Trip Up
The eternal optimist in me tends to avoid the negative and at times I must admit that I’d rather bury my head in the sand than face reality.
During COVID I started doing a lot of journaling. It brought clarity and increased focus and purpose for me. I’ve spoken about that in a recent blog (https://www.growwithsigmau.com/blog/Journaling). One of the questions in my High-Performance Journal triggered me when I first saw it.
The question is “A situation that might stress me out or trip me up today could be…” and the next question “And the way my best self would deal with that is…”.
I’ll admit, I didn’t want to answer the question at first. The question itself literally tripped me up! I resisted it because my rationale was to look for the good. If we look for the bad, we tend to find it. While that may be true, when I started answering this question it placed me in a much better position to deal with life’s challenges!
Rather than avoiding what could go wrong, you position yourself in a place of control when you process the emotions ahead of time and in a calm place decide how you will react.
Some of the “trip up” answers for me included…
- The dogs barking while I’m doing a live workshop online
- Having a difficult conversation
- Receiving multiple texts from family members during a crisis
- Having trades people in and out of the house all day pulling me away from my work
- Having someone call in sick when we’re already short-staffed
- Hearing bad news from the doctor
I love that the second part of the journaling prompt is to figure out how your best self would deal with it. You’ll notice that it doesn’t ask, how will you “survive it”, how will you “manage it”. The wording is powerful. How will your BEST SELF respond?
There’s something therapeutic about writing it out and figuring out your response in advance. I want to challenge you today to do the same. Is this a question you would typically ask yourself? If not, give it a try this week. What comes up for you? Did you find it helpful? Was it easier to deal with life’s challenges?
As always, would love to hear your feedback, comments, and ideas below!
