and to lose sight of your goals. Before you know it you're thinking of giving up. Believe me when I tell you I have so been there. This is the time of year where everybody is talking about goals. Everybody. I haven't had much time to think about mine at this point and all this talk of it makes me feel really behind.
There will always be rough times. There's no way to avoid that. But the key to getting through that rough patch is to keep going. The saying goes something like if you're going through hell, just keep going. Well, it's not a bad philosophy. No matter the speed - slow crawl or breakneck - always keep moving and don't let yourself lose momentum. If you can do something towards your goals, no matter how small, it will keep you going until you manage to resolve whatever is not going well (or it resolves itself).
Below are some ideas I've used to keep me going and feeling like I am still moving towards my goals.
- Revisit old work and see if you can improve upon it
- Journal (or blog) stories of good times
- Outline successes - this is an important one - because it's easy to focus on where we are not but when we look back and see how far we've come then we can feel proud of our accomplishments
- Read something motivational
- Share your struggle with someone who will listen
- Create some bad work (it will eventually lead to something better)
Eventually, things come around and you will feel on track and motivated again. You just have to keep going and keep your focus. FYI, on the topic of revisiting old work, this was a blog post I wrote a long time ago. It was too short and rather blah so I re-vamped into something I'm happier with.