We are now officially 15 days into a new year. This is around the time that if you’re the sort of person to set resolutions or intentions or goals, it’s easy to lose momentum.
Life starts to pick back up again after the holidays.
Vacation is over. The kids are back in school.
Life starts to “go back to normal”. Events, activities, playdates, meetings, parties, and conferences are added to the calendar.
Soon that brand new resolution or intention or goal starts to feel less exciting and more stressful.
It totally makes sense why you’d quietly ditch it in favor of keeping your head above water.
The only downside is that you set this precedent of bailing on yourself when things get busy or hard. It gives you an out every time, instead of giving you a way in. When it comes to accomplishing goals or committing more to yourself by setting intentions to inspire transformation, you need a good way in.
If you feel like you’re losing momentum, that’s totally normal.
If you want to get some of that momentum back, I have 3 simple tips to help you rebuild your momentum and get back on track.
Get clear on your WHY
This is important. Often when we set goals, we don’t always connect to the why. This makes the goal separate from the motivation we need to do to accomplish the goal.
Simplify and scale down
If what you’re trying right now isn’t work, dial it down even further. You might want to do 30 minutes of yoga everyday but that feels impossible. Try scaling it back to 15. If that doesn’t work, trying scaling it down to 10 minutes. Or even 5! Make it impossible to say no.
Try again, with compassion.
If at first you don’t succeed, try again. And again. Everyday is a new day. Instead of giving up because your intention or new habit didn’t happen one day, step back and assess. If one day doesn’t quite go the way you’d planned, check in with what obstacles were in your way. Revisit #1 and #2. Connect with your WHY then SIMPLIFY or SCALE DOWN.
Rather than giving yourself a hard time and calling yourself a failure, be kind to yourself. Creating a new habit or routine can be hard. Struggling with implementing it is normal. Figure out how you can make it easier on yourself so that new habit will feel less stressful and actually successful.
Here’s an example of how I’m doing these 3 in my life.
In December, I always work on getting off screens and to bed earlier. I also give myself the whole month to build toward my goal time.
This past December, I wanted to be in bed by 9:45pm and off screens by 9pm. Unfortunately, I kept struggling. I have a new baby who doesn’t believe in bedtimes and 2 big kids who don’t either.
Plus, I was working on catching up in my business postpartum.
Some nights i’d get into bed by 10pm and others it would be 11pm. I was annoyed that I couldn’t get myself into bed consistently, especially since I wanted it so badly.
First I connected with my WHY: I was deeply sleep deprived and in need of more rest so I could feel more human during the day.
Second, I scaled back and simplified. Instead of trying to get into bed a little earlier every night or set an unrealistic target, I started where I was. I was getting into bed consistently at 10:30, so I set my goal of 10:30pm every night.
Once I was consistent with that, I scaled back 5 minutes to 10:25pm.
A little over a month later, I am now consistently getting into bed at 10pm.
BIG WIN!
Third, I offered myself compassion. If one day I got into bed a little bit after my target, I’d shrug and say, “tomorrow is another day.”
And then there were days when I’d get into bed earlier than usual, which felt pretty awesome.
Honestly, as long as I was within 5 minutes of my target, I felt pretty great.
These are my 3 simple tips to rebuild momentum and how I use them in my life.
Try them out if you’re feeling like you’ve lost momentum with your new habits and big goals this year. And let me know how it goes when you do!
And if you want a little more support to help rebuild your momentum around self-care this year, join my upcoming Self-Care Reset. It’s totally FREE and will give you the basic tools you need to stay committed to yourself this year!
