Coulda, shoulda, woulda
Are you trapped by your list of what you ‘should’ be doing? Are you finding that you’re living in the future with a large list, instead of enjoying this moment, right here and right now?
Hmmm, sounds familiar. The list. Or maybe your list is like mine – the never-ending or bottomless list, where one thing comes off the top and three things get added to the bottom! And really, when I look at it objectively, that’s not a list, it sounds like torture to me. Unless the never-ending list is full of exciting things that are fun to do, which often isn’t what lists are for. Lists are for ‘tasks’ or ‘jobs’ that need to be done as I think we have a tendency to remember the ‘fun’ stuff, which usually goes on the calendar, rather than the torture list.
Sometimes I find that we’re so confined and restricted by what we ‘should’ be doing that we forget to see what we ‘could’ be doing, and possibly, miss a golden opportunity … or any opportunity for that matter. (Now that’s a point to ponder – would you rather have an opportunity or a golden opportunity? Let’s save that conversation for another day …).
Getting to the end of your day and thinking I could have done this and should have done that without reviewing what you actually did achieve, can become a great way to leverage yourself into feeling down and out. You focus on what still needs to be done on the list, and whether you can fit it in tomorrow. Instead, you could remember to think about all of the great things that did happen today.
It’s as simple as putting on a pair of glasses. You know how your sunglasses make the world look a different colour? Or for those of us who wear prescription glasses the world can look pretty fuzzy without them right? By changing your glasses you change what you see. By changing what you see you can easily change your thinking. So – look for your achievements.
Like today for instance. Our freezer decided to go on the blink yesterday, and today, despite hubby-who-can-fix-anything making a few adjustments, the frozen supplies were a little softer today than yesterday. So, off to the neighbours (who just so happen to have a spare freezer in their carport – can you believe it??), and then into town to secure a new freezer. Yes – we could wait for the repair man to sort the old one, however it’s an old freezer and we were concerned that it’s reliability may be in question, so a new one it is. Now … tonight I can bemoan the fact that I lost 2-3 hours of the day today and spent money that we didn’t have on a freezer (on 12-month interest-free terms) AND … I didn’t get this and that and the other thing done because of …. Not so helpful and could have me feeling pretty bad this evening. Or I could change my glasses and look at things differently …
My rose-coloured glasses allow me to see that we have a new functional freezer that will provide endless instant worry-free meals while I’m working from home over winter. I’m rapt that our Q-Card has heaps of capacity to absorb the cost of a new freezer interest-free over the next 12 months and I’m grateful that we have income to make the payments. And the work? Well, I got my emails cleared and completed the important, priority work. My work did start later than I’d planned to; however, I’m doing it now, writing my very first blog for my brand new website. And yes, the other tasks that I need to complete will be a little behind schedule. I’m happy to counter this by putting in an hour or two over the next week, in-between other priority tasks, and I know that they will get done.
Yes I should’ve got everything done as I had the time today. I could work late tonight, but at what cost to me personally in relation to my sleep and being refreshed for tomorrow? What would I have done if … (something was different)? Who cares? It wasn’t. What I did do was attend to the now, enjoy the trip into town with hubby, sort out the immediate problem, and the list that could/should have got done will be re-prioritised over the next week. I’m pretty cool with that.
Coulda, shoulda, woulda … change your glasses ‘cos it all depends on how you look at things.
by Barbara Jaques
26 May 2014