A bad month financially can be incredibly discouraging, and that can lead to a sense of hopelessness. You may feel like all of your progress will eventually be undone, or that maybe your goals are impossible anyway.

Just as one bad decade of your life doesn’t have to define your entire life, neither does one bad month of expenses. The more you dwell on what happened, the greater you’ll think the setback is. The bigger you think the setback is, the more you’ll be tempted to throw your current year away and start again another time. While there isn’t any magic to starting over at a particular time, it’s always better to start as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the harder it is to get re-started.

If you had a bad month financially, you may be tempted to make a long list of ways that you hope to improve so that it never happens again. You might even want to do some deeper self-reflection on why you slipped up and what your goals mean to you. It’s better not to go down that path. Instead, focus on taking action and getting back on your financial plan as soon as possible.

Why discourage self-reflection? It’s an important part of personal growth, but it works best when you are in a good place financially, not as a way to dig yourself out of discouragement. When you are discouraged, everything feels like a big deal, and any improvements you think of are likely to be impractical or overly ambitious. The best thing to do is clear your mind by getting back on track as quickly as possible. After that, you can think more clearly and decide if you want to make any changes, or simply try again with your current plan.

If you want to get back on track after a bad month financially, here is a plan to follow:

1. Write down your plan for next month. Use whatever system you already have in place, or a new one if you don’t think your old system can work. Either way, don’t spend more than 15-20 minutes on this step at first, because the goal is just to get moving again quickly.

2. Stick your plan somewhere visible. Find a way to make your plan visible so that you will see it every day and be reminded of what you are trying to do. This can be a physical piece of paper or a digital version that you check regularly. Don’t overthink this step. The goal is to put your plan somewhere you’ll see it.

3. Track your progress every day, or at least every few days. The main reason to track your progress is to keep you committed and motivated. Writing down what you’ve done creates a physical or digital record of your success. This will give you extra motivation to not want to break your streak and will keep you focused daily on your goal.

4. Reward yourself along the way for progress. You may think that because you are fixing a wrong you should deprive yourself of rewards to make up for it. That would be a mistake. We’re trying to build healthy lifelong habits, and we need to create positive associations with doing the right thing, not negative associations from feeling deprived.

5. Treat yourself with kindness and respect. The way you think and speak to yourself can have an impact on how you feel. If you call yourself a loser, you’ll internalize that identity. But if you think of yourself as someone on a journey to figure things out, you’ll be more hopeful and optimistic. Speak to yourself the same way you would a close friend or family member you deeply care about.

6. Identify any triggers that got you off track. Now that you’ve initiated a plan to get back on track, you can allow yourself to reflect on what went wrong in the past. Don’t dwell too long on these thoughts, as you don’t want to obsess over your mistake. Identify any patterns you notice: situations or moods that were present when you got off track. Things you need to be more aware of in the future.

7. Take the first small action today as a way of symbolically committing to your plan. The longer you delay this step or any of the steps, the more likely you are to rationalize your way out of action. Instead of thinking you have all day to do this step, put a timer on your phone to go off 30-60 minutes from now, and decide that you’re going to take action before the alarm goes off.