Plan your bipolar disorder goals….

Nobody plans to fail, but plenty of people fail to plan.

“Plan” is the leading self-help advice from athletes, business moguls and everyday people who have achieved extraordinary goals.

I think I’ve tried to create a plan for my day almost every day of my life for the past seven years. I’ve found it helps me function when I’m having mood swings. Of course, this is harder if you’re experiencing mania or psychosis, but it does work exceptionally well with bipolar depression, anxiety, ADHD symptoms and OCD symptoms. In fact, if it’s mild mania (hypomania) and bipolar psychosis like I get, it works then too!

If I’m having trouble getting to sleep at night- I go over my plan for the next day in my head. It’s calming.  If you don’t have anything planned and it’s upsetting to you, just click on the Get it Done When You’re Depressed tab to the right. There are a lot of tips on how to create plans that work on even the toughest day.

If I know the depression is lurking, I always plan for something around three or four in the afternoon. That helps me stay focsued until then. I can have someone drop me off at work so I have to stay and follow my plan. I also write out my plan and then time the things I need to get done- this helps me see if my list is realistic. Oh yes, there are days when very little gets done, but those days happen less and less.

I started writing books in 2002- I was 38. I got a late start becuase I didn’t have enough control over bipolar disorder and I didn’t have enough help treating bipolar disorder. Getting clear on my goal  of finding stability so that I could work and have stable relationships and then creating a plan for the goal has been HARD. But I keep going. It’s an everyday process.  Where are you on the road to reaching goals- in fact, where are you on the road of knowing your goals?  That can be a tough one as well. But I promise- as someone in 1998 who was very overweight from meds, couldn’t work and  had trouble just getting out of bed, I can assure you that having a plan can make things a lot better.

julie