Sometimes life throws big fat mud pies in your face like it’s having a field day.
No, really.
One keeps coming. Then another one. One after the other.
And before you know it you’re under your bed sheets and struggling to make it out of bed each morning.
Probably doing the ugly cry.
The endless stream of to-do’s and problems to solve seems too hard to even attempt to tackle.
And really, there might not be much you can do about the crappy mud pies that come your way.
But you CAN choose how you choose to deal with those mud pies.
So…to keep it going with the mud pies illustration (who knows, maybe I’m just hungry) here are some ways I’ve successfully crawled out of the dark hole of:
Getting nothing done.
Feeling guilty about it.
Now this comes from the perspective of a busy person who works from home , has relationships and responsibilities to juggle, has to run her own business by herself and manage her own time (which is more difficult than I care to admit at times).
If you’re reading this, it’s guaranteed you have a tooootally different lifestyle than mine.
And that’s ok.
As one of the people that I look up to says ‘the problem with ANY advice is that people take it all at face value. Instead of taking the bits and pieces that apply to their own life and adjust it according to their own context.’
And nothing truer has been said.
Now, with that piece of information in mind, let’s get started and see if you can take away any valuable nuggets from this for your own life-
I schedule my time and have some fun doing it
Try creating your own printable planner. I have a whole post about it that walks you through it (I’m hoping to soon have a video that walks you through it too).
Paper by itself isn’t life changing. But creating your own written out system to make sure you stay organized is a pretty good push in the right direction.
Literally anything you can do (within reason obviously) to make sure you stay as focused as you can is worth doing. Especially because our attention span seems to be getting smaller and smaller by the year.
Creating your own planner can be a fun little journey. Because you get to learn what you prioritize and what you care about most.
And most importantly you get to make it yours.
So you make sure it works for YOU, and not Kathy, or Stacy or whoever else that isn’t you.
Keep it movin’ in small ways
I find that getting excited about moving helps me STAY moving.
Getting excited about getting it done more than getting excited about lazying around helps a lot.
A no brainer right? Easier said than done.
But as you try to get into a routine, you find that one thing leads to another.
And that one thing doesn’t have to be big. It can be one little thing that then motivates you to do another and then another.
And before you know it you’ve started your morning productively and well. Or your afternoon. That works too.
For instance, sometimes in the morning, when it’s time to get up, and I really don’t feel like it, I’ll mope around watering my plants.
I LOVE indoor plants. I actually wrote a whole post about how to take care of them.
Once I’m finished watering the plants I’m not so sure I want to jump back to bed.
So the next best thing to do is come in contact with some water. As in, take a shower ASAP.
Don’t leave it for later. Do it as soon as you can. It does wonders waking you up when you need it the most.
Keep it moving.
Try to stay excited about little milestones
I always like to say this to anyone that listens because it’s true!
Little milestones matter just like the big ones do.
Because the big milestones don’t happen without the little ones happening first.
And that’s a great perspective to have because then you can feel proud about achieving the little things. Like making sure you’re drinking a goal amount of water throughout the day or checking off that you exercised for 30 minutes that day.
All of those little marbles add up to a jar FULL of marbles and then you’ve got a jar worth admiring that you can be proud of!
And to stay excited about the little milestones, it helps to see the big picture broken down into littler pictures.
Drawing out a plan is like getting excited when you had a pretend pirates map when you were a kid (did you ever make one for your friend to play with?).
When you look through it, all you want to do is reach the X. And it’s tangible because you can see visually what steps you need to get there.
You can do this when you have a big project or a big life goal like saving for a down payment for your first house or finally paying off your car.
Keeping a printable planner is a great way to do that.
Keep A Contingency Plan
If you suffer from it, in any way shape or form, you know depression can be a BIG part of getting into slumps and feeling guilty about not getting anything done.
And hands down, one of the best ways to beat that as best as you can is to simply plan ahead, AKA have a contingency plan.
For example, you can have your week broken down into the steps that you need to take each day to finalize one big final goal.
Maybe one of those mornings you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. BUT…and it’s a BIG but, you have a plan.
You DON’T have to spend brain power trying to come up with the most productive way to go about your day because you already did that with your planner or bullet journal (or whatever you use to stay on track).
Remember, sometimes we can wake up feeling a certain way, but feelings aren’t facts, and they never will be.
Knowing this an internalizing it can be a great way to push yourself to look past dreary and dark emotions, and get you geared up to tackle your to-do list to the best of your ability.
I’m kind(er) to myself
In the past year I’ve FINALLY learned that speaking negatively to yourself does one thing and one thing only:
ABSOFRUITLY. NOTHING.
Yep.
You feel worse about yourself. You feel like you aren’t worthy of all the blessings in your life. And it does a number on your self esteem too.
Our biggest enemy isn’t the person next door seemingly doing better than you.
It’s the little voice in your head hosted by yours truly.
But you can beat it. With practice. Lots of it.
The next time you feel like berating yourself, replace it with observing the situation and asking yourself what you will do better the next time it happens.
Going through this thought process brings about so much more peace than calling yourself ‘a f*cking idiot’ for missing the mark.
And that’s the tea.
I drink tea
Tea tastes good, is good for the soul, and has a kick of caffeine.
I’ve never been much of a coffee drinker and tea solves that problem for me.
It puts me in a better mood, and helps me knock out the most important parts of my morning.
I like my tea like I like my perfumes (all two of them, haha), strong and impactful.
Any thing you do to keep yourself going day in and day out? I’d LOVE to hear about it in the comments!