But How Do I Follow Through?

Once you have your goals written down and you have broken them down into tasks, how do you actually accomplish those tasks? 
What happens when something comes up on your list and you just do not want to do it that day? How do you push through and make yourself follow through?

Honestly, sometimes you don't. Sometimes you fail. And honestly, that is okay. We are never going to be 100% awesome and on task 100% of the time. If we were, we would not need to set goals and we would already be perfect. 
However, we can push through, we can reach higher, and we can be a little bit better through daily practices this year than we were last year. 
Some of the ways I have done this through the years:
* Give yourself a time limit. We can all set a timer and work on something for 5 or 10 minutes. Often, if I can just get started, I find that I just want to finish the project and can stay motivated until it is done. On the times when I really am done at the 10 minute mark, I still did something and am more motivated to try this method next time for something I really do not want to do. This is especially helpful for me on a day I am trying to clean the house - there are endless tasks to do to complete "cleaning the house", but if I set a time for myself to be done, I can generally push hard until that time.
* Give yourself a reward. Some jobs are just not that exciting, but still need to be done. I try and keep at least a few hours of every Friday for things I really want to do. I also give myself rewards of reading, watching a show, playing the piano, lunch with friends or whatever else I want to help motivate me to push through tasks. You can give yourself the reward of surfing the internet for 30 minutes, making a phone call to a friend or family member, taking a 20 minute nap or just doing absolutely nothing. Whatever motivates you, give yourself permission to do it after you push through a task. 
* Give yourself permission to be rewarded throughout the day. Do not save up all your breaks or rewards for the end of the day or you may never have any. * * Give yourself plenty of breaks and rewards in small doses, or save up for a few hours and take a bigger one. Whatever works for you today, may be different tomorrow. Take stock of circumstances that day and see how you can be kind to yourself and still be committed to the goals and tasks you wanted to focus on. 

Even our craziest "everything-went-to-pot" days do not have to be ones where we throw our hands up and give up. On those abnormal days, take a few minutes to move things off your plate, even if it is mentally and give yourself permission to only say a prayer and brush your teeth. When we mentally check off things that we cannot get to, we give ourselves permission to push tasks and goals onto other days. Without mentally telling ourselves this is the plan, we can often still feel like failures for not following through with ourselves, "again". 

My second baby was hard. He cried and screamed nearly all day, every day unless he was sleeping. And until he was 3. What saved me during this time was mentally deciding that my task list was complete if I changed my clothes (I often showered at night once my husband was home), brushed my teeth, said a prayer (usually in the shower or while holding my baby), and bounced my baby on an exercise ball, which helped his stomach not hurt so much. My toddler and I watched a lot of Super Why and Word Girl while I bounced and I felt accomplished if we all ate. Mentally deciding that was my task list for the day helped me feel like I had something to shoot for, but it was completely within the realm of possibility. 
Sometimes life is like this time of my life: every little thing seems hard and stressful and maybe pointless to have any goals or tasks. However, when we can look at a day and adjust our expectations, we can find just as much excitement for our lives to bounce on a ball in a clean shirt as we can for getting all our errands done, reading to our children, serving a neighbor, and exercising. It is not so much about what we are striving for, but that we have something to strive for. 
Push through on the little things, even just one thing today, and find the difference it makes in your life to have followed through with yourself on something important to you.