Pushing Past Less-Than-Ideal Conditions

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Sarah here. We hope that you enjoyed last week’s blog about tackling daunting tasks. This week, we’re talking about something else that can interfere with us getting stuff done. Less than ideal conditions can derail even the best of intentions.
 
Picture it: you’ve carved out time in your schedule to go to the gym, you’re in your car, and you realize you left your headphones at home. What do you do? If you’re like a lot of people, you’d probably hesitate…after all, you’d planned on listen to music, a podcast, audiobook, or TV show while working out or running. Now it won’t be the same. Maybe it even seems like you should just turn around and go home…after all, you don’t have your headphones, things aren’t going the way they’re supposed to…you could always run or workout another day this week, right? See how easily those less-than-ideal conditions can derail the best laid plans? 

In real life, we often have less-than-ideal conditions when we set out to do things that matter to us. We may forget something we need, the weather may be bad, we may feel sick, or something else could go wrong. But here’s the hard truth: we can still choose to do the things that matter to us, even when the conditions aren’t favorable. Does that mean that your trip to the gym without your headphones will result in the best workout or run ever? Probably not. In fact, you may spend the whole time thinking about what you could’ve been listening to, lamenting about how this gym day is crummy, or being frustrated with yourself for forgetting the darned headphones. But the point is that when something matters to you, you can commit to doing it even in less-than-ideal conditions.
 
It’s also okay if less-than-ideal conditions result in less-than-ideal progress. Sometimes just showing up and putting in effort is a win. So next time you’re faced with less-than-ideal conditions, be sure to show up for yourself. Acknowledge the feelings and thoughts that you have. And commit to doing the thing you care about. Give yourself some grace and know that progress, no matter how small, is still progress.  

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