In today's world I believe that we place more expectation on ourselves than ever before. We have so many big commitments to keep. The most important ones are for our jobs, our health and our families. (In no particular order).

Many of us have lofty ambitions and really push ourselves to achieve them. These ambitions usually have costs on both our health and families.

If we are high achievers then chances are there will be a level of perfectionism, holding ourselves to a standard of excellence and beating ourselves up if and when we do not meet expectations.

This usually leads to an "all or nothing" approach. Short term this can be excellent, but usually never has the legs to sustain the level of intensity needed long term.

So what do we do when we make a mistake or lose our way?

I want to talk about why making mistakes is part of the process and the importance of having a clean slate policy. I certainly don't intend to encourage this as an "excuse card" whenever we don't stay true to our values or behave in a fashion that is detrimental to others.

I simply want to invite you to use this as a solution for when we make mistakes, when times get tough, or we fail to keep one of our commitments to ourselves/ our families. Think of it as a method of refocusing ourselves and removing guilt.

Guilt can be a heavy by product of being a high achiever and it usually fuels us. The trouble is that we will ,and usually do, end up running on fumes. This affects our performance in many areas of our lives.

Getting in the habit of wiping the slate clean and starting fresh again the next day is a powerful skill to master. It can also be a challenging one too at first for high achievers. It allows us to let go of our mistakes and refocus our energy In a more positive way.

For example, when it comes to nutrition, we have all tried one diet at one time or another. Most of which didn't quite work out as they were probably just too damn hard to stick to. We had a junk food blow out, most likely due to life's increase of demands on us, and then went off our plan for a few days.

Work wise this may include us not finishing a task that we needed to do for an upcoming project. We procrastinated, went out until late and had a poor nights sleep. We continued this cycle for a couple of days and ended up producing second rate work, cutting corners where we could to get the job done.

With the family, we may have missed that day out we promised or took that extra work trip we said we would not go on.

In all of these scenarios we have a great opportunity for a turnaround, by wiping the slate clean and get back on track the next day.

For instance we may bounce back on our nutrition by simply being proactive and preparing our food for the day in advance to make sure we have it available.

For our career/ business we may get up earlier than usual and get to work right away on our biggest priority for the upcoming project.

We may send flowers and toys to the family as an apology for taking the trip and even book a short weekend away with the family in the near future to spend more time together.

By wiping the slate clean we give ourselves the best opportunity to let go of guilt, stop beating ourselves up an get back on track faster than we would have before. This creates a positive spin on what otherwise could be seen as the "same old you" creeping back in.

We can break the pattern of these "old you " habits simply by responding differently and using a "good enough" approach rather than an "all or nothing" approach.

Are there any particular goals or habits that you want to create in your routine? If so then try exploring what it feels like to use a "clean slate" whenever you make a mistake and remember that to get to the top of any mountain, it takes one step at a time to get there.

Yours in health

Patrick Fallis

Founder of Leaner
www.leaner-uk.com