Getting Back On Track

I hate to break it to you… There’s no such thing as a perfect person. Even the most disciplined person has days and moments where they give into temptation or make a choice that doesn’t fully align with their values. A lot of credit is given to those who stay consistent and committed, and rightfully so. But an equal amount of credit is due to the person who gets knocked off track but can recover quickly. 

Let me explain this using the metaphor of a plane. When a plane takes off it has a destination in mind. The shortest, fastest path to that destination is a straight line. But when in the air, planes face headwinds that push them off path. 

In a first scenario, the headwind hits and the pilot doesn’t do anything about it, so the plane flies two degrees off course. Hours later when it’s time to land the plane is hundreds of miles away from where it should be and needs to make significant corrections to reach its destination.

In a second scenario, the headwind hits and knocks the plane two degrees off course. But this time the pilot notices and adjusts the plane’s direction. At the end of the flight, the plane ends up exactly where it’s meant to be, and it gets there one microcorrection at a time.

The reason most people quit is because they find themselves too far off course. They take on a monthly fitness challenge that now seems impossible, or have business projections that now are just a pipe dream. They see the difference between where they wanted to be and where they are, and give up because the gap is just too big. 

But if you have the awareness to know that you’ve been knocked off course, you can make a small correction in the moment that gets you back on track. You can prevent a big divide by taking corrective action before too much time passes. 

This is just as true for a plane flight as it is for your personal goals. You have a day where you lacked consistency or missed the mark, a ‘cheat day’... The end result of that choice can go two different ways. Either you let it go unnoticed and snowball into more misaligned days, or you do something about it to get right back on track. 

Getting back on track is simple to do and requires these two things: The awareness that it happened and the discipline to take corrective action.

The natural reaction is to feel bad for yourself, criticize, and lament your mistake. But the most successful can overcome the negativity they’re feeling, pick themselves back up, and fix it before too much damage is done. It’s those who can consistently and quickly reorient their approach that spend the least amount of time off track. And therefore, they’re the most effective at reaching their goals and getting where they want to go.