Have you ever started something new and after some time you left it behind?. If your answer is yes welcome to the club, my friend. You’re not alone, A lot of people have fallen into it, including me.

Who doesn’t want to achieve something in life? Most of us want to reach goals — from tiny to big ones.

After some time, I became obsessed with self-improvement, self-discipline, and self-motivation. Since then I have spent hundreds of hours reading about this. I have read endless articles from different authors, publications, and sites.

Yet I have a big problem with popular and successful self-help gurus. Most of them advise us to stick to our dreams, routine, habits, diet, process, workouts, and so on.

That sounds quite simple. Yet that is just the half of the battle, that is the what. We don't need more guidance about what, but a realistic, more personalized in-depth how.

1. Hearing the same narrative

I am tired to hear the same narrative. We all are bombarded with the same story.

We have got the same piece of advice over and over. I see the same shape of the story with a few lines of truth and a few lies.

Their narrative sounds like this… “If you really want to achieve something in your life, stick to your path, plan, diet, routine, habit.” This is the guru’s advice. This is what to do, not how to do it.

These gurus cannot explain in so detail. Their narrative has gray passages. There’s no clarity enough. How they act when unexpected events come up and force them to not stick to the initial plan. How they can go back and start from the point where they left or in the worst case start from square zero again. There are crucial facts, circumstances, and unique contexts that most of them they overlook.

2. Gurus overlook a distracted world

We live in a distracted world. Nowadays, every new thing is created to distract you. We have been trapped for so long. We simply lose our focus way easily. You were so inspired and focused on your awesome side hustle and in just a second you ended up on the endless scrolling of a social network.

Sticking to the routine, process, ritual, diet, and habits means being consistent and resilient. But also being able to go back quickly when you are distracted, either consciously or unconsciously.

I have started a huge list of projects and most of them fall into the half-finished project stack. In most of those projects, although is true that I could make decent progress at some point, something else got my attention and distracted me.

That easily sow the belief that it was more important, and I jumped to it right away. There is a race to gain your attention. Avoiding this simply or just doing morning affirmation is just not enough.

Takeaways

1. Whatever your routine, habit, or process is, make it your highest priority. It’s like how you think about your full-time job or your full-time own business. You give to it the highest priority, isn’t it?
2. Plan ahead of time. Set aside a block on your calendar.
3. Identify the real things that rob your attention. Does this come from social media, phone, apps, notifications? Once done, turn all of them off. Remove them from your cellphone or computer.

3. Your circunstances are different

People who advise sticking to the process forget one of the big players — circumstances. Everybody’s circumstances are different. It’s not the same level of effort, energy, and commitment for someone who just is trying to survive, or someone who is single to someone who has one kid, or someone who has three kids.

It’s not the same for someone who has tried it several times with no luck to someone who is going to try it the first time. Conditions play a big role in this game. There are several factors that impact this.

Just imagine this scenario. You exercised; you are so motived however when you were on week two your son got sick and had to confine him at the hospital.

So now what? How can you continue with your routine? Will you continue doing that routine? I don’t think so. Hence, we are affected by our own conditions, events, and circumstances.

All of us have unique conditions that alter the way we commit and keep going. This will affect us in our battle to sticking to the process, routine, or habit.

I am not saying that we cannot do it. I say that people who advise that are overlooking everybody’s circumstances.

Takeaway

• We feel helpless when we break progress. It’s normal we feeling that way. Don’t beat yourself up.
• Acknowledge and embrace the fact you did progress, and you went beyond your prior self.
• A pause is not too bad at all. This is the proof to see what you are made of. To conquer a habit, we might need to come back several times to square zero.

4. You deserve a naked story

We don’t need to hear more of the same narrative. We need the entire story. We need to hear the actual battles who advise us had and how they conquer them.

We don’t need filters in the story. We need a naked story. We deserve to know its peaks and down and how they surfed over. We need answers on how to stick to the process when all those battles bring to us as a surprise. In the end, a naked story resonates a lot, and we feel more identified with it.

Ending Thoughts

If you are like me, who loves to read a bunch of posts and books related to self-improvement, you won’t let me lie. We have been reading and hearing the same narrative. The same piece of advice. Self-help gurus advise you this way. If you want to achieve something in life, you have to stick to the habit, process, routine, ritual, diet, and so on.

This advice doesn’t work. This is because of different variables, such as circumstances, context, and time. Gurus overlook a distracted world. They forget the simple fact that you and I have unique circumstances that might play against us.

Finally, they advise something without telling the whole story. They probably faced gray and dark passages but they are unwilling to share.

In the end, It’s not a complete story. We deserve more.

Thanks for reading. I hope this was helpful for you.