How to Feel Fortunate
After spending a Sunday afternoon watching football teams play for their chance in the Super Bowl, I realize how easy it is to forget how fortunate we are. The pressures we apply to ourselves are pretty small in scale when watching careers on the line. Yes, we all have the pressure of providing for our family, making the right choices, and correcting wrongs. Generally, we have time to think about a solution and make a plan. In football, you may have at most seconds.
In the first game of the day, it all came down to a field goal. Just seconds left on the clock with prime position to kick for 3 points and win. All that stood between the team getting to the ultimate game was one kick. The ball is snapped, quarterback holds down the ball at an off angle, and the kicker kicks. The ball goes to the left. 11 seconds left. Season over for them. That kicker just let his team, a franchise, and a city down. That’s a lot of people, money for the local businesses, and opportunity to vanish.
Can be pretty overwhelming to think about. It was overwhelming to watch. That guy has to go back to the locker room and city of those he let down. How does he move forward? His next practice won’t be for a few months, which means he has time to watch video replays and think about that moment.
We’ve all felt the same overwhelming feeling in some shape or form. In fact, we should expect to have this feeling. You can minimize it’s impact by thinking now, when you’re head is clear, about what you will do. The overwhelming events will happen as it is part of life. How you deal with it can be all the difference in moving forward.
Some yell and lash out while others grab a beer. These are temporary solutions that may make the impact worse. It just carries the damage in a different form to a different area of the body. There are healthy ways to deal with these feelings.
1. Acknowledge. Feelings and emotions are different for everyone so there will not be one solution to this. The key to move forward is to identify that you are feeling something. Good or bad, you need to identify what it is that you are feeling.
2. Take a moment. For your sake and those around you, stop and think. What triggered the emotion? Can you avoid that trigger in the future? Instead of talking about how mad it made you, talk about what you can do to avoid feeling like this in the future.
3. Move Forward. You will do more damage to yourself if you grill yourself over and over on it if you hold onto it. Life is a learning process and the clock keeps ticking. Move forward by surrounding yourself with people that want you to succeed.
When it comes to running or exercise, stress is another workout. Your body doesn’t know the difference between running for an hour or having a bad day at work. The emotional and physical exhaustion are the same. Stress can cause weight gain. Until you change the way you view yourself, you will constantly struggle to be happy.
I’ve had my share of emotional events in my career, running, and family. Don’t let these be wasted events … learn something from them.
