Restart your goals · Self-compassion after setbacks · Habit reset for women · ⏱ Approx. read time: 14 mins
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Have you ever put something down for a little while, and then the longer you left it alone, the harder it got to pick back up?
I have.
This fall, I stepped away from Better U Plans for almost three months. I didn't post a thing. No blog posts, no updates, nothing. Life needed more of my attention, and I had to give it.
At first, I told myself I'd be back soon. Then more time went by.
When I finally sat down to come back, I thought I'd feel excited. And I did, kind of. But I also felt guilty. I kept thinking about everything I'd missed, all the work waiting on me, and how much catching up I had to do.
So I started planning this big comeback. A fresh content calendar, a new strategy, and a whole list of things I had to finish before I could even say I was back.
I was turning one small first step into a whole event.
Somewhere in the middle of all that planning, I had to ask myself: What am I trying to prove?
I'd already been gone for months. Why would I spend even more time beating myself up about it?
Maybe you know that feeling.
You stopped going to the gym. The journal you used to write in every morning is collecting dust. Or you had a goal you were excited about back in January, and then life got in the way. Now just thinking about going back puts a little knot in your stomach.
You remember how motivated you were and what you said you'd do. And you're probably wondering if you can trust yourself to follow through this time.
Here's what I wish I'd told myself sooner:
You don't have to make up for the time you missed. You just have to decide what you're doing with the time you've got now.
You can't go back and do the workouts you skipped or fill in all those blank journal pages. And trying to will only make coming back feel heavier.
So let's drop that part.
You can begin again without a big announcement or a perfect Monday. Nobody needs a promise that you'll never fall off again. All you need is a place to start, and I'll walk you through what helped me find mine.
What You'll Learn
Why falling off track makes you start doubting yourself
How guilt and shame keep you from starting again
Four ways to get back to a goal without overwhelming yourself
How to make a plan that fits your life today
Books that can help you go easier on yourself
A free resource to help you figure out what you need next
- 01 Why Falling Off Feels So Heavy
- 02 Guilt vs. Shame: Know Which One Is Talking
- 03 Step 1: Stop Waiting for the “Perfect” Restart Date
- 04 Step 2: Shrink the Plan
- 05 Step 3: Start Where You Are, Not Where You Left Off
- 06 Step 4: Give Yourself Grace, Then Track the Comeback
- 07 Books for Starting Over
- 08 Your Next Step: Begin Again Today
Why Falling Off Feels So Heavy
What makes coming back so hard usually has less to do with the goal and more to do with what we start believing about ourselves while we're away.
One missed week turns into a month. Then you look at the calendar and wonder how you let that much time go by.
You start thinking about all the other times you've done this. Pretty soon, a missed workout or an unfinished project is one more reason to tell yourself you never follow through.
That thought can do a lot of damage.
I think we underestimate how fast disappointment turns into self-doubt.
You miss something you meant to do, and instead of looking at what happened, you start questioning what kind of person you are.
Take Michelle, for example.
She started the year with a 5 a.m. workout routine. It felt good, and she was proud of how consistent she'd been. Then, in April, her mom got sick.
Everything shifted after that. Her mom needed her, and the workouts stopped.
Now it's November, and Michelle keeps telling herself she'll start again in January. She wants to exercise, but it's been so long that even thinking about going back feels awkward.
You'd think I'd tell Michelle to pick up right where she left off. I wouldn't.
Her life changed. Why would her routine stay the same?
She might still be able to work out at 5 a.m. Maybe she needs a different time. Ten minutes of walking might be all she can manage right now. She won't know until she stops comparing her life today to the one she had in March.
Your life changing doesn't say anything bad about you.
You might have had to take care of someone. Maybe your kids needed more of you, or work got crazy. Or you were just tired and needed a break.
Whatever happened, you don't have to pretend it didn't affect you. But that season doesn't get to decide what you can do next, either.
You can miss a goal and still be a woman who follows through. Needing a break doesn't mean you stopped caring about your growth.
Guilt vs. Shame: Know Which One Is Talking
Before you make another plan, pay attention to how you're talking to yourself.
Researcher and author Brené Brown explains the difference between guilt and shame. Guilt says, "I did something bad." Shame says, "I am bad."
That sounds like a small difference. It really isn't.
Guilt might sound like, "I stopped journaling." Okay, you can work with that. You can ask why the habit fell off and decide if you want it back.
Shame sounds like, "I'm so inconsistent. I never finish anything."
Now it's not about the journal anymore. It's about you.
And once you believe that, starting again gets harder. You avoid the journal because looking at it reminds you of what you didn't do. Then another week goes by, and you feel even worse.
Maya knows that feeling.
She bought a beautiful journal in January and wrote in it faithfully until March. Then life got busy, and the journal ended up in a drawer.
Every time she sees it, she feels disappointed. All those blank pages feel like a reminder of the habit she couldn't keep up.
But here's what I'd tell Maya: those blank pages aren't keeping score. They're just pages, and she can start writing on the next one.
She can open that journal today and write one sentence, a prayer, or a few thoughts about her day. Nobody's asking her to fill in the missing months. She doesn't need to explain herself to the notebook.
And neither do you.
Please stop making every unfinished goal mean something about who you are. You can admit you stopped doing something without deciding you're a person who never follows through.
The next time that thought shows up, ask yourself:
Am I disappointed about something I did, or am I using it to decide who I am?
Answer it honestly.
You may find out you've been a lot harder on yourself than you needed to be.
A Moment of Grace
There's a verse I go back to when I need to remember that yesterday doesn't get to run today.
Lamentations 3:22–23 reminds us that God's compassions “fail not. They are new every morning" (KJV).
That gives me so much comfort. Every morning, I get another chance to lean on God's grace, make a different choice, and keep going.
I don't believe you have to punish yourself into becoming a better woman. You can own your choices without treating yourself like you've lost your worth.
If faith is part of your life, take a moment to pray and ask God to show you your next step. If you connect with a Higher Power, the Universe, or your own deepest values, give yourself that quiet moment, too.
And if you need words to get started, try these:
"I'm allowed to begin again. I don't have to carry yesterday into everything I do today."
You may not feel a sudden burst of motivation, and that's fine. I don't want you waiting on a feeling before you take a step.
Take the grace. Then let's figure out what comes next.
Step 1: Stop Waiting for the "Perfect" Restart Date
I have a little problem with how we treat Mondays and January 1st.
Somehow those dates became the official starting line for everything we've been putting off. We tell ourselves a new week or a new year will make us feel more ready.
And sometimes a fresh start does feel good. I love a new planner as much as the next woman.
But I also know how easy it is to wait so long for the right moment that we miss the perfectly good ones right in front of us.
Want to start exercising again? Take a walk on Thursday.
If you'd like to read more, open the book tonight.
Trying to get your finances in order? Look at one account today.
You don't have to wait until your life looks more organized to start organizing it.
So here's what I'd like you to do: pick one thing you've been meaning to get back to, and take the smallest step toward it in the next 24 hours.
Michelle could take a 10-minute walk tomorrow morning. She doesn't need new workout clothes or a detailed schedule. And she doesn't even have to decide what the rest of the month looks like.
She just needs to take the walk.
I want her to enjoy it, too, not treat it like a test of whether she's finally disciplined enough.
Your first day back doesn't have to be impressive. It just has to happen.
Step 2: Shrink the Plan
This is where I had to take my own advice.
When I came back to Better U Plans, my first instinct was to make up for lost time. I wanted more blog posts, more Pinterest content, more emails, and a new strategy to get it all moving again.
My calendar looked like it was written by someone who doesn't sleep.
I knew I couldn't keep up that pace, but I kept trying to squeeze everything in anyway. Part of me believed that if I worked hard enough, I could make those three months disappear.
I couldn't.
And you can't get lost time back by wearing yourself out, either.
Eventually, I stopped and asked the question I should have asked from the start:
What can I realistically do with the time and energy I have right now?
That made me look at my real life instead of planning for the person I thought I should be.
So I cut things down. I picked what needed me first. And I gave myself room to ease back in without expecting every day to be productive.
If you're rebuilding a routine, I'd tell you to do the same.
Cut the goal in half. If you planned five workouts a week, start with two or three. If you wanted to read 30 pages a day, try ten. You can always add more later.
Choose one priority. You probably have a few goals waiting on you. Pick the one that matters most right now. The rest can wait.
Decide what counts on a hard day. Maybe you can't do a full workout, but you can stretch for five minutes. There may be no time for a long reading session, but you can read two pages. Have a small version of the habit ready for the days that don't go as planned.
Put the plan where you can see it. Write it in your planner or leave yourself a note. You shouldn't have to hunt for what you said you'd do.
Think about Dani. She runs a small side business and went quiet for most of the summer. When she decided to come back, she tried to post every day, redesign her logo, and launch a new product, all in the same month.
By week three, she was exhausted. She'd made coming back so hard that she started questioning the whole business.
So she cut the plan down to two posts a week and one customer email. That was a pace she could keep up, and her business started moving again.
Dani didn't need a pep talk. Her plan was just too big.
I think that's true for a lot of us. We keep looking for more motivation when what we need is to stop piling so much on ourselves.
Going smaller doesn't mean you gave up on the goal. A lot of the time, it's how you manage to keep going.
If you'd like help organizing your goals and breaking them into smaller steps, the God. Goals. Grind. Goal-Setting Planner helps you map out your priorities across the different areas of your life. It also has space for prayer, reflection, and checking in with yourself.
Step 3: Start Where You Are, Not Where You Left Off
Before you go back to your old routine, think about this:
You may have outgrown it.
Maybe you used to read 30 pages a day, but your evenings look different now. You might have been saving $200 a month, and then your household expenses changed. Or you had a morning routine that worked beautifully before you had another child, changed jobs, or took on more at home.
Why force yourself into a plan that doesn't fit anymore?
I know it's tempting to pick up exactly where you left off. It feels like the fastest way back to normal. But your life didn't stand still while you were away, and your plan shouldn't act like it did.
Before you restart, sit with these questions:
What does my life look like right now?
Think about your schedule, your responsibilities, and your energy. Be real about it. Don't build a routine for a life you're not living.
Does this goal still matter to me?
Some goals are worth going back to. Others belonged to a season that's over. You're allowed to change your mind. You don't have to keep chasing something just because you were excited about it once.
What's one step that makes sense today?
Forget your old routine for a minute. What can you do now? Start there.
I'd much rather see you pick a goal that fits your life today than spend another month trying to force an old routine into it.
And if you can't tell what you need, give yourself a minute to pause before you add one more commitment to your plate.
My free guide, The Full-Cup Reset, walks you through seven types of rest: physical, sensory, creative, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual. Each one comes with a simple reset you can try.
Sometimes you can't get back on track because you're running on empty. You don't have to feel guilty about noticing that.
If your mind feels crowded and you can't decide what deserves your attention, try The Brain Dump Method for Women With Too Much on Their Mind. Get those thoughts out of your head and onto paper. You can sort through them later.
Step 4: Give Yourself Grace, Then Track the Comeback
I want you to give yourself credit for coming back. I also want you to keep showing up.
You need both.
It's easy to get caught up in a perfect streak. You miss one day, feel disappointed, and suddenly the whole routine feels ruined. I've done it. And it's frustrating how fast one missed day turns into five.
So pay attention to something else: how often you come back.
James Clear puts it this way:
"Never miss twice."
— James Clear, Atomic Habits
I like that because it doesn't ask you to be perfect. It just asks you to come back.
You might miss a day. Your child gets sick, work runs long, or you wake up needing another hour of sleep. Life happens. When you can, come back the next day.
Don't let one missed workout talk you out of the whole month.
Here are a few simple ways to keep track:
Mark the days you return. If you miss a day and pick the habit back up the next, give yourself credit for that. It counts.
Keep your tracking simple. A check mark on your calendar is plenty. You don't need a complicated tracker to prove you're making progress.
Look at your week honestly. What worked? What kept getting pushed aside? If you keep missing the same commitment, it might be time to change the commitment.
Jasmine wanted to read her Bible every morning this year. She kept missing days, and every missed morning made her feel guilty about the next one.
So she changed her approach. She quit trying to read every single day and decided she'd just come back whenever she missed.
She started marking each return with a little heart in her planner.
By the end of October, she had more hearts than she expected. Seeing them reminded her that she hadn't given up on something that mattered to her.
I love that.
She stopped counting the mornings she missed and started noticing the ones she came back.
Imagine looking at your calendar and seeing all the times you tried again. The walk you took after a rough week. The book you finally picked back up off the nightstand. The day you sat down and worked on something that mattered to you.
I want you to see those, too.
If you'd like a place to write down what you're learning along the way, the Chapters of Growth Reading Journal gives you space to capture what stands out in the books you read and think about how it shows up in your own life.
It's for the woman who doesn't want to rush through a book. She wants to sit with what she read and use it.
Books for Starting Over
I don't think you need to buy a stack of self-help books every time you decide to make a change. Sometimes we collect advice because reading about growth is easier than doing the uncomfortable part.
But a good book can show you something you hadn't thought about. These three are worth a look, especially if you're dealing with perfectionism, having a hard time staying consistent, or trying to be kinder to yourself.
Atomic Habits by James Clear
If you're trying to rebuild a routine, start here. Clear explains how small habits make it easier to get going. His two-minute rule is especially helpful: make the first version of your habit so small that starting doesn't feel like a fight. Read one page. Stretch for two minutes. Just get yourself in the door.
The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown
If perfectionism keeps telling you that what you did wasn't good enough, pick this one up. Brown talks about the pressure to get everything right and what it looks like to let that go. At the end of the day, try writing down one thing you did well, even if it wasn't perfect.
Self-Compassion by Kristin Neff
If your inner voice has been extra hard on you lately, this book gives you another way to handle the rough moments. Neff shows how being kind to yourself changes the way you respond to setbacks. When you catch yourself picking your progress apart, ask how you'd talk to a friend in the same spot.
Pick one if a title jumps out at you. You don't need to read all three. And please don't turn reading about personal growth into one more thing you feel guilty about.
Your Next Step: Begin Again Today
When I came back to Better U Plans, I had to accept something: my old routine wasn't coming back exactly the way it was.
I could keep thinking about those three months and trying to make up for everything I'd missed. Or I could decide what I wanted to do with the time ahead.
I chose to move forward.
My faith helped me find my footing again. I leaned on God and on the purpose behind this brand. And I kept reminding myself that I didn't need to know how everything would turn out before I took the next step.
That's what I want for you, too.
There are still several weeks left in 2026. You don't have to cram a year's worth of productivity into them. Please don't turn the end of the year into one more deadline to measure yourself against.
But don't spend the rest of the year waiting on January, either.
There's still time to get back to a habit, make progress on a goal, or finally give some attention to something you've been putting off. Pick one thing. Make a plan that fits your life. Give it a little time today.
If you'd like your planning and personal growth tools in one place, The Becoming System brings together the God. Goals. Grind. Planner and the Chapters of Growth Reading Journal. You get space to reflect, organize your goals, and keep track of the steps you're taking.
Before you go, remember this:
You're allowed to be disappointed that you stopped. You're also allowed to be proud that you're starting again.
You can feel both at once.
Maybe you wish you'd kept going, or you're frustrated that you let so much time go by. I get it. But I don't want you spending another month looking backward when there's something you can do today.
So open the journal, or take the walk. Write down the goal, say the prayer, make the call. Whatever your first step is, go do it.
And when you're done, don't rush past it. Give yourself credit. You showed up for something that matters to you.
That's how you start trusting yourself again. You keep one small promise, and then another.
There's still room for good things ahead, sis. I'm glad you're giving yourself another chance.
Grateful you're here,
Themis
Creator of Better U Plans
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"Isn't it nice to think that tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?"
L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
