Follow the plan, not the mood

Follow the plan... not the mood.

That is one of the things that will get you much further than you think.

Here we are not talking about "ignoring your emotions" and just getting on with things, no we are not numbing things. What we are doing though is not letting our MOODS decide the course of what we do. Moods are different from emotions, they usually last longer, do not necessarily have a trigger that we can pinpoint and if you ask yourself where is it located... it is mostly pointing towards your mind and rippling to your body, but it is rarely just somewhere in your body without being in your head.

Emotions on the contrary are often triggered by something, have a shorter "life-span", and usually can be pointed towards a particular part of the body where "it feels like it is here". Most of the time if you let yourself feel your emotions they pass like a wave, whereas moods are more like muddy puddles that feel like you need to get through.

If we let moods define what we end up doing in a day we will most likely feel depleted. Of course Moods can be good and when we wake up feeling amazing it is great to follow this rush and get on with things. It is more tricky when we wake up feeling Moody, lethargic... and we let this lead our days.

The plan is tasks, things that you planned to do in advance. It is important to see the "plan" as if you were making plans to do those tasks for a friend because somehow we are more likely to keep a promise to a friend than to ourselves. The thing is, the more you keep promises to yourself and honour what you said you will do the more you strengthen the relationship you have with yourself. And yes that day where you feel depleted as soon as you wake up... might be hard to get through but doing that workout, writing that article, or just cooking yourself a healthy meal can make a huge difference in what your thoughts are about. Your inner critic will have less material to beat yourself up and your cheerleader will have more to cheer you up with. Even if you are not changing the world that day, you are changing the chemicals in your body, the thoughts in your head, and you will feel (even if it is only 2%) more accomplished. Sometimes we think a radical change in our life will fix everything... the thing is, we are human creatures and moods and emotions will always be here with us no matter the external situations... The secret is to find a way to function with them as companions.

Having a plan of what you want to do and sticking to it is one of the tools to get through the toughest moods. Simple, but not easy... worth giving it a go though ;).