I’m sure you know the feeling. You’re about to work on a task or project when a crisis hits you out of the clear blue. It might be work-related or it might be something personal like what happened to me last week. Just as I was about to commence work on an important project, the water heater in our house started leaking profusely. How did I respond? Truthfully, I descended into full-blown anger and frustration. I went into that all-too-familiar rant that begins with, “Why does this stuff always happen to me?!” Been there?
Now, in reality, there isn’t anyone who is so self-controlled that they will never explode into one of these tirades, at least momentarily. That’s just part of the human condition. But the operative word here is momentarily. When the unexpected happens, do you have a process with which to respond? The best thinkers do. It’s called a ritual.
There are all kinds of rituals. Dictionary.com defines a ritual as any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner. This practice or pattern of behavior can be something physical such as washing your hands or taking a shower. Really! There is scientific evidence that supports this. These simple acts enable you to alter your mindset. Of course, if you’re at work you probably won’t be able to jump in the shower.
But if you watch the best thinkers around you, you’ll discover that they do have a ritual they use to deflect the feelings of crisis when the unexpected stuff happens. They might say, “I’m going to grab a coffee. Then we can think this through.” Or they might look for the humor in the situation by saying something like, “Well, this will be interesting.” It’s not very obvious most of time, but you’ll see it if you look for it. Once again this enables them to alter their mindset instantaneously.
Another ritual might be a mantra. As I have written about before, I have trained myself to begin repeating, “I love an adventure. I love an adventure,” when I am unexpectedly lost in a foreign country, where I don’t speak the language, the sun is setting and my cell phone is dead. Of course I apply this mantra to all kinds of other situations as well.
One of my rituals is listing options. Let me explain. When the water heater went kaput, I went into the rant I described above, but only for about 15 seconds. Then I started thinking about options. After I shut down the water heater and mopped up the mess, I sat down with a pencil and paper and began to list the options that came to mind. Option #1, call the first plumber I can find and get him out here to save me. Option #2, search on YouTube for videos on how to diagnose and fix a leaky water heater. Option #3, purchase a new water heater and have it installed. Option #4, purchase a new water heater and install it myself. (I’m pretty mechanical.)
In the end, I chose options two and four. After watching a few videos, I determined that my 14-year-old water heater had probably bitten the dust. But those videos also showed me how to install a new one. So I bought one and did it myself, saving several hundred dollars.
The unexpected, especially if it is unpleasant, can create a sense of overwhelm in you almost immediately. If you have to deal with several in a short period of time, they can even create feelings of burnout. But using a ritual to alter your mindset will relieve most of that stress almost immediately. What’s a ritual you can develop and implement that will help you manage the unexpected issues we all confront sometimes? Let me know in the comments below.