4 Tips For When Life Goes Unplanned
I’m going to give you my 4 tips for when life goes unplanned. Then I’ll show you how I’ve used at least one of those tips in different situations this week.
Talk about things not going as planned!! I’m going to give you my 4 tips for when life goes unplanned. Then I’ll show you how I’ve used at least one of those tips in different situations this week. So many things just did not go as planned.
Remember You Can Only Control So Much
Do you remember me mentioning that I have control issues? Well, I do. Haha! One thing that happens when I can’t control something is I can lose it, mentally.
So I have been trying my hardest to try to let go of my control. One thing my therapist has mentioned, many times, “Is anyone going to die?” To which I respond, “nope”.
She then nicely says, “Then you don’t need to worry about it” or “Then let the control go”. Or some thing along those lines. Along the way that little question has hoped up in my head when I’m facing with control struggles.
If no one is going to die, then I have to let it go.
My 3 year old is still awake and calling for me (seriously, she is right now!). It’s an hour past her bedtime. I’ve laid her down many times. She is not going to die in her room. (I may die a little by letting her go to sleep on her own…)
I have to let go of trying to control her to be quiet and fall asleep right now. It will happen. She will sleep. I will give her the biggest hug in the world in the morning. We will be fine.
Breath
Sometimes the only thing to do is breath. Take long breaths. It will help you tremendously! When something starts to go not as planned I can feel the anxiety rise up. I can feel the stress creep up into my face.
I try to stop and breath. Take 3-10 sloooow breaths. Then think about the situation and make a decision.
Slow Breathing Steps
- Take a long breath in for 3 seconds.
- Hold that breath for 3 seconds.
- Slowly blow out that breath through an open mouth for 3 seconds.
- Repeat 3-10 times
I dare you, give it a try and see how well it will work. 🙂
I just had a mini break of writing and took some breaths. Even with deciding to let go of control my 3 year old calling for me was starting to make me anxious. Breathing helped!
Try to Shake it Off or Distract Yourself
It started to rain as you were getting ready to go for a walk. Or you were about to head out of the house for an afternoon of fun when your kids decided it was time for a huge fight.
Sound familiar? Well, you can let those unplanned things get you down. Or you can shake it off and keep on trucking. Honestly, this is one of the hardest things for me to do.
It can be very hard to just let things be. My best bet is to try to distract myself. So go ahead and change gears.
Soon after I had taken 3 breaths Eddy called. He completely distracted me from my sad 3 year old. It helped and it worked! In the time that we were talking my 3 year old has fallen asleep. Woohoo!
I will go up in a minute to make sure she did in fact fall asleep. I will give her kisses and tell her how much I love her. That makes me feel better about not running to her aid after I had helped her many times.
Make the Most of It
What would I have done if my 3 year old didn’t settle down and distracting myself didn’t work? I would have gone up there to help her.
Even though voices in my head said she will not learn. It pulls at my heart too much. I would have taken her to my room and let her lay in my bed. All of my big kids love to fall asleep in my bed. Then when we go to bed we carry them back to their beds.
In my opinion that is making the most of it. There will be times that you cannot change what is happening. For better or worse you just have to accept it and move it. Because life goes unplanned, all the dang time!
When something less then desirable happens I try to look at the bright side of things. There is no use dwelling on the negative. I find myself saying, “At least….”
“At least we are getting enough rain.” I have said this many times the last few days as it is raining a ton here.
“At least the garage door won’t bang loudly as is smashes into the ground.” I said this last year when our garage door broke and we needed to buy a new one.
I had my post all completed for this week. In fact it was done last week! Woohoo! Due to things out of my control I was not able to post it. I need to wait for someone to send me something.
But guess what?! Life goes unplanned! So this is how I dealt with it…
No one is going to die! I may be irritated but that’s the worst of it. I also had to tell myself it is what it is, shake it off.
If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook then you’ll know that last week we found out that we have termites. AHHHHH! So dang gross! I found myself saying, “At least it is just a small area and there is not major damage.” And, “At least we have our tax return to pay for it.”
Our monthly home organization project was our yard (here and here). We were able to bust out a few things really quickly in the beginning of the month. Then our garbage can filled to the top and we had to wait to do more until garbage day.
Then we needed to order more edging for the backyard. Then we had to wait for the rain to stop, many days. And now we have spent many days cleaning out an unfinished space in the basement and parts in the garage so the termite guys can have access to what they needed.
Now my post schedule is going to be weird and a bit messed up. I have tried to shake it off. I stopped and breathed. Then I thought to myself that no one is going to die. 🙂 Lastly I told myself, “At least we made a huge progress in our garage and my future office.”
When life goes unplanned you can completely let it get a hold of you. Or you can try one (or all) of my tips and move on. Sometimes unplanned things can get the best of us. But, I’m hear to tell you it doesn’t have to be that way.
I’m here to be an example that by using these tips you can get the better of a situation. Now, let me be very honest! I am a work in progress. I will always be. These tips are just that, tips. In order for them to work YOU need to work hard at them.
You will fail, just like I have and will continue to do. But, my friend, you can make steps towards success. They may be giant steps or baby steps. Just as long as you are moving forward at your own speed.
You got this! You can take control (maybe not the best word…) of your life and your mental status. Please tell me what tips I missed. What have you done to help you when life goes unplanned?
