Are you drifting?
I had a client in my office the other day, and she told me about a concept she had read about called Drifting. My client was telling me that the writer was talking about commitment. For instance, you may read the bible once in the morning and again in the evening. Then after some time, you might read it in the morning before your day starts. Then, you may read it some mornings—you know, the ones that aren’t hectic. Pretty soon, you might be reading the bible once a week. Before you know it, you aren’t reading it at all.
I started thinking about that on my way home from our session. I thought what an interesting topic. Believe it or not, when I get home, I had a book delivered from Amazon that I had ordered a couple of days earlier. It was Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy’s book, Living Forward. I was really excited when I opened it, and then I saw the subtitle! The book is actually called Living Forward: A Proven Plan to Stop Drifting and Get the Life You Want. I think someone or something is trying to tell me something. You can order the book here.
Why do we commit ourselves to a certain habit, way of thinking, or plan of action, and then just let it go? I wanted to share with you a small part of what Living Forward revealed. Why does this happen? How can we stay focused and stop drifting?
Here are some insights from the book:
- Drifting is the result of passivity. We aren’t being proactive about our plans. We blame our circumstances or other people. For instance, “I didn’t workout today because the dog was sick this morning, and it threw my whole day off. “
- Take responsibility for our lives and create a Life Plan.
- Understand three main goals—
- We need to know how far away we are from where we want to be.
- We need to be clear about where we want to go.
- We need to take action toward our goals.
- The main reason we drift is because we lose our WHY. We forget the reason we are taking this action, or committing to a particular habit in the first place.
Think about your own life. What have you let drift? Is there something that you are working toward right now, but you feel like you aren’t quite as committed as you were when you started? We all come to a point in our lives where we get off track and don’t know how to get back on the path. Or, we realize that we are moving in a direction, and don’t really like the destination.
Think about why you have drifted from your plan. Decide if you want to get back on track, and figure out how to do it. Get rid of the excuses, and determine what your real obstacles have been—if there are any. Then, put your plan in place to start again.
