Often times, we make a perfect schedule in our agendas. We decide to start something new; either go to the gym, read a book or attend a self-improvement lesson. As we build the schedule, we are motivated to do this special task. The task will either start today, tomorrow or next week, anyways we are motivated to start our special task. So, the time comes when we start doing the task. We will do it for a few days, maybe two weeks. Afterwards, we start to lack the motivation to keep doing. We are slipping away from the task and we can no longer maintain our schedule. So, at the end of the day, the perfect schedule that we added to our agenda was not finished. We either got tired of the gym, left the book somewhere collect dust or we simply decided to start something new. Well one of my friends, Arnaud, inspired me to write this post when he was reclaiming his agenda (he was trying to finish a book that he started a long time ago). You have to understand that it’s okay to slip away from your agenda, many people do it, I am one of them but it’s important to finish what we planned even if it’s not fun. The feeling of accomplishment, it’s a good feeling. So to help you taste that feeling of accomplishment, to reclaim your agenda, I gathered a few tips to help you with this particular challenge.

1. You need to know why or what caused you to slip away from your agenda.
This is really important because, in order to move forward, you need to step back a little and analyze what happened. Why didn’t you continue to read the book or to go to the gym or even to finish this online class that you paid for? I understand that none of it is fun. A simple example of myself is: I do not enjoy to go to the gym but I remember when I was going to graduate, I wanted to go to Cuba, but it was a big challenge to me to go to the gym. I actually never went, I’ll explain to you what I did instead later. The reason why I didn’t go to the gym was that I remembered back in 2015 I used to go to the gym every morning around 5 am, I hated it so much but I still forced to go. Since 2015 to 2018, I stopped going to the gym, so I went back to my past, in 2015, to analyze why I stopped going to the gym. Well, it was because I’m very uncomfortable working out with many people around me, many people sweats and just the laziness that came with it. So yea, those were my reasons but I still needed to work out.

2. You have to create a new strategy that will give you a no quit option
The second thing that you need to do is to gather all the ideas that can work for you, methods that you can put in place in order to finish the task that you made. Think about what can you do differently, for example, set a time for the task. When are you going to go to the gym? when are you going to read the book? when are you going to take the classes? is the time that you put the task, is it too early? are you always sleepy when you do the task? should you put some music or eat before you do the task? You need to make these strategies that can help you keep up the work until you’re done. To continue my 2018 workout dilemma for Cuba, I decided that I will work out at home. I wanted to lose my belly fat so I decided to focus on that area. For a whole month, I workout at home with the help of a workout video and it was perfect.

3. You do need motivation but discipline yourself first.
I know that motivation is key to do anything in life but in order to get motivated, you will require something to motivate you. You can’t just be motivated instantly, you need a reason to be motivated. That’s why I don’t think that motivation is something that you require because you will always have excuses. That’s why I suggest to discipline yourself. Do not wait for motivation to arise in order to do something, but discipline yourself to be able to make this task a habit if needed. Here’s the trick, I’ve always wanted to put God in my life but it’s so weird how I’m unable to remind myself to get on my knees and pray. I’ll be transparent with you, sometimes, I would lay down in bed after a nice night shower and I would forget to get on my knees to pray before I sleep. I had to do something about this so I came up with this idea: put my alarm at a set time, and it would remind me to kneel down and pray. I did this for 21 days, and when that 21 days ended, I kept the alarm at that set time and continued to do it. Today, I don’t even need the alarm, it has become a habit and I’m doing it every day at that set time or even before the alarm. My suggestion to you will be to start doing your task for 21 days, and you won’t go back to your old habit. The power with this is, you do not need to wait a week, you can start today, right now, and do it for 21 days. It only takes 21 days to create a habit.

4. Put God in control
In everything that you do, ask God for help. He will remind you, believe me. When you start doing something, anything, first ask God to help you through it. Ask him for courage, confidence and bravery. You can ask God anything! ask him to be with you when you go outside to workout, ask him that he protects you and that he helps you achieve your goals. Sometimes, we have all these goals that we want to achieve, we promise ourselves that we will achieve it but how many times did we start and not finish it? because of laziness and sometimes, you just get sleepy like me all the time. That’s why we can’t really rely on our own power, you need to have faith in whatever you do. Do not rely on your own power, ask God for assistance and believe that you have already accomplished the task. You will not even realize how much work you are putting into your agenda, you will become better, you will get where you want to be. You just have to trust, have faith and believe that you have already achieved it. That’s what I do every day for every schedule that I plan. For example, emmerance.com took me a while to make. I needed patience and vision, I added faith in it with a sparkle of prayers and my blog launched without me realizing it.

5. A goal without a plan is just a dream
The first time you did your schedule, you probably did or didn’t plan it. If you did plan it but you stopped halfway is because your plan wasn’t done properly. If you didn’t plan and just told yourself that you’re going to do it, and think of how you will do it the day off, then it’s totally normal that you barely finished the task. Here’s the thing you need to do, you need to plan SMART; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Time-sensitive. Whatever you make a schedule, you need to be specific (why are you doing that), you need to know how are you going to measure the success; is it by losing weight? how many weight did you want you to lose? How many books are you going to read? Don’t just put anything out there, make it attainable and realistic, don’t be too hard on yourself and take it to step by step.

Whatever you set your mind to, you need to be able to see it happening. Plan it well, get ready for it and as soon as you’re ready, you start!

My friend Arnaud is a fitness coach and he suggested this: “You need to trust yourself if you set a goal it needs to be something that you can accomplish in a timely matter, that will build confidence. Don’t rush anything, in due time, you will get better and be able to do new things.” You can follow Arnaud on his Instagram @Askshamps.

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