How to Deal With Disruptions in Your Life

There are moments in our lives when we feel so “in the zone” that every­thing we touch seem to turn into gold, and we really feel that we have all that it takes to make us happy. Not just the giddy happy we feel when we get a new ipod or mac­book pro, but the really deep joy we feel at our wed­ding and graduations.

But then just when we feel that every­thing is turn­ing out right, some­thing hap­pens and we come crash­ing down to earth. It is so easy to for­get the good things when bad things hap­pen to us. It is so easy to get dis­cour­aged and feel as if life has aban­doned us.

Here is an arti­cle from Zen­Hab­its on the things we can do when expe­ri­ence major dis­rup­tions in our lives.

How to Beat the Major Dis­rup­tions
Leo Babauta

1. Expect the dis­rup­tions and accept them as part of life. I’m not say­ing you should expect death or the loss of a job or other tragic things to hap­pen at any minute, but do know that there will always be dis­rup­tions to your rou­tine. Con­sider them bumps along the road, a part of any jour­ney, and some­thing that you just need to deal with and then get back on track. If you allow these bumps to stop you every time, you’ll never get to the des­ti­na­tion. But if you know, from the out­set, that there are going to be bumps, and you know that it’s sim­ply part of the jour­ney and that you have to over­come them, you’ll get there eventually.

2. Always remem­ber your moti­va­tion, and get excited. Why did you have the rou­tine in the first place? It must have been some­thing impor­tant to you for you to have taken the effort to make it a part of your life. If you were exer­cis­ing, you must have enjoyed it and had a pretty impor­tant goal or rea­son to exer­cise. If you were sav­ing money, there must be a strong rea­son to do so. Always keep your eye on that goal, remem­ber why you were doing it, and get your­self pas­sion­ate about the goal again. If you get excited enough about it, you’ll go back. It’s when you don’t really feel like doing it that you have a hard time re-starting.

3. Find a part­ner or a coach or a class. This is just one of the best moti­va­tion tips for any goal, but it’s espe­cially use­ful when you’re try­ing to get back on track after a dis­rup­tion. Hav­ing a part­ner, for work­outs or any other goal, is a great moti­va­tion to get started. It helps that I have my sis­ter to run with, because when we make a date to meet in the early morn­ing hours, I don’t want to miss that date and leave her alone out­side while the sun has barely started its first cup of cof­fee. With busi­ness projects, it helps that I have a part­ner, or I might never get started again when I get side­tracked. A coach or a class are just as good moti­va­tors, though per­son­ally I’ve found a part­ner to be more convenient.

4. Start small. Yes, you’ve heard this from me so many times it might as well be a mantra. :) But it’s good advice for try­ing to get back into the swing of things. Don’t expect to pick back up exactly where you left off, whether that’s with exer­cise or diet or work or any­thing else. For exam­ple, if you were run­ning 30 miles a week, you might start out with just 10–15 miles a week — run 3–4 miles, three times a week. Just to start out with. It makes it eas­ier to start out, and it’s some­thing you can adjust to eas­ier. Once you’ve adjusted to this lighter sched­ule, increase gradually.

5. Allow your­self a break with­out reproach. When I moved to a new home last week, I knew I’d have to take a break from work­outs and work. It wasn’t a planned break, but once I real­ized how busy I would be, and how tired my body would be from all the lift­ing and mov­ing, I knew I’d have to take an unplanned vaca­tion. And I told myself, “This is a good thing. My body needed a break from train­ing any­way, and my mind needed a break from work.” And so I took the break, know­ing it was good, not feel­ing (too) guilty, and know­ing that I’d get right back into it as soon as the break was over.

6. If all fails, start the habit again, the right way. If you’re just hav­ing a tough time restart­ing, you might need to start back from the begin­ning, with the basics: focus on just one habit at a time, for 30 days, mak­ing it pub­lic, giv­ing your­self rewards, find­ing a trig­ger, being as con­sis­tent as pos­si­ble. All of these are the effec­tive habit-change prin­ci­ples I talk about in my book, The Power of Less. I highly rec­om­mend you read the book if you need help form­ing habits, and sign up for The Power of Less 30-day Chal­lenge forum.