Last week I talked about Guided Practice and why it matters; this week I want to address facing struggles & setbacks and how we can be affected by them.
Tuesday night I slit my wrist; well, actually the wine glass I was reaching for broke and slit it! Let me back up and put this all in context for you. In case you didn’t know, my kitchen is being remodeled and everything is being ripped out tomorrow. Needless to say; every cupboard, drawer, nook, and cranny has to be emptied and the contents relocated, a huge undertaking given some of these items have been there for 20 years!
So here I am standing on a step stool reaching into a cupboard above the fridge pulling old wine glasses out and trying to balance everything when one topples over. I try to catch it with my wrist so it doesn’t hit the floor or the other glasses and before you know it, I’m bleeding and glass is flying everywhere. This sent me to urgent care where, for the first time in my life, I got stitches!
This should be no big deal, right? Suck it up buttercup and carry on, which I did, but here is what I noticed…
The injury impacted my ability to do some of my daily Physical Therapy exercises. No big deal, Dr. Mike altered my routine and created a workaround, good to go, right? But no, I'm now facing struggles and setbacks.
But now I:
Didn’t want to do exercises 3x a day, (it hurt a little when I did them)
- Which had me want to overeat to soothe myself
- Which had me not want to track the food I ate
- Which had me say “screw it” and I skipped a workout
This behavior went on for about 3 days before I shifted my behaviors and got back on track.
You see, I realized it’s not what happened (my wrist got cut and I got stitches); it’s that I let facing struggles and setbacks derail me for 3 days. The good news is I course corrected and I’m back on track with the help and support of my Playing to Win Together Team.
Learning comes from facing struggles. It’s not what happens, it's what we do or don’t do with what happened.
There will be lots of disruption in my household for the next 6-8 weeks of the kitchen remodel, and lots of opportunities to let the disruption take me off task. That is where my support systems will kick in big time. Stay tuned!