Last week Brett mentioned that he acknowledged that there is a slim chance that he might not make the move to New Zealand – and this upset some of the readers. I get what he said – he meant that plans aren’t written in stone and we need to be at least slightly open to big and small shifts in our plans.
In my post, A Roudabout Way Home from September 2006, I experienced that in a small way – a supposedly simple trip home became an adventure. We knew what we wanted to do, but how we did it was suddenly up in the air, but because we were clear on what we wanted, things worked out in the end even if we had to be flexible about the plans to get it done.
Read the post then answer the following questions:
- How well do you prioritize under pressure?
- Can you think of a small situation where you had to make a last minute change of plans if you wanted to achieve a goal? How did you react?
- How does your reaction in the small situation relate to how you react to changes and/or detours in your big dreams?
Brett’s Response
1. I find that I can prioritize very well under pressure. I’ve always believed that there isn’t much I can’t handle as long as the sun comes up tomorrow, and I am still alive. I mean, I don’t like it when other folks throw a wrench into my plans, but there is always another way. If it is a situation at work, for example, I just do the old 80/20 thing, and I will say, “well, what would happen if the person responsible for ‘project X’ was hit by a bus? What would we do then? We’d adapt our plans to suit. Nothing is that important.” At home, as long as my family and I are happy, safe and healthy, we can adapt.
2. Your post reminded me of something that happened to me back in the 90’s. Two of my friends and I had driven into Toronto to see a music show, and we had an extra ticket as a fourth had other plans. When we arrived at the venue, there was a simple sign on the door saying the show had been moved to some place in Scarborough. We didn’t really know which way to go to best get there, and as we were walking back to our car, we talked about options. A passerby overheard our conversation, and said, “hey, I know how to get there, but I don’t have a ticket”.
So – we gave him our extra ticket, and he accompanied us to the show. We saw him many other times at other shows, which was kind of neat because we had made a friend.
2b. How did I react? Well, we realized that we might not get to the show on time, and as we were discussing it (before we met that other person), we had decided we could either take a taxi or just go out for beers. It wasn’t really a big deal, because it was just a fun night out.
3. I believe that my reaction in this situation shows me that there is always another way to achieve your bigger dreams. There are always signs. Much like my experience this week, when I met someone much like myself, but older, who had followed a career path much like mine, and is now living in New Zealand. I have no doubt that he encountered many obstacles on his way, but he did it. He got around those obstacles. And I can do it too. I think this was the universe giving me a sign. I am listening to that sign, believe me…
Fear not, faithful readers of Alex’s blog – I am not giving up on my dream of New Zealand! I am working on that move steadily and this week will be completing one more piece of the puzzle.
Crista’s Response
1. How well do you prioritize under pressure?
I was born to prioritize under pressure. There’s nothing like a deadline and a sense of urgency to strip away the nice-to-have, feel-good details that can make a wandering, big-picture mind doddle and look for excuses to procrastinate. A little pressure simply diminishes the shades of detail, creates focus and makes things black and white so I know what to do first and last. I should probably cite the submission of these posts as an example. I’m quite certain I’m always the last one to get them to Alex. I like to allow my thinking to percolate before committing myself to final thinking. What if I have a better thought that comes along? Although I am an under-pressure advocate, there are situations when I’m not my best under pressure and they almost always involve travel and too little sleep (and occasionally too much wine).
2. Can you think of a small situation where you had to make a last minute change of plans if you wanted to achieve a goal?
I am in the midst of my Someday. Yesterday I flew across the country to Victoria, BC to participate in a three-week residency at Royal Roads University. I left my husband at home with my five, eight and 10 year-old children. I will miss my son’s first day of kindergarten and my daughter’s 8th birthday. Yes, I was feeling a little stressed. And not because of the above-mentioned life events I was missing. (My daughter reminded me daily for a month!) Here comes my shallow side… I didn’t know what to pack! So, I decided to pack a little of everything and in doing so, I had a little whisper inside telling me, “You’re packing too much. Your bag will be overweight…” Of course, I ignored that little voice because I really wanted to take all three pairs of boots, my wedge sandals, three pairs of flip flops, running shoes (because the Victoria air might make me want to run), and two pairs of dancing shoes. Add to that some legal textbooks, about three pounds of really cute costume jewellery, four belts, summer clothes, fall clothes and clothes for the transition – I was overweight. Only I didn’t find that out until I got to the airport.
The whole family decided to send me off. The kids were up late and we left for the airport early. Not a good combination. After finally getting through the line-ups, the ticket-counter woman told me my bags were too heavy, one bag couldn’t go, and I would have to pay a $100 surcharge. She suggested I purchase another bag, split up some of the stuff and use the third one as a carry-on, eliminating some of the access in the process. I had less than 30 minutes to find a luggage shop in the airport and make my decisions about what stays and what goes. Huh? I had just spent two weeks debating that same question! (I could have used a professional organizer…)
3. How does your reaction in the small situation relate to how you react to changes and/or detours in your big dreams?
Sometimes a negative reaction in the small situations can cause me to “awfulize” what’s happening in the bigger picture and I lose sight of the small wins I’ve made along the way. At the airport I could have easily gone to a place where my mind was telling me that going back to school was a stupid idea. “Look at all the stress it was causing me and my family! What was I thinking? My whole trip is going to be a disaster…” I try not to go there because if I get too worked up, I KNOW my emotional state gets in the way of my rational thinking. (Check out Daniel Goleman on Emotional Intelligence). In my situation yesterday, I had three kids crying because they were going to miss mom, an exasperated husband who was trying to calm them down, I was already feeling anxious and guilty and everyone was tired. We squabbled for a bit under the pressure and then it was the woman from the ticket counter who snapped us out of it by telling us exactly what we needed to do to remedy the situation (and not pay $100). A little outside perspective was all I needed to get me back on track and focused on living the dream. I was returning to school. Did I really need everything I packed? Priorities became clear: the great accessories came with me, the running clothes went home.
Urbane Lion’s Response
1. How well do you prioritize under pressure?
I tend to be a little lazy by nature. Unless the pressure is turned on, I’ll just take my own sweet time. But when the time comes to take action, I take control of the situation, prioritize the tasks at hand and action them. In fact, the decisions I make under pressure are probably better than the ones I would take if I had the time to think them over. I guess the 20 + years spent in the restaurant business helped me to make quick decisions.
2. Can you think of a small situation where you had to make a last minute change of plans if you wanted to achieve a goal?
I remember taking the boat out to New York City a few years ago. On the way back, LTR #1’s parents were to meet us in Montreal for 1 day. A mechanical failure in one of the locks on the South shore of Montreal caused us a 1 day delay. Although technically the trip to Montreal could be done in one day providing you start early and cruise at full speed until late at night, this was not an option with a young child on board and LTR #1 wouldn’t even consider it. Montreal was 2 days away by boat but only 45 min by car. The boat still needed to be in Montreal the next day. In the end, I asked my mother to drop my brother off on the boat drive the wife and child to a hotel in Montreal. My brother and I then pulled the extra long day cruise into Montreal and not only did we make the rendezvous, we also ended up having a real blast.
3. How does your reaction in the small situation relate to how you react to changes and/or detours in your big dreams?
No matter how carefully you plan ahead, life sometimes has a tendency to throw you a curve ball that you did not expect. You must be ready to momentarily put everything on pause and rethink your options and perhaps re-adjust your course. You must be ready to accept delays and detours in your route to your big dream. Although these are annoying, they are much better then the other option which is quitting!
Sal’s Response
When I am under pressure, I seem to prioritize a little easier and usually have a higher quality outcome from my actions. For instance, I have just started back to school online. In my first class we were to break up into teams and complete a project. Let’s just say the project was due on a Monday at midnight. On Sunday afternoon, we were not able to get in touch with one of our team members, who had only finished half of his part of the project. Not to mention the half that he did do wasn’t up to the standards of the group. Come Monday, two other members of the team stayed up till 11:30PM finishing up his part of the project as well as completing and putting the finishing touches on the entire presentation. Needless to say, we made a perfect score on the project, but had I not taken charge and prioritized the activities that still needed to be finished, we would have had an incomplete report.
I think that is probably the reason I procrastinate so much in all of my bigger dreams. When it seems like time is running out, I panic, flip out, beat my head against a wall a couple of times, then get down to work, figure out what needs to be done, and get at it like there is no tomorrow. This does pose a bigger problem with life dreams and goals. Unlike work where there is a specific deadline for items to be turned in, it seems like almost every life dream can be put off “just a little longer.” With writing, I finally got fed up, had a pity party, invited all of my closest thoughts and feelings, finally got over their incessant ramblings and started a blog that has been going strong for almost a month now.
What I need to do is set specific times and dates when I would like things to get done, and put the same type of deadline pressure as a job, that way I can get the panic out of the way and get on with my life the way it was meant to be.