Imagine this scenario:
You’re in a huge bind. Your boss has paid for you to go to a week-long training camp in another state. You’re going through your “To-Do List” when the phone rings. It’s you mother. She’s been struggling with a health issue for months now, but it has suddenly become an acute situation. She needs to get to the hospital right away and she needs you to stay at her apartment while she’s gone. It’s the middle of the winter and she’s worried that her pipes might freeze and destroy her apartment – plus, there’s the dog. He needs to be cared for.
Your mind is racing. You can call an ambulance to get your mom to the hospital. You can call the apartment manager to keep an eye on the pipes. You can call a boarder to take care of the dog, except for a few small problems: The apartment manager is nowhere to be found on most days of the week, and you’d have drive 2 hours to your mom’s to pick up the dog, locate a boarder, hope they have an opening, with luck drop off the dog and then somehow get to the airport on time.
And of course your next thought is, “even if I could accomplish all of that on time, what about my mother? She needs me now, and here I am planning to have her deposited at the hospital for who-knows-what procedures for who-knows-how-long? I’m a terrible child. But I my job depends on my getting to that training camp. What am I going to do??”
It’s the stuff movie scripts are made of – and the situation probably won’t be solved with the orchestra playing “Over the Rainbow” at the end of the day.
I always say that if you can breathe, there’s a solution – so let’s take a deep breath and look at our quickly dwindling set of options.
If this were me, I would probably draw a Rune. It takes but a moment, and can re-direct my focus. A Rune will provide a gap for me to take another perspective on the situation. Problem is, I left my Runes at my girlfriend’s house last week.
My next option would be to call my own personal Internal Wilderness Guide (yes, I have one, too). A quick little touching-base will give me ideas to solve this mess. Except that she’s on vacation and I can’t reach her.
What to do, what to do!!!
When forced into a corner, I do what works every time. It’s not logical on its face, but actually quite reasonable when you stop and think about it.
I shove a little energy around.
So how does one do that? And why does it work? When you don’t know what to do, you must do something differently than you usually do it.
Example #1: Every time your boss calls a meeting, you’re always the first to arrive. The next time a meeting is called, show up on time, but don’t be the first one there.
Example #2: When you argue with your partner, he/she often brings up old business instead of staying on the subject at hand. Next time, push him/her to stay on track.
Example #3: A position is opening up at your job again and you feel you’re ready for the challenge this time. Your normal strategy is to quietly wait for the announcement and hope it’s you. This time, schedule a lunch meeting with the decision maker.
The first example above seems like a waste of time. The second one might invite even more drama, and the third example might not get you the job – but what they ALL do is move you from the present into the future on a different track that you were taking.
You may have heard the adage, “If you keep doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep getting what you got.” So, if you come to the meeting with the group instead of being there first, it might change the boss’s perception of you – or you might wind up engaging in a conversation that helps you in another area. If you challenge your partner to stay on track, you might actually solve the problem at hand and never have to deal with it again in a future argument. And, if you take the decision maker to lunch, you might not get the job, but that person will know you better, think about you more and judge your readiness differently.
Of course, the bigger lesson here is to randomly change your tried and true habits and routines because they will immediately set you on a new path to your future. A path that holds a different story than the one you’re setting up today.
If you always have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, have a poached egg every once in a while. If you always take the same route to work, go a different way for a change. If you go to the gym for spin class 3 times a week, drop into the yoga class every so often. If you’re busy from sun up till sundown, stop for five minutes and write a thank you note to someone who helped you in some small way this week.
These little things will change your trajectory. They open up the possibilities in your life that you’re closing out if you always do things the same way.
And how about that crisis with your mom? Get on the phone and ask her exactly what she needs from you. Call her friends, your siblings, the kennel, the airline, your boss, her doctor and enlist their help to be your allies instead of casting them as other problems to be solved.
And when the dust settles, change the flooring in your kitchen, take your evening glass of wine outside and look at the moon, Google the name of that bird on your office windowsill, dye your hair red, go out to dinner by yourself, let your TiVo fill up, enroll in dance class, learn French, just keep changing up your life every now and then. Shove a little energy around. And regardez la différence!
