Rough day? Time to use your toolkit.
Argh!!!! I have an afternoon stacked with important meetings and I feel totally unprepared to face it!
We have all been there. I am there right now. Life gets busy and focus gets taken by other things. All of a sudden, you find yourself in a panic. So, what am I going to DO?
Remember we’ve been here before
This too shall pass. You have never NOT made it through a day, and do you know what? when used correctly, that experience makes us stronger. Maybe you haven’t experienced this exact scenario before, but you likely have the coping mechanisms already.
Remember your coping toolkit
Those coping mechanisms I mentioned? Think of them as your toolkit. Not every tool in the box is perfect for the job in hand, but either you will have the right one, or one that will do. Hey, maybe you will even identify the need for a new one!
Take a step back
Here I am doing it. In truth, I started this post just as I started to have feelings of anxiety as a placeholder to come back to later. I find blogging helps me make sense of this mad old world of ours. By spending a minute or two starting this, my head went straight into remediation mode.
Assess your resources
Remember the toolkit. it contains many things - things to relax, techniques, knowledge and people (among other things). Now, people often prefer not to be called tools, but sometimes that is what they are. Consider - is there someone who can help you? They may be able to bring their own toolkit with them - your chance to gain new tools!
Plan
You have your resources, what are you going to do with them? With the above, you will be able to gather experiences which provide a blueprint for success. How has this been dealt with before? What was the result? Does it apply here?
In my situation right now, I have used a combination of all of the above. I used starting this blog as a step back. I reminded myself that I’ve got through far worse before. Assessed where help lay and I used my network for help. I was also very honest about where I was and what I was doing. This helped. People can have empathy when they understand. Nobody sets out to fail - make it a learning experience.
ACTION!
Ok - you have relaxed yourself, assessed the situation and you are ready to go - GO!
Learn and improve
You know when you apply for jobs and they require XX years of experience? Well, experience alone is pretty worthless unless you learn from it. Understand what went well, what needs improving and how to reduce mistakes in the future. I have learnt in my guitar making that the experienced luthiers have simply failed more times that I have even tried. And they have learnt how to not make the mistakes, but also how best to recover from them. This is a life skill.
Reward yourself
This is an important one. we all need something to look forward to. For me, right back at step 1, I was reminding myself that once I had made it through the afternoon, I’d be treating myself to a jam session. Again, this helped me to remember that the present moment isn’t permanent. What is stressful now, won’t continue to be so.
We’d love to hear from you… What’s in your toolkit?
Look after your tools and they will look after you.
