When you’re going through something hard. Keep going.
Hi guys! Welcome to episode 171 of the wildly successful Lifestyle podcast! Back to my regular recording room! It feels good. It’s nice to be away but it always feels good to come back home too.
So, This last week we were heading to Mexico for my little sister’s 30th birthday. The day before we were meant to leave we realized that her husband had a passport issue, meaning it was expired, somehow he had looked at the date wrong. Passport issues are not good when you are trying to leave the country.
My sister discovered it and was heartbroken, it didn’t look like they were going to get to go at least not both of them. He researched quickly how to fix the situation and it wasn’t looking good, he started considering the thought of refunding or rescheduling. Then we realized that the rooms they booked were non refundable so regardless they were going to pay for the trip.
Not a good feeling for them and by extension my heart was breaking for my little sister and her sweet husband and for us because we had all been looking forward to celebrating with her. Knowing that they were not going to get a refund, should she go ahead and go with us anyway? Of course that wasn’t ideal but guess what? It kept the vacation alive because he kept working, kept trying to find a solution. He didn’t give up, which is kind of his nature and hers too. So many would have thrown in the towel. But he didn’t. He found a way to get to the passport control in Chicago, which was a flight away, get an appointment and he got his passport and met us in Mexico only a couple days late.
When you’re going through something hard. Keep going.
The old saying where there’s a will there’s a way really applied here.
During the whole ordeal of trying to figure things out, I thought to myself this is hard. I don’t like these feelings at all. But I let myself feel them. I also knew these are not problems we would be worried about even a week from now. It’s like we told Molly. These are temporary problems. No one’s dying, no one is sick, no ones going to jail. This would pass and be a distant memory regardless of how it turned out.
2 really good lessons here though, he might have quit trying if he could have easily rescheduled the trip so have you exhausted all options? If things are looking dire, imagine you have no other option but for it to work out, have you tried everything you can? Imagine there’s no other way and you have to figure it out, what else can you do? Be resourceful. Are you utilizing all your resources? My brother-in-law got in touch with a good friend who gave him a number to call for advice on what to do. It happened to be a law office in New York who dealt with passport issues. They gave him the number to passport control and told him when they tell you they can’t help you, ask for their supervisor. He called. They told him he could t help him and he asked for the supervisor just line they said and the supervisor came on and basically broke down what exactly he needed to do, I won’t bore you with the details but between him and my husband they made it happen. It was an incredible example of exhausting all options. When you’re going through something hard, keep going. And it isn’t always going to end up the way you think it should, but you have to know it’s working out in your favor. When you know that, you look for what good can come of it, the universe will match you with the good, and you’ll find it. But if you use it as a way to show just how bad your luck always is, then that’s what you’re looking for and the universe will match you with that as well. Always look for the good.
And the second lesson is this too shall pass. If you’re going through something tough, keep going. It will get better. Things always get better. Life has curve balls, everyone does. No exemptions for that. No matter what their life looks like on social media, no matter how smooth it appears, we all have ups and downs.
Embrace the ups and move through the downs with an attitude that it’s going to get better because life is working for you, not to you. Things are happening for you, not to you. I laugh because of the irony of the situation. My brother in law was living it up with a beautiful sunny day in Chicago and we were going through a hurricane in Mexico. That’s what he missed, the few days he missed was the hurricane and then the after effects of the hurricane which included no air conditioning. Literally he was taking a tour of a beautiful day in Chicago while he waited to get his new passport sending us pictures of all the new sites he was seeing and we were going through a legitimate hurricane. We had a good laugh about that. But you know what? Molly and I both love storms and we love adventure and we feel safe with Eric so we had a new adventure we will never forget. We knew we would be ok. Her 30th birthday was one for the books! She did want an unforgettable birthday and I would say she got it.
That week could have turned out bad in so many ways but we weren’t looking for that. We were looking for what’s good. And we found it in so many ways. Not ideal. Not perfect but life isn’t cookie cutter. Life is what you make it. Always make it better than it is, never make it worse than it is.
Because that relationship didn’t work out, you may have just dodged a bullet, you didn’t get that job? The job that’s meant for you is on its way and it’s so much better.
That’s what leaders do. They make things better. They don’t quit when things get hard and they always look for the silver lining.
My challenge to you this week is no matter what’s going on, no matter how hard something seems, ask yourself what good can come from it and when you’re going through hard times, don’t quit…keep going. And when something doesn’t work out the way you wanted, who knows Life might be moving you out of the way of a hurricane. I love you guys and I’ll talk to you in a few days.
