When things don’t go as planned, it’s easy to feel like you’re out of control. But there are ways to bounce back from setbacks. In this series, we’ll show you how to step by step. Welcome to Step 3!

What happens after you successfully reframe your mindset AND reignite the fire within? Is it smooth sailing from there? Does life just begin to fall into place?

Not quite…

Once that fire is going again, you’ll need the tools and habits to help it stay lit🔥.

Re-Establishing Routines and systems that support your ambitions is the natural next step in this process.

We can have the best of intentions, but if our environment, habits, and systems are all out of whack, we have no chance of getting back on track.

That said…

The third step (I took) in the 4R’s to Bouncing Back From a Setback:

I re-established my rebel routines! (and made them NON-negotiable)

What does that mean exactly?

It means what you think it means. It means I had to be like Stella and get my gotdamn groove back (if you don’t get that reference, I’m not sure we can be friends 😅). That “groove” was abandoned along with my ambitions and I knew it was time to reclaim it.

When I think about how I did that, I realized there were 3 key elements for re-establishing my routines (in fact, I teach them to my clients inside of the CONQUER Your Chaos Crash Course):

1. Master Your Mornings
2. Elevate Your Evenings
3. C.R.U.S.H. Your Days

Let me explain:

Part of bouncing back is filling your cup in the morning and starting your days knowing exactly how you plan to move the needle in your life and business. It’s about reclaiming control over the most precious part of your day and setting the tone. Have you ever heard the adage,

“How you start your day is likely how you’ll end it.”

So many things in life, we can’t control. Our mornings are not one of them.

Believe it or not, reclaiming control over your evenings and how you wind down is a key element in bouncing back too. Why? For many reasons. To this day, I’m surprised evening routines aren’t talked about as much as morning routines. When elevating your evenings, you can make time for self-care activities; recover from the stresses of the day; prepare for the following day; evaluate your efforts and if you determine you fell short, resolve to do better tomorrow.

“When you fail to prepare, you plan to fail.”

“…And what about the time in between?” You ask!

Well, you C.R.U.S.H. it! You put systems in place to keep the main thing the main thing (whatever that is for you) and you work that system. This is about being selective with what you choose to put on your docket from day-to-day. This is about ensuring you are prioritizing your needle-moving tasks and getting the RIGHT things done, at the RIGHT time for the RIGHT reasons. The essence of Productivity. Burnout NOT necessary or required.

“Productivity = Getting the RIGHT things done, at the RIGHT time, for the RIGHT reasons, in the RIGHT way for YOU.”

Now, mastering your mornings, elevating your evenings, and C.R.U.S.H.ing your days sounds “simple” enough, but what does it all entail?

I’m so happy you asked.

When I fell off the wagon, I realized I needed to resort back to the routines I had when I was thriving! I immediately thought about the first quarter of 2020 when I had adopted a morning, evening, and daily schedule that made me feel like a million bucks! Seriously, that year, routine-wise, was one of my best years to date! It was so awesome in fact, that I created Module 1 of my CONQUER Your Chaos Crash Course based on those routines and what I learned from that ultra-productive period of my life.

My morning routine was called the G.R.E.A.T. Morning Routine. It’s an acronym that stands for:

Gratitude

Read

Exercise

Activate Boss Mode

Talk to 1 Person Who Brings You Joy.

I friggin love this routine. One thing not reflected in this routine that I had adopted later on was completing my first needle-moving task of the day right after my gratitude and prayer practice, while the world was still sleeping! That hack alone skyrocketed my productivity.

My evening routine was called the E.A.S.Y. Evening Routine. It’s an acronym that stands for:

Evaluate Your Efforts

Abandon the Day’s Ambitions

Serve Yourself on a Silver Platter

Yield to the Moon

It felt good to finally let my evening happen FOR me, not TO me. I felt in control of how I ended my day and that definitely had a huge impact on my quality of sleep. Somewhere in my season of setbacks, I’d lost my zeal for this routine, and when I’d decided enough was enough, it was one of the first things I re-implemented.

My daily routine was called C.R.U.S.H. It may sound a little cheesy, but it was just a representation of how I managed my time in between. This acronym stands for:

Choose 1 to 3 needle-moving tasks and commit!

Remember your WHY (This was helpful on days when I was ready to throw the whole damn business away 😅)

Use your team and tools to expedite shallow tasks

Simplify your systems, processes, and workflows

Have FUN living your life and walking in your purpose (Can’t tell you how many times we forget to do this one simple thing)

This and other productivity practices really helped me follow one course to success. It made sense to re-establish the essence of all these routines that had previously helped me thrive. I’m sharing them with you as inspiration, but you are encouraged to design routines that will match your personality, passions, and purpose. Your routines should excite you and light a fire under your ass. They should keep that flame burning. After all, you worked so hard to reignite it!

I hope reading all these acronyms and frameworks doesn’t overwhelm you. That’s not my intention. The goal here is to get you to understand the importance of reclaiming control over the most precious parts of your day. Plain and simple. How you do that will be unique to you. If you need help customizing your own rebel routines, that’s what the Test Drive is for!

I may be a Productivity Coach and Lifestyle Design Strategist, but

that doesn’t mean I’m immune to seasons of setbacks and chaos. I just have a little experience getting myself and my clients out of those seasons so we’re not unnecessarily prolonging the pain! I’m trying to equip you with the tools to do the same.

Anyway…

So, now that you understand how important it is to re-establish your routines, my question for you is,

“Are you ready to fully embrace this third “R” of the 4R’s to Bouncing Back Framework?”

I’m not going to say that it will be easy to remain consistent with these habits and routines. It won’t! If it was easy, I wouldn’t even have a business. You are not expected, nor is it recommended to do this alone. If you are not in the position to hire a Productivity Coach, then find a reliable accountability partner that will commit to accompanying you on this self-improvement journey. We, humans, thrive off of each other’s energy.

As I’ve stated before, nothing happens overnight, but here are 7 journal prompts you can write about for the next week to re-establish your routines:

1. What does my ideal morning look like according to my current lifestyle, circumstances, and season? (Sit with this for a bit. Answering this question requires a great deal of self-awareness.)
2. What does my ideal evening look like according to my current lifestyle, circumstances, and season? (If you’re not used to thinking about your evenings in this way, think of it as a simple checklist at the end of the night of things that will make your life just a tad bit easier.)
3. What does my ideal day look like according to my current lifestyle, circumstances, and season? (Think about your career and how you wish to show up. What’s your capacity and bandwidth. What kind of systems can you commit to?)
4. Would creating themes for your days help ease the overwhelm a bit?
   (Think about the major life and career projects going on and decide if assigning each project a day will help you focus a little more. This definitely helps me.)
5. Who can you rely on to help you throughout your day? (If you feel there is no one, how can you fix that?)
6. What obstacles or challenges do you think you’ll face by re-establishing routines? (This is a great question to ask yourself so you can then address how you plan to overcome it should the challenge actually arise. I call it a preemptive strike!)
7. Knowing what you know now, how would you design your ideal day from start to finish? (Be detailed with this. Set your intention. Write out your deepest desire for this and pray over it!)

Just add these journal prompts to your daily journaling practice (if you have one) and be honest with yourself.

Please keep in mind, I am just sharing some of the things I did to get through difficult times. I am not a licensed therapist and these tips are for educational purposes only. Consult with a therapist if you need to and remember, you are not alone. Even the best of us experience seasons of sadness and stagnation. It’s what we do to emerge from those seasons that help pave our path back to the center.

If you’re in a season of setbacks right now, check out my previous article “How to Bounce Back From a Setback: Step 2: Reignite the Fire Within”.

Don’t forget to grab your free Re-Establish Your Routines Cheatsheet! Get it here