Unforeseen Circumstances
Blog – Live Life Inspired
UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES
What do you do when something unforeseen happens? How do you react? What happens when you decide to eat healthily and someone brings a delicious birthday cake into the office? How do you react to a flat tyre? Or getting stuck in traffic on the way to an important meeting?
You get your mindset right. What do I mean by this?
Control over
Some things you are going to have some sort of control over e.g when your collegue brings a cake to work and you had made the decision to eat healthily. It is completely in your power to say no to that cake, because you have made a decision ahead of time that cake is not part of your food protocol for that day or week.
Hopefully you have also prepared in advance what would happen if you were confronted with a juicy treat, you could have a packet of dried fruit as a back up if this tends to be a challenge for you. You could remind yourself in the moment as to why you have decided to eat healthy and that you are committed to yourself and your plan.
Go off your schedule
However, you may decide to go off your schedule for something you think is really worth it. For example, an old friend, whom you have not seen for a while, calls you up and invites you to have a coffee with her.
Typically the day she suggests is fully booked in your calendar, but you have decided that instead of going for that walk, you would have coffee with her. Because you value your friendship above going for your walk that day. Or you could decide to invite her along on your walk. You don’t necessarily have to have mind drama around it, just make an informed decision and like why you did it.
Now the things you have no control over are a little more tricky to navigate and our minds tend to make it a life and death situation. You are going to be late for that important meeting! They are going to fire me! They are not going to want to see me later! I am not going to get the client!…..Now when you are stuck in traffic, this is where your mind goes, your primitive brain.
Worst case scenario
Now perhaps, in the worst case scenario this may happen, but you all know it very seldom does. So you call them and tell them you are stuck in traffic and will be there as soon as you can or you reschedule. More than likely they will understand, as every single person has been stuck in traffic at one time or another.
Unforeseen Circumstances
In this scenario, you don’t have control over the traffic, but you do have control over your mind and how you think of things. When you can control your thinking, you will come up with several doable options.
Last week, I was in hospital for the day getting treatment and only left around 7pm. As I was driving out of the hospital parking lot, I realized I had a flat tyre. I drove another 500m or so to the nearest garage so that I could get someone to help change the tyre and put on the spare. Not the smartest move, I realized the next day, as just driving this short distance damaged the tyre and I had to buy a new one! It was a calculated risk though.
It was night time, I had to collect my son from the babysitter and if I waited for assistance, I might still have been there 2 hours later.  Sitting here, thinking back on it, it was a total non event, because I didn’t freak out or fight the situation, I just made a decision and got on with it.
I am not saying there will be situations where you won’t freak out, we all do, we are human. But once you calm down your primitive all-or-nothing brain and think logically, there is always a solution at hand.
Perhaps it may not be the ideal one, but if you ask your brain for a solution, it 100% of the time come up with one that is doable.
A lot of us have such specific outcomes in mind that when something (Unforeseen Circumstances) happens, we just fall apart or spin in confusion, because we are so invested in things going a certain way. Just take a step back and analyse things. You will find that there is always another way or another time that things can be done.
Take it easy and remember if something happens, it was always meant to happen. Why? Because it happened!!!!
Ladies, think purposefully, how would your future self handle this situation?
Till next week.
A
Xxx
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