Despite being committed to living a life of success and accomplishing your goals, things don’t always work out as planned. Our minds have the ability to spiral to a dark place quicker than we’d care to admit. That place affects the action we take.

When you’re just not feeling how things are going, it’s easy to give in to bad habits and making decisions that don’t align with where you’d like to go in life. You think you’ll take a day off, then two, and before you know it, the last time you lived a purpose-driven day was months ago.

Time moves quickly, especially when we’re not living in alignment with our future self and personal growth goals. After weeks and months of not doing the work, you realize you’re in a funk. You know you’re not where you want to be and that you need to do something to get out of that dark place. 

Here are four steps you can take to get out of a funk and back on the path to creating success. Here’s how to silence your inner negativity and do what it takes to become your best self. 

1. Commit to making yourself a priority in every decision you make. 

We spiral because we don’t make ourselves a priority in the daily decisions we make. We let others cross our boundaries, stop any self-care routines we’ve established, and think twice before doing what we know is best for us — we put other people’s needs before our own.

To overcome a funk, you need to get back to putting your needs, goals, and decisions first. This means you schedule self-care without thinking about it, setting boundaries and enforcing them, stopping feeling guilty about doing what’s best for you, and spending each day working on the things that bring you joy.

Make yourself a priority in more than words, and you’ll overcome a funk quickly. Your more significant purpose in life is rooted in making sure you do what sets your soul on fire and leads to the consistent growth in your success journey.

“We are our choices.” – J.P. Sartre

2. Set a success routine and focus on implementing it one day at a time. 

Healthy habits and growth-focused routines are essential in creating progress and success in your life. If you wake up each day and try to make it up as you go — you’ll spend your days confused and not accomplishing as much as you could. 

There’s power in building consistency, and a solid daily routine can get you there. You can:

• Schedule your days the night before. 
• Set days for physical movement. 
• Decide how much time each day you’ll devote to learning and personal development. 
• Batch tasks and decide what days you’ll let others have some of your time. 

Once you have a solid routine in place, focus on implementing one day at a time. If you think about the bigger goals and what it will take to accomplish them — you’ll get overwhelmed and put yourself in a place that keeps you stuck in a funk. Take your success journey one step at a time. Make progress your measuring stick for growth. 

3. Invest time and energy into optimizing your body.

It takes a lot of daily energy to do the work that allows you to accomplish your goals. To have enough energy, you’ll need a body that’s working with you — not against you. What you eat and how you move your body will help or hurt your daily journey to create success.

Investing time, resources, and energy to optimize your body will strengthen your mindset and give you the fuel you’ll need to do the work. I won’t tell you what you should eat or how much you should exercise — there is plenty of information about that online. I will tell you that it’s a crucial part of success. 

Become your best by optimizing your body and the way you see yourself. Make it a daily habit to give your body what it needs to operate at a peak level. 

“Either you run the day or the day runs you.” – Jim Rohn

4. Celebrate your progress as you do the work. 

One of the reasons we end up in a funk is because we’re all work and no play. We don’t take time to celebrate our wins and have moments of being “off” from the grind. If you’re always in “super thought leader to the world” mode, you’ll burnout and spiral. 

You have to be your biggest cheerleader. When you accomplish a goal — even a small one — celebrate as if you just won the Olympics. That trains your brain to want more of those wins, and it will give you the fuel to keep doing the work. 

Celebrate and take time off. Schedule days where you chill and enjoy life. Have dedicated off days in which you do fun things. The point of creating freedom is so that you enjoy it. Tap into fun and joy, and you’ll create a habit that motivates you to continue doing the work.

If you’re in a funk, you can overcome it. If you find yourself heading that way, close your browser and starting planning — then, do something fun. Creating success is not easy, but it’s worth it. You are powerful — you have everything you need overcome spirals, strengthen your mindset, and live an extraordinary life.