Life comes at us hard and fast on most days. If you are at all like me, you strive to have an even temper, a balanced outlook, and not let the turkeys get you down. But there are those times, those circumstances, and those people that will simply push every button you have and you’ll find yourself losing your cool, giving up your balance, and well running amok emotionally, possibly even physically and mentally. I’ve got a way to prevent that.
You need to know this is coming from a person who for over twenty years lived a roller coaster existence on many levels. I was denied the diagnosis of bipolar yet could find myself feeling over the top of the world at one moment and knowing a crash would be coming soon after usually precipitated by some outside action or person. In plain English, I allowed my moods to be determined by the people and events around me. I let other people make me a crazy person. I let outside events dictate my reactions, not my actions. It wasn’t pretty, it was downright exhausting for me and those around me.
Today, I have a fresh approach. What I do may just work for you too. When you find yourself about to spin out of control, feeling pushed and pulled by those people and events outside of you, stop. Ask yourself these simple and powerful questions. Will it matter in two weeks? Two months? Two years? My lifetime? The “it” is whatever is about to make you crazy. It could be a client or customer, a vendor or provider who isn’t delivering on time, a bad product, a missed opportunity, a cranky child, a fender bender, a health challenge.
Sometimes the answer is that “it” will matter and you’ll need to step up, but stepping up isn’t blowing up. You will lose all effectiveness if you mistake one for the other. ACTION is the only way forward, not reaction. I know this well, I lived it. In fact, I still live it. Every day I have to make moment by moment choices on how I want to ACT, instead of defaulting to reacting.
I’m not perfect, and you aren’t either. I get it right most of the time, sometimes I slide into that abyss of reaction. You will too, forgive yourself, and climb back out as quickly as possible. Those around you who matter and care will forgive you too because they’ll have the same kind of moments and want your forgiveness for themselves.
When you allow yourself (and it is entirely your choice, so stop making excuses and thinking anyone else is in charge of your life, they aren’t), to be swayed by all manner of outside people and circumstances, you are going to find yourself feeling wiped out, wrung out, and overwrought. It’s a choice, not always an easy one, but definitely always the right one to keep your core self strong and upright like the flag pole that holds up the flag. The flag may wave, may shift, may be straight out in the wind one day and the next hang quietly with nary a breeze, but the flagpole never waivers.
I’d love to read your comments about how you stay the course when all around you is feeling chaotic, crazy, and not what you want. This works for me, I’m betting it will work for you.
