Plans, Morning routine and things not going my way

Hello February! I like the beginnings – I like New Year and I like the beginnings of months. Keeping aside my hatred of Mondays for they mark the end of the weekend; I like Mondays because they mark the start of something. There is something about beginnings that motivates me to do something new or to do something better or be better or to start a new morning routine. Today being the beginning of a new month, here I am hoping that things will be better this month.

Though I usually don’t make resolutions or set big goals at the beginning of the year, there were a lot of things that I wanted start at the beginning of the year. I’d planned what would be my first read of the year, I had planned to make my own little reading journal and a lot of other such things. I’d even planned what should be the first video for the year on YouTube, but none of that happened. Instead, I found myself at the dentist’s on New Year’s Day being the Dentist’s first patient of the year. I found myself away from the book that I wanted to read, the notebook that I wanted to turn into my reading journal and away from my PC that I used for editing my videos. Things weren’t the way I wanted them to be, but they weren’t so bad. So, life went on with whatever was possible.

I like reading things about habits and routines (I’ve read a lot of articles about building habits and creating systems which quote Atomic Habits, and I haven’t yet read the book. Hopefully this year!) I have drawn some inspiration from some of the morning routine videos that I have watched on YouTube and I have been motivated to have a morning routine myself. I had planned to start a proper morning routine that would be help me plan my day better and help me with managing my health. But then that couldn’t start at the beginning of the year and then it got pushed by a week and then two for various reasons. I received a planner as my birthday gift, I took it as a sign that I should be more organized with my life (as if having a zillion pages for different aspects of my life on Notion wasn’t enough!) And then one Monday I managed to do most of the things that I wanted to do as a part of my morning routine, and I was glad. The beginning was supposed to be the difficult part and since I had started, all I had to do was show up.  And then later that day, I fell sick. I went from being motivated for starting something new to feeling low withing a few hours.

So, I find myself here now, at the beginning of a new month, not having any grand plans and having nothing much to evaluate how the first month of the year was. The reasons for why things don’t go the way we planned are often under our control- maybe we lacked the motivation, maybe our plan wasn’t made considering all the aspects. But what do you do when the reason it doesn’t work out is for things beyond your control? Do you give up entirely or do you try again?

I have had a lot of time to think about this in the last few days because this mind of mine hasn’t been able to concentrate on things like books that would have helped me deal with reality but has been wondering about things like goals and plans and living life.

I don’t have the answers. I think is it is best to learn from the things that have happened and accept that life happens, things aren’t always under my control and try to live each day as it comes. Plans may work out and for when they don’t, it is better to look at what is the best that we can do of the current situation.

My morning routine didn’t kick off today as well despite it being the beginning of the month. But everyday is a new beginning isn’t it? Sometimes we plan, sometimes we must just go with the flow.

I’d written something about this a few months ago. Read that post here if you like.