Have you ever wanted something so bad, but it never seemed to happen for you? Where you were so close you could almost taste it. But all that remained was the bitter taste of disappointment?

Sure you have. We have all longed for something we didn’t get. Or prayed for something that went unanswered. It is that way in life. Sometimes we don’t want what we get. Sometimes we want what we don’t get.

What are we supposed to do with this? As adults we can’t act like children, throw ourselves onto the ground, belly down, screaming into the carpet (like my step son did the other day). No way can we do that. But we also don’t need to put on a brave face and tell ourselves it is okay if it isn’t.

The fact is, when we really want something that doesn’t seem to be destined for us, we actually need to straddle the fence on our emotions or else we will fall too far off to one side and possibly never return to our perch.

Let me explain.

Recently something I thought I was going to “get” was not to be.

I guess I could have shoved my true emotions into the back of my subconscious and put on a smiley face. That would have worked for about one day until I finally cracked. No one would have benefitted from that explosion. Trust me.

Or I could have wallowed in self pity and destructive thinking and fall into the “I am a victim” attitude. But who wants to be that person. Ick! Not me.

What I actually did was allow my disappointed to sink in for a bit. I gave myself permission to have a good cry in my closet, and then I picked myself up and thanked God for allowing me to be disappointed yet also thanked Him for giving me a long term perspective on the situation.  Maybe His answer is no for right now or maybe it is no forever. Either way, I am keeping my eye on Him and remembering that His plan is perfect.  Then I went to Starbucks, grabbed my favorite coffee and cranked up some good old fashioned rock ‘n roll on the way home.

See. We won’t always get what we want, but we will get what we need (yup, heard that Rolling Stones song on my way home, they sure knew what they were talking about, didn’t they)?  So mourn the loss appropriately and then move on.   The future is waiting and it will be great!

I’m on my way to Denver to spend time with some amazing women at a three day Women’s Retreat.  We plan to have fun connecting with one another while collaborating on common challenges facing today’s professional women. We also intend on getting our fair share of rejuvenation and rest that we all need but never take time to enjoy.

I plan on offering similar events in the future and I would love to have each of my female clients and blog followers consider attending.

Please email me if you’re interested in learning more about upcoming women’s events.

I got to my chiropractor’s office at 7:10 Friday morning, ready for my weekly adjustment and acupuncture treatment.  I enjoy this time because I feel it really helps center me. Plus Dr. O is amazing. I call him Yoda because of his insight and wisdom. I am laying on the table and I decide to tap into his wisdom about parenting. He has raised two kids and none of them are in jail to my knowledge, so he must have done something correct. Right?

As a new wife and step mom to three kids ages six and under I am learning how to be a parent. I mean, I helped raise my other two step children and have been around my nieces and nephews – so kids aren’t foreign to me – but I have never had this much exposure to kids of such a young age. Plus we have the kids 75% of the time, so they are around us a lot. Let’s just say I jumped into the deep end without testing the water or putting on a life jacket. So anytime I can get other parents’ opinions on what the right age is to get your child out of diapers, or when we can start teaching them to knock before coming into our room, I want to hear it.

Or do I?

I proceeded to ask him at what age did he feel it was appropriate to teach your children to knock on the door before coming in. His answer, never. No joke.  Never. Now I am not ragging on Dr. O.  I love and respect him. But I have to say, I disagree with him. I politely smiled at him after he said that and chose not to engage further in what I believe was our first disagreement. He kept going, however. He talked to me about how that is just a way to control your children and there was really no place for that in a loving parenting relationship. I was still silent. He also mentioned that you have the model the type of behavior you want your children to exhibit. Like if I want to teach my children it is polite to say thank you when needed, I needed to say thank you as well. You get the point.

He noticed I was quiet (and come on friends, those who know me well, when I am ever quiet? When do I ever miss an opportunity to share my opinion?) and apologized if he offended me. At which point I said “it is ok if we don’t agree on everything Dr. O.” He sweetly smiled, patted my leg and said he would see me next Friday.

So here I was, left in a dark room, with needles sticking out of my forehead, my hands and my legs and contemplating what it was we just discussed. And I found out something pretty interesting. I am stubborn. I talk about how we can all have different opinions, ideas and thoughts, but basically if I am not in agreement with it I don’t always validate it. Please don’t hear that I am not a nice person, I really am. I just, oftentimes, think I know everything. Bare with me friends, I am human and growing just like the rest of us.

So what to do with this new found reflection? Put it into action. I decided that just because someone believes something to be true doesn’t make it true. But, guess what, just because I don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it is false. Maybe we all need to open our eyes and our hearts to hearing other opinions, ideas and ways to look at things. It doesn’t mean we have to stop and change what we are doing, but sometimes I may.

So today, in your business and life, consider what you think you know, consider what others say that you may not agree with, and look for ways to apply it to your own life. It just may be the next growth opportunity for you.

Waitress, bring me your largest slice of humble pie

My M.O. has been the same for 8 years. I coach people on how to best manage their priorities and then I go off and do the same. Walk the talk right? And I would say I was pretty darn great at it. So much that I even created a tool to help facilitate my greatness. I even shared it with other coaches. I am even doing a workshop on it soon.

Recently, I flew to Portland to attend our coach summit (where we get together and work on bettering ourselves as coaches four times a year) and the subject of priority management comes up. As I listen to the other coaches discuss, I just sit back and think about how great it is to have this dialed in. I walk away completely convinced that I own priority management. I have no problem getting things done in the most efficient and effective way possible.

This is the point in the blog post that you are waiting for me to say “NOT”. But what I wrote above is completely honest. I worried about putting it down on paper because I didn’t want to come across arrogant. The fact is I have been living in a fantasy world for so long. And now I have had my eyes opened and a large humble pie shoved right into my face as if I was a clown at a carnival.

Here’s what happened. I got married. To a man with three kids. Six and under.

Enough said right? Wrong. My blogs never end there do they? There needs to be reflection. There needs to be action. There needs to be the question.

So here goes.

Over the last few months I have had the beautiful opportunity to learn a lesson. That priority management is simple if you are single and have no children or you are married with no children. SIMPLE. A monkey could execute it perfectly. When you add children, a new relationship, more clients and new friends it gets out of whack. And things have to be readjusted. And balls have to drop. And grace has to be given.

And then you have to put on your big girl pants, stop crying and understand that your system does work, but it needs to be tweaked. And that takes some time to navigate. It takes experimenting with time blocking. It takes identifying new priorities, and letting go of unnecessary activities.

But when you do, boy can you really gain some ground.

I am constantly looking to grow as a wife, a mother, a coach, a woman. And the growth lesson I learned is that things change and sometimes, in the midst of that change, we need to realize that we don’t have all of the answers. And that it is ok to make mistakes while we are getting it all figured out. So what have you had to change recently but haven’t because you are holding on to the old ways of doing things? How can being raw and humble with yourself and those around you help you navigate these changes more successfully? What can you learn from it?

Personal accountability and responsibility have a way of catching up with you sometimes. Usually just after you are done bragging about how cool and righteous you are. Yup, usually right after that.

Since I met my husband I have literally been bragging about my perfect driving record. I haven’t had a ticket in about 15 years. I can still remember the ticket. I was driving in the mountains with my boyfriend of that time and he was doing all of the driving so I offered to give him a rest. I just as soon pulled onto I-70 and started accelerating when I got tagged for speeding. That was the last time I drove for that entire vacation. And since then I have been very diligent to only drive 5 miles or slower over the speed limit. I even implemented a plan to use cruise control when I felt I would speed, just in case. Everything was perfect until last week.

I just moved to a new city and had several appointments to go to, in unfamiliar locations. Actually, everything is unfamiliar to me right now. I cannot figure out how to navigate St. Louis for the life of me. Anyways, I was driving to my next appointment and was running late, so I “picked it up a little”. Just in time to get tagged by a police officer. When his lights went on I was pretty mad…..at him. How dare he. I was also pretty upset that he was very rude to me. To make matters worse I was driving 21 miles over the speed limit and he wouldn’t even budge and lower the speed to “help me out”. I figured when he put my name into the system he would see I have been a good girl for MANY years and give me a break. NOPE. Boy, you can imagine how angry I was at him. I showed him my anger by not even saying good bye when he told me to have a nice day. I sure showed him.

About 5 minutes down the road, after the steam stopped escaping from my ears and I started to slow my heart I realized that he had nothing to do with me getting a ticket. He was simply doing his job. And I reminded myself that my father was a New York State Trooper for over 20 years and I respected the law. It was in that moment that I needed to accept where my real anger was – with myself. I am an adult and I know better than to speed. And as a Business and Life Coach I teach people that there are consequences to their actions and sometimes when we make the wrong choices (speeding) we need to accept the discipline (the ticket).

So, I am not happy about getting the ticket, but I did learn a valuable lesson (or at least was reminded of one). When we make bad decisions we need to accept that there will be consequences, and in the long run, we only have ourselves to blame.

Today, as you navigate the roads of your life and your business, keep this in mind. I hope you make the proper decisions in order to avoid the unpleasantness of consequences that are not too much fun (or can even cost you money in the long run).