‘Progress is not linear’.
You have perhaps seen this image somewhere, and there cannot be any more true depiction of what success/progress actually looks like.

Nomatter how many times you think this time you will go only onwards and upwards, there will inevitably come a time where you will feel like you came back to where you started.
And when this happens, just the thought of starting everything again from scratch is enough to demotivate us and derail us from our vision and goals.
Even for me who shares all things about habits, productivity and self care, it still feels like a constant foward and backwards journey, but this is something I have now come to accept.
And this has been so helpful for me.
But when you’re new to the whole ‘self improvement thing’, ‘I wanna grow myself thing’, you’re highly optimistic for a great start, so when you go off track just once, when you miss out a workout even for just 2 days in a row, it seems like you can’t do it again.
But trust me you can!
And here is where acceptance of off track moments comes to place.
Accepting off track moments- What it means
Table of Contents
When you’re starting something new, perhaps a new habit you want to stick to, it is good to be highly optimitic. But often our mind has great ideals and vision of perfection in our head.
So when we don’t match up to that picture in our head, or when we don’t ‘feel’ what we imagined we would feel in our head, its easy to get off track.
And when we do get off track with our habits, even one day seems like we failed, then it turns into two days in a row and no sooner, a week passes by making us feel that we just don’t ‘have it’ to work on better things.
But here you should know that you’re no superhuman. You are just a human. We are just a human.
If it were so easy to start something new and break old habit patterns which are presently so strongly rooted in us, then the world would be filled with happy and sucessful people.
So you should know that it takes time. And even if you’ve been successful in forming a habit, it still takes a continuous practice.
So when you are starting a new habit, tell yourself beforehand that you accept that at some point you might inevitably get off track.
Tell yourself that you will be okay with going off track when that moment comes because of any sort of reason.
This way you prepare yourself beforehand when that off track moment hits, and instead of sulking and feeling bad about yourself, you accept the moment for you knew it would come at sometime.
It then gets far easier to get back up and try again another time.
Why is this powerful?
Simply acceptance is a great power in itself. The reality is that we all fail and we will fail countless times. But what matters is whether we rise up again or not.
There will be many times where you will come to doubt your potential, many times where something important will crop up, and many times where you will feel just plain lazy.
For someone who doesn’t keep these things in mind, its easy to get off track and then never start again.
But by accepting that you will get off track, you make yourself powerful and give yourself strength to rise up again.
Instead of feeling demotivated and losing track of your vision, since you had already accepted it, its easier to get back up.
And not to forget- kindness. Kindness is the most important ingredient in our self improvement and personal growth journey.
Kindess and self compassion is the balm that you will need a lot when you’re trying to change your life and make it better.
If you go without kindness and compassion in our self improvement journey, you will want to kick yourself for your inability to stick through, make a change and better yourself.
But when you feel so, remember that actually this is happening:

And when you accept getting off track, you give kindness to yourself instead of starting another chain of negative self talk for not being able to keep up.
And kindness is just the thing you will need to rise up again and work on yourself again and again. This is also how you change your life little by little
But first, you must accept that sometime or the other, you will go off track. And accept it with kindness.
This is also how you stop feeling stuck in life
Then you can perhaps even enjoy your off track moments. Indulge in whatever you want to and get of track intentionally. And when you feel like you’re done with going off track, then try again and rise up again.
This much for today! Love and kindness on your journey!
Hi Vishaka,
Hope you are well! I’m really thankful to your blog, it’s life saving, it truly pulls me up when I’m down. I wanted to check if you provide life coaching, predominately help with certain change in the thought process that’s required for achieving success. Please let me know if we can have a quick call.
Regards
Ananya
Hi ananya! I’m doing well, thank you and I am so glad to know that my blog is being of help to you. Life coaching would be great, but my words in this blog is all I share as of now as I am not a certified life coach. However you can email me anytime at [email protected] if you’d wish to get in touch with me. 🙂 take care