Now, where was I before I got interrupted?
May 16th until today. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that more than three months has gone by since my last posting. Was it laziness? Was it complacency? Nah! Life threw me a couple of curve balls and I am glad that I had an appropriate bat to swat back with.
In just a few days, I went from thinking I had the flu - to spending five days in the hospital. Three of them in the cardiac ICU. It wasn’t exactly the May my family and I had planned. What happened? Stress got to me.
It’s amazing! I give people tips on how to remain calm in crisis situations. I conduct workshops and seminars that explain to school executives a process for remaining cool and collected. And yet, I didn’t listen to myself and what happened? Stress got to me.
A lot of people told me that I had every reason to crash out: we were building a new house, we were still trying to sell our old house, the family and I lived in two places for a year and a half, it was a more than exciting year to be in the school PR business, blah, blah, and blah.
Maybe I did have a lot of reasons. But it still pissed me off. I knew better. I am not the type of person who likes losing a battle. As I thought about it, maybe I didn’t lose a battle, I just lost control. But losing control is just the same. Sun Tzu said “if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.” My battle was losing control.
As I spent the last three months getting “back to abnormal”. I have taken the opportunity to reflect and regroup. Reflection has allowed me to review what I need to be focusing on. Regrouping has allowed me to take my reflection and develop a plan for the future. Is my plan perfect? Absolutely not! No plan ever is.
One thing is for sure though. Stress is not going to bring me down again. I am better prepared. Sometimes it takes a few obstacles in your path to see your direction much clearer. I am embracing my obstacles. I’m confronting them. Now I’m moving on. I know my enemy and myself much better. It was easy to find my enemy. All I had to do was look in the mirror.
“Things turn out best for the people who make the best out of the way things turn out”. - Art Linkletter
