Getting Back On The Wagon After Failing To Meet Your Goals

Well yesterday I had one of those days which just didn't live up to my expectations of it. I had some practical work to do but had an accident.  This burnt up an hour in clearing up the mess. Then what should have been a straight forward job of sending out a package turned into an epic struggle to work out how to print labels. I was even googling alternative word processors at one stage.


These setbacks were compounded by the fact that I hadn't got a proper plan together at the start of the day.  This in turn was because I had failed to put aside a little time the day before to do so, preferring to watch the Trollope mini-series finalé when it was aired rather than watch it on catch up a little later.

So basically I am a fallible human being and get things wrong sometimes. This has left me in a bad place, because I am now in a rush to get started today for some time inflexible activities and so I am risking creating new problems if I don't plan out the rest of my week effectively.

This is the kind of situation that stresses systems and procedures. It is so easy, oh so easy, to decide I just need to drop everything and get done whatever needs to be done.  I can sort out the system later.  The trouble is that if you do that then you never get back to an equilibrium again.

The real answer is to double down and work the system even harder.  It is always going to be necessary to trim the plan to goals.  Yes, sometimes this will mean dropping certain activities.  It will certainly mean rearranging priorities.  What it can't mean is drop the systematic approach and react to events as they come up.  All that will achieve is frittering away progess.

I am going to get out a pencil and some paper and do a list of the things I need to do and properly prioritise them before I do anything else.  The trick is to treat this as an opportunity to build my ability to get back on the wagon.  You are always going to fall off from time to time.  The skill is getting back on again.

photo credit: Santa Hat Fail Whale via photopin (license)