What To Do When Things Suddenly Go Wrong
3 steps for maintaining your sanity and moving forward
My alarm went off at 5:24 am. I was up and ready to do the thing. I had invited people to watch me write on Zoom as an accountability tactic. I was excited about the idea. But, life had a different idea.
See, my lovely husband decided to update my computer software while I slept…which rendered Zoom completely unusable. I’m not tech-savvy at all. I fretted, I panicked. People will be there waiting for me and they will think I bailed but I didn’t! I grabbed my sleeping husband’s computer. Help!
Finally, I got on the Zoom. 12 minutes late. The only person still there was my loyal and supportive mom. Complete abject failure. And then, what to do? Send an email to all of my newsletter subscribers that I didn’t actually bail (and risk annoying them and bearing the brunt of the inevitable unsubscribes)? How would I get to the folks joining from other platforms? Was anybody going to join in the first place?
I was so annoyed. How had my technology failed again? How had I failed again?
See, what I do know is this: I can only change the things I can change. Worrying about what I can’t change is a waste of my energy. So, what can I change in this situation?
I can choose to stay my course.
One of my favorite parts of the Pixar movie A Bug’s Life is at the very beginning when a leaf falls in the middle of the line of ants while they’re carrying food. The ant directly behind the fallen leaf freaks the f*ck out because now that his route is obstructed, he thinks there’s nowhere to go.
As rational humans, we think these neurotic ants are so cute. Just go around the leaf, silly creature, we think. But, when the equivalent of a leaf falls in our lives, we often freak out just as much as the ant. So, here are three things you can do if something suddenly goes wrong in your life.
Reassess
Remember the stop, drop, and roll thing from grade school? (If not, that’s what you should do if you happen to accidentally catch your body on fire). Well, that’s exactly what you should do when something goes wrong. First, stop spiraling. If you run around and freak out, you’ll end up pretty charred.
So, stop and take a moment to reassess your situation. Remind yourself of your main goal. If you’re the ant in A Bug’s Life, your simple goal is to get your piece of food to the pile at the end of the rock. A leaf that has fallen in front of you should only be a small deterrent.
My main goal happens to be to become one of the most-read self-improvement writers in the world — one who inspires and educates as many people as possible on a daily basis. Any current drama that is going on has very little to nothing to do with that main goal.
Redirect
Second, once you have taken the time to stop and reassess the situation, it’s time to drop into redirecting yourself toward your main goal (again). What is the next possible course of action that you can actively take to regain control of your current circumstances? Pretend you’re Waze and you’ve just encountered a lot of traffic. Recalculating.
No matter what has happened, there is inevitably an alternative route toward your desired destination. You just may have to look around for a while. Drop into the knowledge of what you want and find a way around the dumpster fire that you may currently be in. Life goes on and you should too. Plot your new course for success. You never know. It might be a more direct route than the one you were on in the first place.
Resume
Now that you have an alternative pathway toward putting your proverbial ant food on the rock, keep on rolling. So many of us use obstacles as an excuse to pause our paths toward our goals. Sure, any kind of setback or surprise event could stall your journey, but you don’t want to stall your journey even more by not getting going right away.
Readjust your aim and resume your journey.
Unexpected obstacles come up in everyone’s life. Leaves fall on your pathway toward your goals — it’s inevitable. Don’t be the person who freaks out and runs around fanning the flames of whatever drama has transpired. If you take the time to stop and reassess your situation, drop into an alternative path toward your goals, and resume rolling on toward success, nothing can stop you.
We all have things in our lives that suddenly go wrong. It’s the way we handle them that makes all the difference.
So, no. This morning didn’t go as planned. And maybe some people showed up and think I’m not a person of my word. But, I can’t fix that. What I can do is reassess, redirect, and resume.
So, here’s the link. I’ll be there every weekday morning at 6 am. Unless I have technical issues.
Namast-slay.
