How my life changed with this one shift
I think we just accidentally moved to Hawaii.
Ok, so let me back up. I was doing some thinking last week, during my first real week of vacation in I-don’t-know-how-long (more on that next week.) While thinking, I had one of those moments where something just clicked.
One of the best things I’ve learned in the last few years is to see problems not at problems, but as opportunities. (If you’ve been reading Good to Mama for a while you may have noticed this theme subtly comes up again and again) But I didn’t just learn it once – I’ve learned it over and over from different people; it’s just been packaged in different ways. What I realized last week is that this philosophy is a foundational element of just about all of the personal development and motivational material I’ve read or listened to. Curious, I went looking to see exactly how prevalent this theme was. Here’s a sampling of what I found:
Oprah: “Challenges are gifts that force us to search for a new center of gravity. Don’t fight them. Just find a new way to stand.”
Tony Robbins: “Problems are the gifts that make us grow.”
Albert Einstein: “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”
Henry Ford: “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”
Ben Zander: “This is fascinating! Now I can learn something and not make this mistake again.”
Robert Kiyosaki: “Inside of every problem lies an opportunity.”
Sun Tzu: “Victory comes from finding opportunities in problems.”
Marcus Aurelius: ” Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it—turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself—so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.”
Epictetus: “Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own inner resources.”
Seneca: ”Misfortune is virtue's opportunity.”
My husband: “what’s good about this problem that I’m not seeing?” (ok maybe not a recognized leading expert, but certainly someone who’s read just about everything that’s out there).
These are some of the most influential people out there when it comes to personal development, and some of the most well known entrepreneurs, inventors, and philosophers in history going back for over 2000 years! And there are plenty more quotations just like these, but I only have so much space. So…. wow. Turns out it’s not a new idea - it’s an ancient idea that has empowered people for millennia.
But what does this actually mean in real life?
Ok: so maybe I’m not striving for the same level of renown as Einstein, but this is equally as powerful for motherhood and being good to mama. Whatever you want to call it – an approach, a philosophy, a mindset – it’s completely changed my day to day life. It’s the reason I don’t stress when something goes wrong, whether it’s as small my two-year-old pooping his pants during potty training, or as big as a global pandemic shaking the very foundations of our daily lives. It’s how I can find the good in difficult times, like finding 15,000 amazing volunteers who want to cook during COVID. And it’s why I’m just generally happier. Why?
If I can see opportunity in every problem, I’m far less frustrated. Sometimes the opportunity is just to laugh and celebrate a moment of ridiculousness in motherhood – like with the poop covered pants. One day Moseah won’t poop his pants, and so he won’t burst into tears (he hates being dirty), and he won’t need endless cuddles and kisses (after his bottom half has been thoroughly cleaned, mind you). So the problem of pooping his pants? That’s actually a gift, that I get to cuddle my increasingly independent little man for at least fifteen seconds until he wiggles away. (I’ve heard I can bank these cuddles to save for the teenage years. True? False?)
If I can see opportunity in every problem, I’m never stuck. If I’m focused on how I can “fix” a problem, I’m still seeing the problem as a problem. There’s a lot of strong, typically negative emotion that comes along with that, and it gives me tunnel vision. If I can switch gears, all of sudden new solutions appear. My almost-four-year-old recently started having massive, massive tantrums for the first time in a while. At first, I was at a loss. I felt all the mom feelings: what am I doing wrong? Why isn’t anything working? Where did this come from? All the things that would lead me to ultimately feeling stuck. But: when I switched gears to not see it as a problem but as an opportunity, I was more open to trying new things instead of the same things. I was more open to looking at the situation to understand her triggers, instead of focusing on how crappy it is to have a screaming child on the floor who can’t (or won’t) be consoled. We’ve been making a lot of progress, and I think more quickly than if I didn’t have this mindset.
If I can see opportunity in every problem, doors I didn’t even know about will open. Which brings us back to: I think we just accidentally moved to Hawaii. We arrived here less than a week ago and planned to stay for two months to explore the possibility of moving here. But we had every intention of returning to San Diego in March to get ready to have the baby. Three days in, we got an email from our landlord in San Diego saying she’s very sorry but something came up and she’s going to have to break our lease: which means we have nowhere to return to. What would you do in that situation? For about .7 seconds my thought process was “WHAT?! We have a contract! That house has been perfect for the kids! It has everything we need for the new baby! What do you mean we can’t go back? We have stuff there! What are we going to doooooooooo?????”. Quickly followed by “Huh. Interesting. Well… Hawaii has been nice. We weren’t planning on being here more than two months to test it out, but… maybe this is an opportunity to consider it?”. My husband and I could then have a conversation about all the possibilities we now have, instead of using that energy to be angry with our landlord. While that anger may feel gratifying for a few moments, it would be completely unproductive and would block us from seeing the possible good.
I won’t say it was a quick switch to see problems as opportunities, and I definitely won’t say I remember to do it 100% of the time. But it becomes more of a habit with every day, month, and year that passes. And it’s made me a happier person! Even friends and family notice, and comment how even big things just don’t seem to phase me. I genuinely understand why this approach keeps coming up again and again when I look to influential people who talk about success and happiness. And it explains why it keeps coming up as a theme for me in writing. It’s so impactful, I want to share it with everyone I know in the hopes that it helps some other mamas stroll through motherhood with more smiles and laughs, less frustration, and many more doors opening. And who knows, maybe the next door you open will lead to join us in Hawaii!