Adapt to the Situation

Early this morning, I was driving to work to turn off the fire alarm caused by a faulty smoke detector and I was frustrated. At first, I thought I was frustrated with the alarm or the faulty detector or the fact that I was going to work at 3:00am instead of in bed sleeping, but after some thought, I realized I was frustrated because my routine was thrown into disarray.

As I have written before, I am a huge proponent of routines. I believe they help to get more done, be more creative and just make life a little easier to live. A good routine helps us to do more of the things we often put off. The more we get up to exercise in the morning, the easier it becomes. A routine is a little added motivation to help accomplish what we want to accomplish.

I have to get better at not feeling frustration when my routine is knocked around. Things are always going to happen. It may be a fire alarm in the middle of the night or a flat tire or anything else that can come up and change the direction of my day. Getting frustrated when this happens does no good and won’t change things. I must get better at allowing these swerves to happen without being affected.

Allowing ourselves to roll with the punches will open us up to more experiences and ideas. When we aren’t in our routine and okay with whatever happens, we never know what opportunities will cross our paths. While a routine may help us to get things accomplished, sometimes stepping out of the routine will lead us in a new and exciting direction we never saw coming Other times, it will just be a trip to work for a couple of hours, a little less sleep, a later than usual Friday blog and a change in routine. It’s not always going to be easy or fun, but getting frustrated isn’t going to change anything. When we are open to and accepting of the changes, how much more can we learn, enjoy or do?

What opportunities will we miss if we are blinded by frustration?

"You can avoid having ulcers by adapting to the situation: If you fall in the mud puddle, check your pockets for fish."  

Routines

I like change...when I am controlling the change. I like to shake things up and try new things. This is probably why I was a bit of a nomad when I was younger. New places and new ideas always excite me. I get bored when I have to do the same things over and over and over again, which is why looking at my resume, I have been a bit of a job hopper. I have bounced around trying to find something that sets my soul on fire and I will keep hopping around until I do. Change is interesting. Change keeps things fresh and new and forces you to learn something new.

Even while liking change, I have found I also like routines. These aren't mutually exclusive ideas. We have the ability to make changes in our lives where we want. We also have change forced upon us from outside forces and we can either roll with it or fight against it. For me, I try to embrace this change while keeping a routine for the things I don't want to change. When I fall out of this routine, I have found life to be a little more difficult. I find myself being short with people (including the lovely Leila), becoming frustrated way too easily, having a harder time being positive and just having less fun with life.

These routines are not ways to plan out each and every day, but are the things I do that allow me to remain focused and be me. We all have things we should do for ourselves, exercise, yoga, meditation, write, etc. These are all things that allow us to release energy, both positive and negative, and allow us to be more focused in our daily lives. By building these as part of a routine during the day, we are much more likely to actually do them. This is why I get up earlier than I need to write each day. We often say we don't have enough time to do the things we need to do or want to do, but if we look closely at what we spend time doing, we can find ways to do anything. We just have to build in routines.

From time to time, we are not going to be able to follow our routine. Something is going to happen that isn't going to allow it. This is okay. But, if we start to get lazy and really not follow the routine we have developed, we can start to lose the good that comes from it. This is when I start being short with people and become easily frustrated. I lose focus and I am only able to really get it back when I reestablish my routine and have a release valve for the energy that builds up and causes me to lose my patience. We all need to be able to release this energy in a constructive way and building routines is the best way to do it.

Find Happiness In What You Have Part II

I think yesterday's blog post Find Happiness In What You Have is important enough to discuss a little further.

Happiness brings a lot of good into your life. When you are happy, you take better care of yourself. When you take better care of yourself, you are healthier. When you are healthier, you feel better. When you feel better, it is easier to be happy. It’s a circle that helps to keep producing what you want. The same is true in the inverse. Being unhappy can send you down a spiral of not taking care of yourself, being unhealthy and feeling like shit. When you feel like shit, it is harder to pull yourself up to be happy. 

Every day is not going to be sunshine and rainbows. But, we can choose to start every day as if it is going to be a great day. At first, we have to constantly remind ourselves that the day is going to be great. The more you do this, the easier it will get. This reminder needs to come in whatever form works best for you, framed quotes, a mantra, a picture, a poem. What works for me may not work for you.

We need to build happiness into our morning routine. Find something to do every morning before leaving for work. If you love to read, give yourself an extra 15-30 minutes to read. Try to eat something you love every morning. Make sure you give yourself enough time to not have to rush around frantically. These all sound like simple things, but the more you focus on them, the more you will be surprised at just how easily the little things can change improve your mood.

If you commute to work, find some music you love or an audio book or a podcast or if you like silence, find silence. I was listening to a lot of NPR on my drive to work, but I realized I wasn’t arriving in the mood I wanted. Thinking about it, the NPR program was usually very serious. As much as I enjoyed it, it wasn’t putting me in the mood I needed to do the best work. So, I switched back to listening to music (though I do come back to NPR every now and again). 

We all have the little things that make us smile from time to time, the key is to notice them more often. They will float around in our world, but we are often so busy we don’t see them or we are in a mood that doesn’t allow us to see them. We have to train our mind to notice them more. The happiness we yearn for is closer than we think. 

Right now, think about the things that make you happy. Figure out what little things will make you smile, will make you slow down just enough to bring a little joy in to your world. Search them out, embrace them. Do whatever it is you need to do to bring them in to your life. Then, let these little things show themselves more and more. When we ignore them, it becomes easier to ignore them each day. When we notice them, it becomes easier to notice them. If this was my last day on earth, would I want to spend the day constantly worrying about what the future is going to bring or would I rather live a little more in the moment, smile a little more, laugh a little more and still work on what the future brings?

What To Do With 2012

Well, 2012 is upon us and if you haven't already, it is time to figure out what to do with this year. We can continue along the same way we have lived 2011 (and probably 2010 and 2009), or we can try something new. Even if 2011 was a banner year for you, is there something more, something different, something interesting you can do in 2012?

For me, and I believe for many, there is a list of things waiting to be done. I have physical lists and mental lists of things I have always wanted to do but have not. I want 2012 to be the year I stop procrastinating and start checking things off the list. I know this sounds easy, but there is a reason I haven't checked them off the list yet.

It is often easier to continue doing the same things day in and day out and never push forward to complete things you really want to complete. We have structured our lives in a way that makes accomplishing them very difficult. We have a groove we follow and it is usually easier to keep following this groove than to pop out and change our routine.

I hear a lot of my friends talk about how they don't have the time or the money to do things they want to do. They make resolutions each year to do them and by the end of January, these resolutions have fallen away as they continue in their previous groove. Once you are in your groove, physics works to keep you there. For many of us, the forces acting upon us are the same forces acting upon nature. Just like it was easier for the Colorado river to stay in its groove for years and years, our groove keeps us where we are.

Starting a new routine can be difficult, but once started it becomes easier and easier to follow. Do you want to continue in your current groove or would you like to start a new groove, a new routine to help you accomplish things you haven't been able to accomplish just yet? In 2012, I plan on checking off some of the items on my to-do list. It's going to take work, but if these items have been sitting there for years and haven't disappeared, I think the work will be well worth it.