Expect Turbulence — Guest Post by Lara Schiffbauer

 Welcome to Life List Friday! There’s TONS of special things going on today. 🙂

Lara Schiffbauer is ringing my Cowbell with her very  inspirational post on handling life’s challenges. While she entertains y’all here, I’m over at Jess Witkins place asking anyone who will answer: What Is Love?

Not only do I want you to pop on over to see me at Jess’ blog, but today is August McLaughlin’s Beauty Of A Woman Blogfest where inspiration and prizes abound. Do stop on by there, show your support and embrace the beauty that is YOU.

Speaking of beauty, heeeere’s Lara… 🙂 

Expect Turbulence
by Lara Schiffbauer

Photo courtesy of Digitalart

Thank you so much, Jenny, for having me over here at More Cowbell for Life List Club Friday, and hello to all the More Cowbell-ers!

Something I have learned over time is that life is never perfect.  John Lennon said “Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”  Sometimes luck is in our favor, and we can ride that wave of success without having to endure much or work hard.  Often, the opposite is true.  We have to work hard and endure to see our goals and dreams come to fruition.

In the book Flight Plan: The Real Secret of Success, Brian Tracy states that one of the key components to success is to expect turbulence.  He suggests that how we react to the trials we encounter along the road of goal achievement is the only “part of the problem equation” we can influence.  He termed our reactions to difficulties our “response-ability.” 

The book holds many different thoughts and suggestions about achieving success, but as I didn’t want to quote the whole book, I picked a few that resonated with me.   

Remain Calm

“Fear is the thought of admitted inferiority.” Elbert Hubbard

Fear will keep us immobile more than any other emotion.  Our bodies react the same to perceived fear as they do to a real threat.  We hear about the flight/fight response, but there is one other reaction we can have to fear, which is to freeze.  We become immobile and procrastinate from doing what we need to in order to succeed.  Steven Pressfield calls this fear “Resistance.”

People who work in high stress situations train for how they will react under pressure, and we need to do that, too.  When we expect turbulence in our goal achievement to occur, and plan for how we will react to it, we cut Resistance off at the knees.  It no longer has the ability to immobilize us because we are thinking clearly, and reacting calmly, maintaining control.

Get the Facts

“Just the facts, Ma’am.” Joe Friday, Dragnet

When we react emotionally to any situation, there is the tendency to catastrophize.  We look at the situation and automatically see if for worse than it is.  By focusing on the facts, we pull ourselves back into the right-side of our brain (that logical part) and temper our emotional reactions.

We need the facts of a situation to know exactly what we’re dealing with, as well as come up with ideas for a solution.  Mr. Tracy noted that often a solution is hidden within the facts of the problem. 

Think in Terms of Solutions

“Superior people are intensely solution oriented.  They think about solutions and what can be done rather than the problems and who is to blame.”  Brain Tracy, Flight Plan

The moment we blame other people for the turbulence we are experiencing, we give up our power to be effective change agents in our own lives. By focusing on solutions, we are able to plan for how we are going to respond when things don’t go as planned.  We have the ability to affect our future.

Lara Schiffbauer writes contemporary fantasy and general fiction, and has been lucky enough to see some of her short stories published.  By day she works as a school social worker in an elementary school and at night juggles writing, playing with her two adorable little boys, and doing everything else that has to get done in a day.

You can find her on Twitter at @LASbauer or blogging at www.motivationforcreation.blogspot.com.