Shopping these days is just a little less fun…

Whether it is the struggle to communicate at checkout while you and the cashier are donning masks, or the untrusting looks from everyone around you, the entire experience is less pleasurable for all of us.

Knowing I was in for a long visit to Home Depot yesterday, I made sure I had my list together and set out to pick up all the materials I needed to renovate our guest bathroom.

My strategy was to first pick out the easy items like toilet, vanity, towel bars and hooks, followed by choosing flooring, and finally finding a pre-fab shower that we could just drop in.

I coasted through the store with the ease of a professional, choosing items that would look great together and which would stand the test of time.

When the time came to pick out the shower, I realized that there weren’t any that matched the size we needed.

This was a problem.

We needed to get this done and time was not on our side.

Oh, and we’re living on a rock in the middle of the ocean during a pandemic, which means that getting your hands on materials that aren’t here in Maui, is a game of patience.

Overnighted packages might take a week or so if you’re lucky, standard mail might take weeks, and trying to get a package from the mainland - well, hold on - that might be 2-3 months.

These facts can either break you or teach you that you simply have no control of things beyond yourself.

Accept the New Rules of Life or Suffer in Misery

I had a budget and time crunch, and was not going to be able to get what I needed on budget or in time.

Given the choice, I decided to pivot and change course.

Mind you, in order to survive in business, the pivot is one of your most powerful tools. And if you want to grow and thrive, you have to become seriously adept at it.

Fear of change or of taking risks by changing course has sunk far too many businesses.

So, I looked at our total budget for the project, made some adjustments, grabbed some floor and wall tile for the newly conceptualized (on the fly in my head) shower and went on my way.

It was just another thing I needed to do.

And I did it without freaking out or getting stressed because doing so doesn’t help.

We are all faced with challenges as we go through our lives and they can either break us or just be another thing we deal with.

I choose to deal with them as they come using logic and working through like I would any game or problem.

Doing so otherwise would leave me a nervous wreck.

Don’t get me wrong - I used to stress about EVERYTHING.

But time and life experience has taught me that doing so only makes my health, relationships, and happiness far worse.

So . . .

Now I take it as it comes, pivot as needed, use a little logic and thinking to get me through the problems, and go about my day - using my energy and brain power for the things that really matter instead of suffering through perseverating about everything all the time.