The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry
I often come up with the best ideas. And I full-steam ahead on the plans, certain that great things will happen.
And often they do.
But not always.
Sometimes things go awry.
Like when my husband and I got married four years ago. We had this grand day planned - an outdoor wedding in my in-laws’ backyard and a reception at this cultural center that was once the town’s first library.
I woke up early the two days before, unable to sleep. So I figured I’d start my work day at 4:30 am. Except my brand new work computer wouldn’t connect to the Internet!
So I pulled out my personal laptop so I could check email and do what work I could access while I waited for our IT team to start their day and be able to troubleshoot my machine.
Around 6:00 am, I got an email from my almost mother-in-law: “It’s supposed to be a washout on Saturday. They’re coming to put the tent up later this morning. What do you want to do?”
Frantic with anxiety, I woke up my fiancé to tell him the situation.
He rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, and asked one question:
”What are our options?”
I stopped and thought for a minute.
“The reception place said we could have the ceremony there as a backup.”
“Great, so who do we need to call?”
Turns out we needed to make four calls: One to the venue to secure the space (which we got for free because the AC wasn’t working on that floor), one to the caterer to add a cocktail hour to our menu, one to the baker to change the time of cake setup, and one to the photographer to adjust the plans.
By 10:30, we had gotten the arrangements adjusted, and two mass emails and a handful of texts got the word out to our guests.
What I could have perceived as an epic disaster turned out to be much better plans than we had originally made.
A fair bit of things have gone awry recently:
Realizing last week’s newsletter didn’t go out to you.
Discovering that not only did I plan yesterday’s family photo session during football season, but also during the exact time my son’s team was playing.
Canceling the 8-week group group program that was supposed to start today.
These were a super bummer. But good did come out of it.
Substack showed last week’s newsletter to a group of new-to-me readers.
(You can find the issue in the archives!)My son got over his annoyance at missing the game, turned off every notification on his phone, disconnected from all things electronic, and was a really great sport. He’ll get to spend the evening watching the game on replay. And from the preview that the photographer has given me, I’m going to love the photos!
I’m replacing my 8-week group journaling program, Better You, Better Business, with a new offering that I think will resonate deeply with many of you. I’m putting the polish on it and will share details soon. (You’ll be the first to know, so keep an eye out for my email this week!)
How do you handle when things don’t turn out the way you plan? Do you sulk? Do you make the best of things?
What’s your secret?
Just two newlywed love-birds who didn’t let it rain on their parade!
Weekly Journal Prompts:
Use these prompts as written or as inspiration to uncover what you need in your life this week.
How do you handle when things don’t turn out the way you plan?
When in your life is it easy for you to be flexible?
Which areas of your life could benefit from being more flexible?
Write about a time when you had to shift your thoughts or plans and things turned out better than you had thought.
What would it take for me to be confident in my decisions when making changes despite not knowing the end result?
One Journaling Idea I Love:
Why?
Why? can be a very powerful clarifying question that we can use to get to the heart of what’s important to us. It’s an especially helpful question to ask after a “what?” question. Here’s an example of how you can use it in your journaling.
Q: What do I want?
A: I want a promotion at work
Q: Why is that important to me?
A: A promotion will come with a significant raise.
Q: Why is that important to me?
A: I want to be able to buy a lake house.
Q: Why is that important to me?
A: I want to bring my kids to the lake for summers because my best friend’s family had a lake house growing up and they had the best time there. They always talked about how fun it was and the memories they made; I want to be able to give my kids the same kinds of experiences.
Q: Why is that important to me?
A: My family members are the most important people in my life and I want to spend as much time with them as possible having fun together.
The big A-HA!: It’s not really the promotion that I want, but the resources and time to make memories with my children.
Taking the time to ask Why? can uncover all kinds of treasures we’ve locked away!
For Your Listening Pleasure
I was on a podcast! I invite you to check out this conversation I had about journaling with Susan M. Barber on The Visibility Factor Podcast. We had a fun time recording this session and Susan is a great conversationalist. I hope you enjoy it!
Happy Journaling!
Great post! And what an adorable wedding picture! :D
Great prompts! I love the why behind the why!