Hi ,

I’m the type of person who needs to know what the plan is. Where are we going, what time should we be there, and do we have everything we need kinda gal. The problem is, I need to know this information way in advance, or I feel a bit anxious and uncertain.

It’s a struggle. I’ve been working on trusting the process for a long time now, but it’s still a struggle.

Then there’s the trusting your gut part. My gut will feel anxious and unsure when I don’t know the process and want to have control. And there have been a number of times when my gut told me to take control, and I didn’t and regretted it.

Why am I telling you this? I recently experienced the battle of gut and process, which has taught me a lot. What happened, you ask? Well, I’m going to tell you.

My friend, an NFL star, is having the best year of his 10-year career. It’s been years since I’ve seen him play in person, and he invited me to see him play his last game of the season down in Los Angeles and have dinner with him the night before the game.

This required me to book a flight and hotel for the weekend and trust that with his busy schedule and life, he would secure the tickets for us and make the dinner arrangements. I did everything in my power not to nag him about it and get ALL the details, and trust that it will all fall into place.

I imagined what it would be like to see him again, catch up on life, and let him know how proud I was of his success. You see, we met when I was coaching a leadership training 7 years ago and he was part of the cohort I got to coach. Watching his success has been amazing and I was going to get to tell him that in person.

Well, things didn’t go as I imagined. From my husband getting sick to the tickets not working out as planned and the dinner being canceled after we arrived in Los Angeles. My gut was saying, “I told you so. You should have gotten all the details and triple-confirmed everything before getting on that flight.”

I was sad and disappointed, and when I’m disappointed, I get mad. It’s part of my Relationship Style™.  I was so disappointed that I was going to root for the other team to win, ha, ha. So, now I had a choice to make: stay mad or find a way to still enjoy the experience. I chose the latter, and things worked out better than I had imagined it would.

I reached out and asked for what I needed and wanted to make this trip worthwhile, and I got it. We met up briefly and got to catch up and support each other. It was special. Another dear friend saw that I was in LA, and we made plans to meet up while I was in town. Medicated the husband, and he felt well enough to go to the game and dinner. We got to the airport for our flight home a bit too early, and instead of being disappointed that we had to wait 2 hours without access to a lounge, I noticed an earlier flight was boarding to Oakland, and I asked if we could get on it. We did and were able to get home earlier and have a full day at home.

It's better than planned. Better than my expectations. I felt disappointed and fixed the situation to the best of my ability, and it was a great experience. Best of all, it was a great game in a great stadium, and they won. My friend set a record by having two sacks in that game, bringing his total to 11 for the season. See, I brought them luck! 😉 We had great seats and weather and got some really great photos.

I’m sharing this story with you because at any given point in our lives when we feel sad, anxious, or disappointed, we have a choice in our actions. How we respond can mean the difference between creating magic or ruining the experience.

I struggled for about 3-4 hours before I snapped myself into action and got to working on creative solutions. You will struggle, too. It won’t be easy. If it were easy, everyone would do it, and there would be no need for me to bore you with my story.

My point is that sometimes what we expect isn’t what we need. Some things are blocked because there is something better for us. So, don’t stay in the disappointment. Look at how you can create something even better.

I hope my little story helps you in situations where you’ll need to summon the strength to find a way to make it work.

Hey, wanna find out what your Relationship Style is? Take the assessment here.