Hello fuzzbutts!

We’re well into February now and I hope you’ve all been able to keep up with your SMART goals! Now would be a great time to check in on your progress and review how you’re doing! If you’re not accomplishing or at least making progress on the things you set out to do, you need to look at the reasons why. Is it your fault? Is it something else? Did somebody else do something? I have good and bad news for you. The bad news is that you’re ultimately responsible for how you end up. The good news is you can fix it! You can fix it by adopting the TAIL principle.

TAIL stands for Taking Accountability In Life. That makes taking on the mindset that you are ultimately the one who is responsible for what you want. If your life isn’t where you want it, you have the power to adjust and choose what to do with it. The pandemic throw off your plans last year which is why you didn’t do anything? Well if you make yourself accountable for your own life, there’s probably all sorts of ways to adapt your plans or pivot into something that would be more productive rather than locking yourself down with nothing to do but catch up on your game library or Netflix queue.

Unfortunately, this mindset isn’t easy. “Well I would study but my roommate makes too much noise! I was going to exercise but I can’t go outside now. I just don’t have time.” are all thoughts that make it easy for us to stop doing anything. You can overcome these issues but you have to find the solutions by sitting down and thinking about it. Solutions like “I’ll wear headphones and listen to something helpful while I study. I’ll look up some indoor exercises just so I can get a workout in. I should look at what I do after work and see if there’s anything I can cut so I can work on my goal.”

This doesn’t just apply to your goals, this applies to everything in life. Are you going to be in charge of how you feel or are you going to let others affect your mood? Something big happens that ruins the goal you were trying to accomplish like an accident or health issue. Are you going to suddenly stagnate or are you going to find a new way to live? Is there more you can do at work to avoid the obvious problems you can see coming down the line?

You’ll notice your life feels much more in control when you increase your responsibility for yourself and become accountable for your actions and how you’re leading your life. Start with small things and you’ll soon find yourself taking ownership of larger things within your control. You can’t control everything outside but you can control how you respond to those things.

Good luck, fuzzbutts!