Sometimes it’s just hard not to beat yourself up about not getting enough done. I know that I do it all the time. I’ll set out at the start of the day with a solid, doable plan. I know that I can get everything on my task list accomplished. I’ve geared myself up for the day and I’m ready to go.

Then life happens.

My day turns to crap and all sorts of things get in the way of accomplishing the goals I’ve set out for that day. Tasks go unfinished, other things take precedence, and I start to get down about my task list. By the end of the day I’ve spent hours beating myself up. Each unfinished task is another whack upside the head…a reminder of how poorly I manage things, how ineffective I’ve been.

If this only happened once a month I could deal with it. Everybody has a bad day, right? Even once a week. Heck, that would mean that 86% of the time I was getting things done well. But my challenging, gone to Hell in a hand basket days, seem to happen about…hmmm…7 out of 7 days a week. Even when I try to plan for disasters in my daily schedule and set aside time for unexpected things…the unexpected-er happens and it’s vastly worse than I could ever have imagined.

Honestly, I’ve even had days where I set no plan at all because I fear that everything is going to fall apart. And somehow life manages to be even more challenging than I could have anticipated. I still end up beating myself up at the end of the day for not doing enough, being good enough, or whatever.

Sound familiar?

It’s a cycle that’s got to stop.

There is no good that comes from beating yourself up about a bad day. There’s nothing to be gained by berating yourself for not accomplishing enough. Heck, what is enough anyway? It’s just a word that we use to perpetuate the cycle of self-punishment. In my particular case, I’ve had to come to the realization that there are things I can control, and there are things I can’t. When the things I can’t control go awry and wreck my day…I still need to recognize that I’m moving forward.

So I’ve set an achievable goal for myself.

I want to be better than I was yesterday

It’s taken 53 years for me to let things get this out of control. It’s been a long time building, and it’s going to take a while to get things straightened out. So I’m striving to do things a little bit better today than I did yesterday. And a little bit better than the day before. Tiny, achievable steps that in summation will make a huge difference.

And honestly, I’m already seeing results. But I’m not on the journey alone. While my family has been helpful and supportive, they’re very close to the problem. Heck, oftentimes they are the problem. I don’t intend that in a mean way, it’s just facts. Whenever one of the kids has an issue, they know that they can contact me and I’ll do what I can to help. I’ll drop everything I was working on and provide what assistance I can. That actually thrills me. It’s a wonderful feeling to know that even after all these years, my kids still look to me for advice, assistance, or whatever. I love helping them out. But when I change my focus and drop what I’m doing, I’ve had a tendency to beat myself up about not doing the things I had planned to do.

So back in September of last year I started having a weekly call with a friend I’d met over Twitter. We live on different continents. He’s much younger than me. Our kids are vastly different ages. But we shared a common interest in productivity, and both struggle with the daily grind of plan, fail to execute, and self-punish. We both had reached a point of total breakdown. We felt like no matter what we did, things were going nowhere. We were just like the proverbial hamsters on the wheel, doing a lot of stuff, spinning the wheel like crazy, and not getting anywhere.

But you know what, he gets me. He understands where I’m coming from because he’s battling the same inner demon. And he gets me in the sense that he knows when I’m not being completely frank about something. Yeah, when I try to divert his attention to something else, he drags me back and makes me face the ugly truths, about myself and my life. He’s holding me accountable. And not just for the bad stuff, but for the good stuff as well. He’s the first to pat me on the back and remind of the successes I’ve had. He punches my demon in the face a lot. He reminds me that the goal is to do things a little bit better than yesterday. That’s our definition of success. Apparently I have to be reminded of it in almost every call.

It’s funny, because we act as sounding boards for what seem like wild-hared ideas that turn out to be gold. We pick each other up, and dust each other off. And we provide a person to vent to who isn’t impacted by what we do. At least not directly. It’s ironic that we can see each other’s situations so clearly, but are blinded to our own. Apparently 5,000 miles of separation makes that easy to do.

So here’s my tip for today:

Find yourself an accountability partner

You might not have to search across an ocean to find somebody. Heck, you might find somebody in your hometown. But think about it. Consider finding somebody who can hold your feet to the fire about what you want to accomplish, but someone who will also remind you of your successes.

Honestly, it could be life-changing!