When dining out, a friend of mine does something a little unusual. When the waiter comes over to introduce himself, Brian asks, “Are you the very best waiter in this restaurant?” As you would guess, the serving staff almost always answers, “Yes, of course!”
Brian is a clever man, what he is doing here is setting the bar high. He is planting the seed in the personal’s head that they are the very best at what they do. He is subtly challenging them to show him that they are the very best.
You can imagine that Brian manages to stellar service nearly every time he eats out.
Hmmmm. How can we apply this idea to our own lives? Where in your world can you set the bar high, plant the seeds for success and expect the best? Who can you encourage, challenge and invite exceptional performance from?
Expecting the best – it’s just one more way you can live Your Life, Unlimited.
***
This week I had a lot of falls.
1) I spoke at a national nursing conference and instead of taking one of the two sets of stairs on either side of the stage, I decided to hop back onto the stage
in the middle and splat. With the grace of a rhino, I fell. There was a wonderful gasp as 200 + nurses witnessed my daintiness. Interestingly, not one of them got up but we did have the greatest collective laugh. lol.
2) I tried unicycling for the first time and wow… was that ever interesting. I fell a lot during that adventure!
3) Randy (the hub) and I tried something new together and after 33 years together, I fell in love with him all over again.
Some people think falling is a bad thing. I’m not so sure. If I hadn’t fallen on the stage, we would have missed that collective laugh – and it really was fun and funny!
If I hadn’t been willing to fall, I never would have tried a unicycle. And it was a really cool experience.
If we hadn’t been willing to try something new and risk falling, Randy and I wouldn’t have been able to take our relationship to the next level. And there is no price tag on that!
This fall, consider trying something you haven’t tried before or for a long
time… something you aren’t great at… something that is a little risky.
***
What’s driving you crazy this week? Something at home? At work? Something about yourself that is pushing you to the edge this week?
Today here are a few options for dealing with difficult situations.
- You can do nothing and complain about it and let it negatively affect others areas of your life. I don’t recommend this option.
- You can do nothing and accept it. Accept the person, the situation, yourself. You do nothing about the situation, you only change your mindset around the situation. I used the word ‘only’ but this is far from easy – it's just sometimes it’s the best, or only, option.
- You can remove yourself from the situation, the drama, the chaos. You can choose to vote with your feet, walk away, cut your losses, say sianara!
It's not a matter of ‘if’ a difficult situation will happen to you, it’s just a matter of ‘when’. Don’t let them take any more from you than they have to.
***
I passed by a drink machine the other day and the sign said Out of Order. Oh man, that sign resonated with me at that moment. I had felt out of order for the last few days. It was the weekend and we expect them all to be good, ’cause – well it’s the weekend. But not this one. I could tell it wasn’t going to be great when I received a text the hubby sent from work on Friday afternoon…
“l am feeling miserable, save yourself.”
Even with this warning, we had a bad weekend. We were both sick and cranky. And the sicker we got, the more cranky we got and the more cranky we got, the nastier we got. It wasn’t pretty.
By Sunday, we were feeling more human and talked things out. How could we have lessened our pain that weekend, how could we have been more gentle with each other and ourselves?
Here’s what we came up with…
Give time and space – realizing this situation is temporary, not the norm – every day can’t be perfect. Without trying to fix everything, giving each other the time and space needed to recover both physically and emotionally without forcing a ‘fix’.
Move – Although we really just wanted to curl up in a ball and we mostly did, at one point we forced ourselves to go for a long walk in the sunshine and it changed our moods completely around.
Music – We know what soothes us, energizes us, shifts our mood – using music as a tool is therapy for us
Forgive – We all say/do things that we wish we could take back. We have all offended, either intentionally or not, at one time or another. Forgive, embrace the human in each other and let it go.
Debrief – after a tough time, talk about what went well, how you handled things and what you would like to do going forward if/when the situation arises again.
Coming up with a plan that will work for you when you are out of order – it’s just one more way you can live Your Life, Unlimited!
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