​In the first two posts of this series, I introduced the "Art of Steady Progress." And shared with you step one of the process.

(If you haven’t read them yet, go here for part 1 or here for part 2)

In this blog post, I want to talk about what to do after you create a realistic plan for the day and do your best to follow it.

Whether you followed your plan exactly or went off the rails completely doesn't matter.

What matters is that you take a look at how you did with kindness and curiosity and no judgment.

If you followed your plan, great.

If you didn't follow your plan, great.

First, you want to take a look at what went right. I'm guessing that even if you didn't follow the plan completely, it wasn't a total loss.

Look at what went right and give yourself credit for that.

And then (and only then) look at what didn't go right.

Where did you go off the rails? What triggered you at that point?

Ask yourself questions like...

To give you an example, when I first started the Art of Steady Progress, I was using it to lose weight.

I had my food plan for the day and followed it until dinner.

Then I went off the rails at dinner and ate way more than I had planned.

The next morning I did my assessment and realized I had been hungry all day and it took all my willpower to stay on plan.

B the time I got to dinner, my willpower was shot.

It's like my body took over and said, "Woman, you are going to feed me everything I want NOW and there ain't nothing you can do about it."

In that assessment, for the first time ever, I realized how often that has happened in my life. Trying to be super "good" the entire day and then "blowing it" at night. 

I realized that I needed to have a much better balance in my day. Letting myself get too hungry during the day led to overeating at night.

And assessing with curiosity and kindness allowed me to see that for the first time.

I wasn't busy beating myself up for overeating at dinner.

Instead, I was taking a REAL look at the issue and working to solve it.

Not only is this way of thinking about your goals so much better for your self-esteem, it is much more effective.

Beating yourself up for "mistakes" is the least effective way of reaching your goals I have ever seen.

As a reminder...

In the next blog post, I'll share how to level this up using the Pareto principle  and the Kaizen approach. 

​Pretty awesome stuff.

Until then, I hope you have an amazing week reaching for your goals and being kind to yourself.

With love & joy,