Reframing Setbacks as Opportunities

I was lying on the ground on the blue rug my dad passed down to me from my grandmother next to my bed.

I’d tell you I was feeling overwhelmed…

But I think “falling apart” is a more apt description.

Between work as a data scientist that was completely separate from my work building curriculum and supporting my performance coaching clients, excelling in my health, managing my personal life…

It all just felt like too much

Even thinking about all the things that I needed to do was too much energy at that moment.

My arms and legs felt like I couldn’t pick them up,

And I laid there for a while.

And then I smiled.

Because this was exactly what I asked for.

I can’t think of a better life, even if it means going to the brink of what I am emotionally and physically capable of handling.

And I smiled not because I felt so exhausted…

But because a simple thought ran through my head.

One that I’ve conditioned myself to think every time I feel overwhelmed or am encountering something negative:

“What an opportunity”

And then I smiled a bit more, not because those words came to my mind…

But because I recognized that even when I feel at my lowest, my mind serves me up with opportunity, instead of tearing me down further.

And because for a lot of my life my mind gave me self-critiques and shame during those moments, not positivity.

So really, the reason I smiled, because even when I was completely cooked, lying on the ground, I was just proud of myself.

Both that I took on enough risk in the direction of my personal mission that I exhausted myself like this and that I had prepared my mind to be able to withstand the anxiety and fear and worry associated with those risks and undertakings to experience them, separate from them, and grow from them, and not to crumble.

And this will continue to happen.

Maybe it will be next week or the week after that or in a month from now.

But I’ll be lying there on the carpet for a couple minutes, chuckling to myself that I did it again, telling myself, “hell yeah Flint, what an opportunity“

When you’re ready to have your mind bring you motivation instead of shame or self-attacks, email me the word “ALIGN.”