What to do when new habits falter?

Have you ever felt like you’re hurtling toward failure and you can’t seem to put your foot on the brakes? That’s how I feel right now. My morning routine, which I started doing at 6:15am every morning, is slowly creeping up later and later, pushing me further away from my goal of waking at 6 a.m. every day. I’m battling inertia more and more in the mornings as I drag myself out of bed to do my morning fitness routine. I’m definitely hitting a plateau in my motivation to exercise daily. My food intake is crap. I’m getting six hours of sleep a night and I can feel that lack of sleep and its effect on my performance as a whole.

I realize that I am thisclose to falling off the wagon in every way.

But, surprisingly, the fact that I am recognizing how much I’ve been sucking lately at meeting my goals is a comforting realization. Why? Because if I’m able to see that I need to do better, I can actually do something about it. Denial is the worst enemy of change. If I ignore my shortcomings and what I can do to improve myself, I’ll never move forward.

Terry is reading a book called “This Year I Will…” about changing habits. When I was telling him how I felt he mentioned that one thing the author said is that “recognizing you’ve blown it is progress.” That really encapsulates how I feel at the moment, and why I have decided to press my mental reset button so it feels like I’m tackling these goals with renewed inspiration.

Here’s to a fresh start.

March 13, 2010 by marie | 4 Comments