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This Post by Justin Dixon Photo Courtesy of Striatic

Have you ever been frozen where you don’t know what to do next because there is just so much to do? You might of felt sad and not known why. Or have you ever just stopped doing something that you wanted to achieve and not picked it up again. What about good habits. Have you let them slip, have you kept your New Year Resolutions? Doesn’t it drive you nuts when you don’t know how to start again? This is something that I have been going through for almost a month, and I’ve been trying to find a way out of it. The good news is that  it  is a lot simpler to get out of than I thought it would be.

Let go of the Guilt

We all want to be the ones that give others courage, and reason. We want to be someone who can be counted on, and even when misguided we all want to do the right thing. This great aspiration that is built into all of us however can backfire. We know what we could be, and we know what we want to be, and we know where we are. No one wants to fall short of what they could be, yet when we do the guilt can be so heavy. One of the first things you have to do if you’ve lost your way is you have to let go of the guilt. If you constantly beat up on yourself for not being where you should be. It becomes counter productive. The fact is that all the feelings of guilt in the world will serve no more than to demoralize you, and teach you to identify yourself as someone who does not follow through.

Accept Yourself Where You Are At

This does not mean resigning to never moving forward. What I’m talking about is that you need to realize that you are a sacred living being as you are. You are able to move forward, and even when you’ve lost your way you still have the infinite potential that dwells in all of us. Understanding this breaks past the idea that if we do not do everything perfectly we are not worth anything. You are always worth something, and no amount of action, or just being out of it can take that way.

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.”–Buddha

Pick Something Small to Start With

You are going to have to take action if you want to get back to exercising, meditating, eating right, or whatever it is that you have not been doing. This does not mean however that you have to do everything at once. In fact don’t even try to do it all at once. That is how people get overwhelmed to begin with. Pick something small to start your day with. In my case, I have chosen stretching. It is a small action, and is nowhere near a full work out, but it is action and it is a step back in the right direction. I dare you to try it. Start tomorrow by stretching, or even better if you can than take 5 minutes and stretch right now. It is something that we know we should do, but much like exercise and eating right it is very easy to go by and not do anything.

See how you feel after just one small action in the right direction? Observe how your actions change after this through out the day. Such a small step can put you in the mindset you need to move forward.

Be Patient With Yourself

One of the hardest things about getting back into a good habit is when you know that you’ve done so much better in the past. You may remember running when you were younger with so much more ease. If you’ve lost track of exercise though suddenly things that you used to be able to do with ease become challenging again. This is natural. Take it from the beginning steps again, and move forward. It may take some time to get where you want to be, but you won’t get anywhere if you do nothing.

We all have times when it is easy to be sad, and that is a legitimate emotion. You are under no obligation to be 100% happy all the time, and other emotions are not somehow less important than happiness. Whatever you feel, let yourself feel it. This does not mean though to let yourself be controlled by it. I’m just starting to get back on track, but I want to hear from you as well. When was a time that you entered this kind of a funk. How did you get out of it? What helped you? Sometimes a word of encouragement left by someone can make more difference than they will ever know.

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A special thank you to Belinda Munoz and Arvind Devalia for checking on me when I froze up and really reminding me that we all need a little help sometimes to move forward.