What if it was wonderful?
It's not always doom and gloom in business and life.
Once, in a moment of stress and overwhelm, I read a line that changed the trajectory of my life.
What if it was wonderful?
What if things turned out ok?
What if they turned out better than ok.. what if they turned out wonderfully? Better than you could have ever imagined?
Is it really that much of a stretch for us to think in positives and expect a good, favourable, wonderful result?
Apparently so.
A lot of people (myself included sometimes) just automatically expect the worst.
We expect that a customer will never walk through the (digital or physical) door ever again.
We assume that all of our hard work will go to waste.
We think that we’ll never catch a break.
Why do we default to the worst case scenario?
I had this conversation with a friend of mine recently. She said ‘Helina, I’ve gone and done it, I’ve completely fucked up my life.’
‘You see, I stuffed up at work. I missed a deadline that I didn’t even realise was a deadline, and my supervisor got pissed, and he’s going to tell my boss, and then I’ll probably get fired, and I won’t be able to pay my mortgage, and I’ll lose my house, and then (her partner) will leave me and my parents will disown me because I’m the biggest loser they know and I’ll then die’.
Righto then. 😅
Truth be told though, I’ve gone down the dramatic, hysterical ‘and this is what will ruin me’ spiral many a time before.
That said, I usually like to think of myself as a smart woman who can objectively view a problem from all angles and come to a rational conclusion. (Rational being the key word!)
So why is it that when something goes wrong our calm and rational brains seem to be overrun with a doom and gloom default?
They say that the body doesn’t know the difference between nerves and excitement. Both of these reactions garner a similar physiological response - our hearts beat faster, cortisol starts to surge, adrenaline kicks in and our nervous system starts to mobilise us and prepares to respond to the stimuli.
It is in fact our brains and our emotional minds that determine whether we are nervous or excited. Should we feel doom and gloom or wonderful?
I think you have to be a bloody superhuman to be poised and in an emotional state to default to wonderful all the time. I don’t think it’s impossible, but I think for most of us mere mortals, striving for wonderful and (perhaps more importantly), knowing how to sway our minds toward the wonderful when a situation gets particularly sticky is of the greatest benefit.
While I’m definitely still in the mere mortal camp, here are some things that I like to do when I’m faced with a potential spirally, sticky situation:
I ask myself, what is the absolute worst case scenario here?
Am I really going to lose everything and everyone in my life and be left as a big pile of nothing? Be realistic.
Ok, things haven’t gone according to plan. You’ve missed an important work deadline. You’ve received a customer complaint. You’ve lost out to a competitor. It’s alright.
You are capable. You are resourceful. You are safe.
If push came to shove then I could get another job. Another customer is always going to come through the door. You can go again. It’s never going to be the absolute worst case so just be kind to yourself during this time and start taking small steps in the next, right direction.
I remind myself that nothing is permanent and life goes on.
The best way I know how to pull myself out of a doom and gloom mindset is to look outside of me and into the present.
It could be as simple as looking up from your computer screen and clocking what your colleagues are doing right now. Look out the window and see people walking and cars driving past. Go for a walk down a busy street and notice everybody just getting on with their lives. The world is still ticking on, and the sun will rise tomorrow.
I dream of wonderful.
What would this situation look like if it was wonderful? What is the absolute best case scenario I could hope to have happen as a result of this bad thing that happened?
Could my friend hope that time suddenly reversed and she took note of her deadline? No. But we could imagine this situation as wonderful in that her boss decides it is a non-issue, and that she’s learnt a very valuable lesson in a mistake that she’ll never make again.
I take action.
Trust me on this, when you’re in this sticky, gloomy state, motivation can be fleeting so you need to be disclipined and do the thing(s) that are going to make a difference. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Do the thing now.
I’d love to know where you sit on this.. in your personal experience, which default do you tend to end up on? Do you have any tips or things that you do when life feels a bit less wonderful?
Look after yourself,
Helina x
A few years ago I read "Learned Optimism" by Martin Seligman. I have slowly worked on changing my self-talk deliberately. It has made a huge difference in all situations. Telling myself that this specific activity will go well or that I will enjoy a conversation, reduces the angst and anxiety.
Obviously mistakes still happen and those suck but these events aren't as common as we may believe.
Insightful and oh so incredibly accurate. Reading this I can instantly re-call that feeling, the impending doom and crippling dread rising through my body and up to my throat.
Come to think of it, it's hard to remember when I let my body (or asked it to) focus on the possibility of excitement and whether or not I could let certain scenarios be wonderful.
I will be saving this to refer back to forevermore!