Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 551 of The Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Im happy to be with you, I hope you are living life to the fullest! I hope you are finding adventure wherever you are. Eric, my husband and I have been in so much adventure lately!
If you’ve been listening a while then you may remember the glamping experience I shared in Episode 501. We LOVED the overall adventure but something terrifying happened in the middle of the night, do we swear off glamping forever or do we get back out there and try it again? Eric and I were determined to get back on the glamping horse even though the terrifying event I talked about in 501 was fresh in our mind!
We didn’t let it hold us back. The only question in our mind was which glamping location we would try next! We decided on a hiking adventure to Moab, Utah. Eric has had Moab on his bucket list for a long time and I love anything that has to do with Nature. So Moab was exactly what we needed. It was a magical place with red rock cliffs, starry skies for as far as you can see, and this adventurous vibe that made us feel so alive. We hiked Arches National Park and mountain biked to Dead Horse point in Canyon Lands Park, We went canyoneering at Morning Glory Arch where we repelled off a 125’ cliff and another 100’ cliff, which was exhilarating! We loved every minute of it, and YES, we stayed again in the glamping tents! We had to prove to ourselves that one bad moment does not mean that the entire experience was awful. I mean these tents are the perfect combination of Rustic and luxury. You have hot showers, big, plush cozy beds and views that make you forget the outside world exists. I am also happy to report that we had no terrifying moments, except the morning we accidentally walked into someone else’s tent by mistake, thinking it was ours. I don’t think anyone was in there but we didn’t get a chance to find out, I was in first and quickly backed out whispering loudly to Eric “Wrong tent, wrong tent”, we were out of there so fast. I don’t think they were in there or they would have certainly been alarmed because it’s wide open, not a lot of places to hide. That wasn’t really scary just a little embarrassing. So overall our redo was a smashing success.
So many times when we have a bad moment, we allow that bad moment to define the experience all together. We have a rough day at work or a parenting fail or even an argument with a friend and we let it define the whole story. Sometimes, it’s good to just kind of zoom out and rewrite the narrative. As I’ve talked about before, Our brains are wired to focus on the bad stuff, it’s called negativity bias. Think of all that fun stuff we would have missed out on if we had let our one bad moment in the Smokey Mountains months ago define the whole glamping experience for us. We do this all the time though in real life, one bad meeting ruins our entire day, one argument makes you question an entire relationship, one mistake makes you feel like a complete failure! I’ve had moments in my design career where I thought “You’re losing your touch” when really it was one little detail that I will never miss again. Or how about having an argument with your spouse which spirals into you thinking the relationship is doomed. But one fight isn’t the whole story. A day or two before we left for our recent hiking trip, Eric and I were both trying to get things done before we left for a week, so we were stressed and we had an argument over something so silly and then two days later we are having the best time together hiking to see the Delicate arch at sunrise. That one argument didn’t tell the whole story. Zooming out you see two people that love each other and have a lot of fun together but they have a lot on their plates trying to get out of town and are a little on edge because of it. At one point, I was so frustrated and so was he to the point where I asked him “Do you even want to go on this trip with me?” I was obviously being very silly, fortunately he said yes, though. And we had such a great time, we never even thought about that fight. Zooming out and looking at the big picture is such a good idea. I mean with the glamping, the terrifying moment we had in the middle of the night from Episode 501, had we only focused on that, we would have disregarded the beautiful fires we had at night or the crazy straight up the mountain hike we took with beautiful views and waterfalls. It would have had us going to do our regular safe beach trip instead of trying out another glamping location.
We can use that zooming out technique for our day to day as well. When a bad moment happens, step back and put it in context. Ask yourself: “Is this one moment the whole story, or is it just a blip?” It’s good to check in and see if this one moment matters in the big picture.
Here’s the deal, Life is gonna throw bad moments at you. A rough day at work, a parenting mishap, a fight with your partner, or even a straight up embarrassing mistake like walking into the wrong tent. But these moments? They’re not the whole story. They’re just a moment in time. And you get to decide how the story goes from there. Is it going to stop you or motivate you to keep going or maybe even let it help you be better? After Eric and I had that argument, we both agreed that we can be pretty stubborn and that one of has to call us both out when we are being stubborn and staying mad when we know we are going to get over it, why waste all that time being mad? That’s something we can do better.
My challenge to you is this. Pause and zoom out. Put the moment in context. Does it tell the whole story or is it a small part of a bigger picture? More than likely it’s a small moment in a bigger picture so what could it be teaching you? What could it be showing you? What good could possibly come from it? And finally Decide how you want the story to continue. WIll this one bad moment stop you, or will it push you to keep going, try again, maybe even do better in away?
You’re having a bad moment, you’re not having a bad life. Zooming other allows you to see that. Perspective is a crazy thing, isn’t it? Share this with 3 people who are part of your bigger picture. I love you guys, I’ll talk to you in a few days1
