Today was one of those days when I literally wanted to do anything except work on furniture painting. I’m not kidding. I cleaned my house instead and I HATE to clean. I was in full procrastination mode.

It did not serve any of goals to tidy my kitchen or clean my toilet (see that’s how bad it was – I chose cleaning my

toilet). Yet every time I thought about the work I HAD to do I felt overwhelmed and under-motivated. Have you been there too? That day when you know you have a stack of work overflowing, yet somehow nothing you need to get done gets done?

I bet you have

So what do I need to do to get through this massive derailment of my goals? Well, first it’s important to realize everyone can have an off day and forgive myself.  Isn’t that one of the hardest things to do? If our best friend told us about a day like this we’d tell them it’s okay they just need to refill their well, but if we don’t attack our work with full vigor we tell ourselves we’re lazy.

This isn’t true for one second and we need to realize that because I self-talk can be more damaging than we know.  The last thing you want is to start believing those negative thoughts.

For me, the reason I was feeling so overwhelmed was I was looking at the big picture instead of looking at the small steps that lead up to the big goal.  I needed to narrow my focus to one thing. 

My one thing is this blog post.  Since one of my goals is to post at least one post a week, writing this aligns with my goals and gives me forward progress.  After I finish this post I will take some photos for Etsy.  Again, forward progress.

Taking these small steps removes the negative feeling that I was lazy all day.  Just because I didn’t feel up to painting today, doesn’t mean I can’t make progress.

Progress comes in all shapes and size.  Takes a step today, it’ doesn’t matter how small, and celebrate the victory.  Any forward progress will eventually lead to your destination.