Are you on the wrong road or the fun road?
They can be the exact same road. :)This weekend I went out to dinner with my parents and their friends. We piled in their car and headed out. My parents have a river property that's almost in the middle of nowhere and we were headed to a restaurant that was about 30 minutes from almost the middle of nowhere.Along the way we saw a detour sign and turned off the road onto a smaller road.At first mostly everyone was frustrated and complaining about the detour. The roads are few and far between and who knew how long it would take to get to the restaurant.But I'm an eternal optimist and I love car drives and adventure. The road was beautiful and my dad got to show me where the rail trail that he rides on is. I was loving every second of the detour.I shared that with the group and slowly the mood of the car turned around. I said, "I would go on this trip on purpose!"Once we changed our perception it became a fun adventure instead of a long, out of the way ride.As part of the detour we even drove our car on the actual bike trail trail, which was so much fun! When will we ever get to do that again?
It's all about perception!You can be on a beautiful windy country road detour and be upset about it; OR you can enjoy the ride. Either way it's the same road and the same amount of time. One is just more enjoyable than the other!As it turns out, we didn't even need to take the detour! We got confused by the sign and turned even though we didn't need to. We took a really long ride for no reason. And we didn't get to go to the restaurant we had planned. We did get to try out a new restaurant that was fabulous. And we got to go on an adventure. I have absolutely no regrets about the ride at all!You can apply this to anything in your life!
- Identify what's stressing, worrying, frustrating or annoying you.
- Can you flip your perception on it so it's more positive? Even if it's something that seems like it has a flip side that couldn't be positive, try to come up with one even if it's just funny.
- Enjoy the ride. You can be unhappy and miserable or your can be happy and think of it as an adventure and it's still the same road (or life!)
You may have every reason to be frustrated or angry or annoyed. I am not trying to undermine that. But you can choose to put whatever positive spin on it that you can!When I'm upset or feeling frustrated or angry, the best way I know how to deal with it is to do something creative!You can get my Intro to Wire Wrapping eCourse for free when you sign up here.