I’ve been talking with a lot of clients (and myself!) lately about the crazy we can expect. The kind of chaos or the patterns of unrest that are just that – patterns. There is a tendency to want to throw our hands up, forget the great plans we had for ourselves, and just give in to the madness when this happens. Decide we’ll just recover later.
I totally get that, still do it at times, and want to be on to myself about two things:
- It’s a choice to throw in the towel
- Most craziness is predictable
Let’s dive in here…
Think about the last time you decided to “just go with the flow” or “worry about it later.” I want you to find the moment where you went from committed to your plans and “on-track” to “F*#% it.” (or however you word it…)
There was a moment in there where you decided! That’s the choice. The moment you believe the thought that getting off your well laid plan is the better idea and go with it, right there, that’s the choice point.
So, yes, “life happens” but you’re still in there at every turn getting to decide. Good news, right?!
The next one I love, and I think will offer you a little more relief (that one above, admittedly, can be harder to pin point on your own).
We’ll use my client, I’ll call her Steph, to illustrate this one. Steph is a busy physical therapist who works long busy days at her job and was constantly wondering when she’d be able to eat her lunch, then when she’d get off to eat her dinner. She was hungry all the time and felt constantly anxious about this part of it. She had a “crazy schedule” that was unpredictable and she was sure she couldn’t plan her eating in a way that she could stick to.
We figured out though, that she eats lunch between 12:00 and 1:30 each day and dinner no later than 7:30. No matter how late she works she can always do both those things. All of the sudden the “crazy” was predictable – she could see the pattern in the chaos and make a plan.
So she made her way of eating include those time windows and she could move forward knowing that she knows exactly how it’s going to happen.
Nothing changed except how she was thinking about it all. She had been thinking it was crazy, now she thinks it’s predictable – and she feels more freedom!
So, think about a “crazy” thing that you’re dealing with each day or each week. Walk your self through it and find each point within it that’s actually predictable and see if you can look at it in a new way.
Is there freedom in there after all?
Caryn