Member-only story
Get Back Up and Dive In
Have you ever started working on building a new or improved habit? There you are. . . shaping it, on a roll, things are going great, and you’re wracking up a great streak of days in a row, and then weeks. And then. . .
. . . What the hell-o happened?
Life!
Yep. Life can sometimes toss more at you than you think you can handle at one time. Your “best intentions” come crashing down. It might feel like you just crashed and burned. It’s too easy to be rough on yourself when it happens. I know I frequently am.
Breathe!
It doesn’t need to be a catastrophe. It’s going to be okay. . . eventually. Remember the wise saying: “It’s not the end of the world.”
Be kind to yourself and don’t be judgemental. Be gentle. This is when you need to take a deep breath, calmly get back up, maybe re-evaluate, and move on.
I Inadvertently Broke a Promise to Myself.
Do you remember early 2020? I’m talking about before any of us knew what a crazy, mixed-up year it would be. I told myself it was my year for 20/20 vision. I felt jazzed and ready to take on the world, or so I thought.
I promised myself I’d jump into writing AND publishing on Medium.com — every week, indefinitely. I started strong for several weeks. Then one week, I dropped the ball — but got right back on it. I congratulated myself. One hiccup, no biggie.
A few weeks later, I dropped the ball again — a couple more times. My intentions to up the ante to publishing twice a week, vanished — as I realized this might be a bigger habit to build than I’d realized.
How We Talk to Ourselves, Matters
At first, I felt “all judgy” toward myself. I quickly realized this didn’t help. So I took a deep breath and treated myself kindly — as if I were advising a dear friend.
“Hey, settle down,” I said to myself. “You stepped up and took on a big new task here. Life keeps happening at warp speed. Things have become super crazy, and yet, you’ve…
