4 Personalized steps to get back on track when your day gets derailed
4 Personalized steps to get back on track when your day gets derailed
Don’t you think that life seems to have completely different plans than us some days?
You just want to know how to get back on track when the day seems to just get away from you, that's why you clicked on this blog post and I got you!
At the end of this post, you are going to have a super short and quick plan for what to do when your day gets completely thrown off.
Ok so, the kids are sick, you get stuck down a social media rabbit hole for an hour or two, you forgot about a meeting, your dog needs to go to the vet, maybe you just had a bad night of sleep last night and you're in a crappy mood today?
Let's be real, COVID has derailed over an entire year of our lives too!
It never feels good when you make plans and yet you can't do it because of some of the things I just mentioned. It feels like you only get an hour of real work in a day. Ugh.
Personally speaking, in my life when my day gets derailed or my schedule gets derailed it's because I just don't feel like doing something. I wanted to bring that up because sometimes it's not external, maybe it's internal and oftentimes I blame myself. I can get into those shame and blame cycles of “oh it's my fault that my schedule got thrown off, I could have if I had more self-discipline or actually followed through”.
Like I talked about in the procrastination blog post (if you haven't read it, check it out!) it's okay to let things marinate, sit, enjoy the creative process, and give things more time. Sometimes the longer you wait to do something some beautiful ideas might come from that time.
How to get back on track
Let's get right to the solution, how to get back on track, and then I want to share with you how to prevent it in the future so things don't go haywire as often as they are right now.
1. When you notice that your day has been derailed, pause.
Awareness is the first piece, you have to notice that everything got thrown off or something happened that doesn't go according to plan. Honor it, honor this, it sucks big time when you create plans and they don't happen according to the plan that you want.
2. After you pause, ask yourself what do I need to do right here at this moment to get it back on track?
Instead of ruminating and sitting in the why is this happening to me and why can't I control everything, start just by asking yourself, “what I can do right here in this present moment? What can I do to get it back feeling good, feeling easeful, or accomplishing what I need to accomplish?”
Oftentimes for me, it's yoga, breathing, taking time to journal, talk to a friend, whatever I need to just like get back in my body.
3. Ask yourself, can you do what you need?
Can you actually do that yoga class, can you breathe, can you call a friend, can you take a nap. If so…
4. Do it!
If you can’t, go back and ask yourself “okay, so what can I do? How do I get my day back on track, what do I need to feel better?”
How do you prevent your day from being derailed?
So that is what you need to do when your day is derailed but how do you prevent your schedule, plans, and your day from being derailed in the future?
Something that my clients and I often talk about is that whenever your day or plans get derailed it is because of high expectations and this illusion of control over your time, the day, or your schedule. It's the high stakes and the pressure that we put on ourselves to be perfect.
As much as we love being in control we have to realize that, at some point, we're just not. So shifting your mindset to being more human, being more flexible, being more compassionate is going to take you to have more success.
Every single time that you create a plan add extra space for things to move around. Or simply knowing that your plans 99% most likely will shift and that is what it is. That is what being human is about.
So tangibly this is why I love digital calendars because when you put your to-do list in your calendar you can move your tasks around and still have a visual that it IS possible to still get everything done.
Also, you can create extra space in between tasks, client calls, meetings, etc. That's the beautiful part about your digital calendar too. When you create more space you allow yourself to live, you allow more compassion, ease, and space. And that is so beautiful.
No matter if you are trying to figure out how to get back on track and taking care of yourself at this moment reading this post or you are attempting to be more proactive in your scheduling. Or in your time management to allow derails to affect you less and less. You are adding more compassion to your day and to your life so that needs to be celebrated. That is going to help you so so much in your business, your life, your relationships, your health and you'll be more productive (that’s like the understatement here).
I help people be more productive but at the end of the day, it's more about compassion, just being human, and living our lives. That is possible when you are flexible and intuitive with your time. If you enjoyed this post leave a comment below sharing what your biggest takeaway from this post was and what you are going to do to make a shift in your life, whether it's on the mindset side or, the tool side.