Sometimes in life you get a little off track, and that’s normal.

The past month for me has been one of those times. In the months of February, March and April this year I was incredibly focused. I had new business opportunities, I was training for a speech contest, and I was on track with my gym routine.

At the end of April, I competed in a speech contest and placed second. With that result, my contest season was over for the year. Even though the result wasn’t what I wanted, I felt proud of my efforts.

Yet, as soon as the contest was over, my focus dissolved. An inner voice started to tell me to chill out, and take a break.

The next few weeks of May I had family visiting from Australia, and some fun times traveling with them to Vegas. After a few weeks of being together, I had completely lost my fitness routine, and had gotten off track with most of my writing and business goals.

Now don’t get me wrong: I am not blaming my family for losing my focus. After an intense few months, I needed a little break. But as the month of May went on, I started to let my family visiting be my excuse as to why I wasn’t on track. Which was total B.S. The truth is I got lazy and my family being in town was a good way to hide that fact.

As June started approaching, I could feel the effects of a month of no focus. I had gained weight, I had let my writing decline, and I’d done hardly any speeches.

Then last night, I heard an inner voice jeering me: “Get your shit together.”

The voice was from the person I want to be yelling at me to start behaving properly on the outside. Not in a self-loathing way, more in an army drill sergeant sort of a way.

And it was just what I needed.

For some reason, the harshness of the internal voice was motivating. Usually I am supportive and encouraging to myself. But the nice approach wasn’t enough this time. I needed a kick in the ass.

Sometimes in life you get a little off track. And that’s ok. But if you let your loss of momentum become a barrier, it starts to wear you down. It gets harder to get back on track.

Sometimes you need to get a little angry at yourself. You need to see the reality of your situation and admit it’s not good enough.

So, with the start of June, I am creating a new mantra: GYST. Get your shit together.
Here’s my plan for the month of June. A list of measurable actions that will help me get back into momentum and create the results that I want:

– 20 workouts at the gym

– 20 written blog articles between midsonshort.com and emerging speaker
– 2 audio podcasts on my soundcloud

- Submit my US citizenship application

- Get new business cards printed

– Weekly GYST video update on my facebook and youtube pages



I also have three new speeches booked this month at events, so I am going to aim to deliver huge value at each one.

This is a different type of blog than I’ve written in the past. I am sharing it both to keep myself accountable and also to show that I have times where I don’t have my life together, that I get lazy and make excuses.

I think it’s important to be honest about the struggles as well as the successes. As I keep myself on track this month with my new mantra, I encourage you to do the same.

Get your shit together.
You’ll thank yourself later.