Slipping: Regaining Forward Motion When Life Happens

At the beginning of the year, many of us sit down and write out goals for the year. Every year begins with such hope and motivation. 2019 started with even further vigor for us knowing that we had realized that perhaps our dreams weren't big enough to match God's plan for us. After that discussion, we nailed down dreams and dreams began plans and plans became actions.

We made the decision to become foster parents, we set fitness goals and financial goals. We thought through our career and ministry goals for the next year. We set goals for the kids, both educationally and personally.

Then, life set in. What had began as a sprint towards our dreams had been slowed by life to a jog and then a walk and then a crawl. We had illnesses, injuries, appointments, family obligations, projects and work to do. So what do you do, when your progress slows to an almost halt and you struggle to continue moving forward?

I had a moment in mid- February where I was suddenly very overwhelmed by the choices that I had made in January in order to make progress on our goals and dreams. In the midst of being sick myself, 2 kids having injuries and needing ER visits, my grandma being in the hospital a couple of times, and being in the midst of our home study, I wasn't sure there was going to be any recovery. I felt physically awful from the combination of sore muscles from working out and being sick. I felt like I needed a full body massage, a drink and 2 weeks in the Bahamas.

I had a decision to make. I could lean in to what my brain was saying. Give up, let the circumstances win and just live life in the moment to moment. There have been stages of my life when this has been the case. I have lived without dreams or goals. It left me in a dark and depressed place. I need forward motion in my life to live the fulfilled life that God has for me. That doesn't make it easy though. Living in the moment and not worrying about the next is easier in so many ways. In the short-term, it shortens the to-do list and the brain load. But I know that is not the decision that is best for me in the long run. I have to make the choice to do hard things in the short term so that I am happy and fulfilled in the long term.

I quickly decided that I needed to make a few choices to get back on track. There were a few things that I could do to both ease the tension of that moment while making sure that I didn't completely undo both past and future progress.

1. I gave myself a little grace. I actually took an entire week off from working out. I had not had more than 2 days off in a row in over a year. I was SO scared to do this. My history with fitness is that once I give myself a break, I never go back. I knew my body was screaming for a second to recover. I had kind of plateaued on making any progress both on the scale and in measurements. My body was screaming and the pain and tension on my body was real. I decided to trust the progress I have made in following through in goals and allow myself the break. I lost 2 pounds in that week of recovery. I needed to learn this lesson of listening to my body and what it needs. I needed to know I could trust myself to hit the pause button and then come back to that goal with success. Learning to give myself grace and take periods of rest when I need it was a huge win and will be something I take with me beyond this single period of rest that was needed to recover. 
2. We reevaluated and then eliminated. It is easy to allow things to creep in that are unnecessary.  They might be good and worthwhile things. They may not be. But they sneak up on you. When I become overwhelmed, I know to go to my calendar and look at things that might not be the best or helping me get to my goals. I usually get my husband involved at this point and have him take a look and help me refocus my calendar to concentrate on the best things that move us forward and eliminating the busy tasks. Sometimes that involves eliminating activities or to-do list items and sometimes it means outsourcing. Other times it means just powering through an item on our list so that it is off our list and done. 
3. I evaluate my method. I am an over-organizer. Most of the time, this leads to progress and forward motion. Every once in a while, I out do myself. I plan out every detail to the point where I stress myself out. I knew that I might be approaching that point when I was talking to a friend about calendaring and I showed her my organizer for the week. I think her eyeballs just about popped out of her head. That should have been a red flag to me that I may have gone overboard. One of the things that I am learning is that my husband is a fantastic guide for me. He knows me best and the more that I include him in, especially in planning, the better off I am. He is the person who balances me best. Showing him my calendar for the week is a great way to both keep me from overdoing it and adding things I may have missed or forgotten. 
4. Reassign the tasks. When I get overwhelmed, I just start crossing off items without doing them... after I get through the first three items, I have to go back through my calendar and figure out what needs to be done or redone to gain some traction back. This is done slowly and thoughtfully, evaluating each item to determine whether it actually needs to be done or whether it was an unneeded item that was filler. 

This process isn't fast. It takes a couple of weeks to get back to a place of feeling like I am making progress again. I am learning to be patient with the process, knowing that God knew all of the circumstances and events that would happen in my life when I set the goals prayerfully. These things that happen are part of the process. God will use these moments of being overwhelmed or life creeping in to make me depend on him and build my character. It is part of dreaming big. It is part of taking giant faith leaps. If I prayerfully set goals and dream dreams that are so big that they won't get done without God's intervention then this reevaluation process will become part of the rhythm. Big things are hard and hard things are worth the struggle. It is in the moments of struggle where he shows up and does what only he can do, so that I can do the things that I can and am supposed to be doing.