It’s given that there would be times, days and periods when our day will not go according to our wishes and plans.

It could be a Monday, which means a very crappy start to the week. It can be Wednesday when you discover that you are nowhere near achieving your weekly goals. Or, it can be a Friday, where you are sitting late and working. It can be any day! Messed up and fu**ked up weekdays mean a crappier weekend! Hence, this WorthWorking4Wednesday installment focuses on crappier start and end to our weekdays.

So things haven’t gone according to your plan and expectations. How would you react?

• Get panicky, frustrated, angry, despondent?
• Do you give up altogether or you still try to seize the day?  
• What kind of adjustments you try to make to your day, if at all?

Your response to these questions and the way you usually respond to such disruptions show how emotionally resilient you are!  Here are some of the ways resilient and productive people respond to disruptions in routines:

Don’t Despair

The inability to meet our goals and have our wins can be a real downer, something demotivating and frustrating, specially if it is something that happens frequently. Setbacks would naturally make us wonder why we set up goals and expectations if we fail to meet them, specially if it happens often.

The key to emotional resilience requires us to be patient and accept failures and disruptions as things that are bound to happen.

Be Positive

The loss of a few hours in a day or a disruptive week altogether seems overwhelming. Nevertheless, if you see this setback in the bigger picture, the larger scheme of things, the loss would not seem so monumental. It would be a dot on the map! More importantly, it would feel salvageable.  Understand that the setbacks are temporary and you can do a lot of things to take back control and create tangible outcomes.

Get Going   

It is natural for all of us to feel bad, get frustrated and demotivated when our plans hit a snag. However, giving up and doing nothing is counterproductive. The more you dwell on failure and disappointment, the more passive and depressed you would feel.

Assess the Reason Behind Failure

Usually, the urgencies of the day, distractions, interruptions and disruptions would stop us from reaching our daily and weekly personal and professional goals. Hence, the first thing we need to do is to try to

• Understand the reason behind your failure to reach your goals.
• Do this earlier and not at the end of the day, so you can still turn things around.
• Before re-starting an important task is to clear our routine: This means we need to make ourselves unavailable to others, excuse ourselves from all other not-so- important commitments, and block off distracting people, noises and influences.

Learn to Adapt

Instead of a rigid and all or nothing approach, you can try to adjust your outlook and adapt yourself to the changed circumstances or the disrupted flow of the day. Once you adapt your outlook, attitude and plans, then you will feel like having somewhat more control on your time and routine.

Try to Find Possible Solutions

Try to find out the options and resources that can help you take back control of the situation. For instance, you can knock off some other important but not urgent tasks from your To-Do list. See whatever you can possibly delegate to a teammate or your partner. See whom you can approach for help, assistance. Maybe, you can try to sit and work late or go to an hour late to bed or wake up early the next day (or few days) to get back on track.     

Adjust Plans

Most of the times when our plans fail, and goals and expectations are unmet, then there is an apparent issue with our plans or expectations. Hence, there is a need for making acceptance and adjustments accordingly. This means we have to firstly accept that we have fallen short in certain areas. Then we need to make adjustments accordingly in setting our goals and expectations. This may mean that we shouldn’t possibly expect and try to do a week’s worth of work in just two days. It may also mean that we shouldn’t over commit ourselves or stretch our time, capacity, resources, and  energies more than what we have.

 Salvage the Day

Rather than focusing on the loss or giving up altogether, one should try to focus on whatever time is left and whatever you can realistically salvage from a ruined routine.

One way to do it is to assess your plan and shortlist the three most important tasks you need to do in that day. You can then bump off everything else from your routine and solely focus on those tasks. Even if you are able to take care of even two of those important tasks, your day or week wouldn’t feel like a waste after all.  

To Sum Up

Life is unpredictable; hence, despite all our planning and efforts, our day can completely go in another direction. It happens to the best of us. Instead of thinking ourselves to be complete failures, we should try to salvage whatever we can from the mess. Here is a round-up of all the things discussed above!

• So don’t sit and mope about in dejection.
•  Take five minutes to clear your head!
• Take a break.
• Drink water.
• Stretch or have a restorative nap.
• Take a deep breath and get going!
• Then pick a small task and then finish it.
• Shortlist the 3 most important
• Do whatever you can and leave the rest for the another time and day!
• Be kind to yourself and give yourself credit.