In Cody Lundin’s survival book, 98.6 Degrees: The Art of Keeping You Ass Alive he describes the essential attitude for dealing with stress as “Party On” and gives the following examples:

“Holy Smoke! We lost our last match and there’s a storm coming!”
Party On!
“A flash flood swept away all our gear and we’re twenty miles from the trail head!”
Party On!
“My femur bone’s sticking through my skin and I’ve gotta cross that river!”
Party On!

This weekend I had to skip a camping trip and told a friend not to visit because I’d already scheduled time with people that were important to me, only to have every single one of those people vanish at the scheduled time. I showed up at the wrong location for the first meeting of a new job. I also screwed up a difficult discussion and drove through the rain to an outdoor event that sold out minutes before I arrived.

There are a variety of ways to look at this weekend.

1. My friends hate me.
2. The universe hates me.
3. I am a complete disaster.

There’s one more.

4. No one died. Hurrah! Now what part of those situations can I control next time?

My friends flaked on me. I have some flakey friends. This part I cannot control, neither can I stop loving them. Was there some miscommunication? Probably. Can I figure out exactly how that happened? Maybe. But maybe by stepping back and looking for places where I can change my own behavior, I can work around these things. After making plans with my friends, it may not seem fair that I should have to check with them once or twice as the date and time arrive to make sure things are still on track. But “fair” is not what I’m looking for here, I’m looking for “effective in making things work out they way I want them to”. Dropping an email a day before a scheduled event to confirm, and making a phone call an hour before, really isn’t that great a cost. It may take a total of several minutes, but if it allows me to know ahead of time that I’m free to spend hours doing something more exciting and productive with my time besides waiting, that’s well worth it. In this case, it also allows me to not be as angry with my friends, and potentially to want to see them again the next time.

Showing up at the wrong location is an expansion of the same idea. My friend gave me the date and time, then sent me a separate email with the details to make sure I had them. After adding it to my calendar the first time, I didn’t bother to re-confirm details by looking at the email. When I have run projection or managed a crew or event in the past, the most important lesson I’ve learned again and again is to never assume anything. Believe me, I’ve been badly burned more than once, and I’ve learned to make time for other people’s mistakes, bad equipment, wrong information etc. so that I was no more than singed and back on track the next time around. Again, the cost to confirm the location of this weekend’s meeting? About 4 minutes on the phone. Anything someone doesn’t tell you explicitly you should confirm. Is it someone else’s fault for not telling me an important detail? Maybe. But I’m the one who loses if I don’t check and re-check.

Fortunately, checking and re-checking works. That’s what’s empowering. Obviously I still make numerous mistakes, this weekend being a good example. But I see how my own actions could have made things work out differently, and that’s what leaves me feeling strong and capable. I’m not fighting impossible odds, a universe that hates me. I’m just working on making myself better.