How to stay sane when your day gets derailed
An emergency trip to the vet yesterday. Woke up to a broken well and no water this morning. Cleaning lady comes in t minus three hours (to clean without said water). And no one is packed for our camping trip this weekend. #reallife
Why am I telling you this?
Because despite my best efforts to create a schedule that supports my life as an entrepreneur, things do come up and it doesn’t always go according to plan (no secret there!).
But how you feel about those unexpected hiccups in your day is entirely up to you.
You see, one of the main strategies I use in my signature program, Future You, helps entrepreneurs develop a schedule for what a “normal week” looks like. This helps clear out the mental clutter surrounding what’s on your plate each day, so you’re not constantly wondering where to start, analysis paralysis keeping you from moving forward on anything at all.
However, I often receive initial push back on this scheduling strategy.
“Things change so often around here,” they say, “There’s no way I’ll be able to stick to that plan.”
That’s exactly why we do this mindset work, so that you know how to handle situations when something DOES come up (because it will!) and you have a basis for what normal looks like that you can get back to after that unexpected shift.
You see, without that baseline it’s easy to feel constantly scattered and overwhelmed. That fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants feeling will creep into every aspect of your life. It will become your “normal.”
But it doesn’t have to be that way.
By creating a plan and cultivating the right mindset, over time, you’ll train your brain to know a new baseline — one of focus, organization, and ease. You’ll feel lighter, and more capable of handling what life throws your way.
Today, I’m sharing 3 strategies for how to manage your mind when life doesn’t go according to plan:
Feel that deep gratitude for entrepreneurship.
Now I can practically feel the eye rolls on the other end of this one. She wants me to be grateful when my entire day gets derailed? Yeah, right. But that’s exactly what I’m asking you to do. It’s in the moments that I’m rushing out the door to get my dog to the vet because he just ate the contents of a hand warmer (the kind you use when you go skiing and yes this really did happen) that I feel the most grateful that I have the flexibility to drop everything and take care of him. I don’t have to write an email to my boss first, worry about how much PTO I’m taking, or be concerned about the security of my job. So let’s take a moment and feel pretty damn grateful for that.
Know that this is simply a bump in the road AND don’t make it mean more than that.
When your usual schedule gets interrupted it’s easy to make it mean more about yourself than simply the situation at hand. I’ve had entrepreneurs tell me, “I’m not good at time management,” at the same time they’re caring for a sick kiddo, or “I’m not good with technology,” after everyone’s Squarespace site goes down. When things don’t go your way, it’s easy to adopt a mindset that says the odds are against you. But I encourage you to simply think of these instances as bumps in the road. Your not bad with tech, your website just went down for 20 minutes because of things wayyyyy outside of your control. Be careful of the stories you tell yourself.
Be confident that you can find your way back to a normal schedule.
We’ve all had times when we feel like we can’t catch a break — the universe is throwing us more than we can handle. But in times like these it’s important to cultivate the mindset that this is simply a busy season and you have the skills to find you way back to a normal schedule when the time is right. Remember, things don’t always go according to plan, but knowing what a “normal” week feels like will help you to find your way back there again.
PS — If you liked this post, you might also like my free morning routine guide for entrepreneurs to help you design a morning routine you can stick to for your most positive and productive morning yet. You can download that right here.
Photography by Jennifer Morgan Photography
