When plans get cancelled, especially around the holidays...
What's your initial response? Does panic set in? Does the weight of making your Christmas plans start to become overbearing?
All normal feelings, what matters is how people respond.
Inclement weather, blizzard conditions, and crazy wind has grounded and cancelled most Midwest flights today.
Sitting in the Delta cancellation line, T and I can feel the frustrations, watching the tears of people with their holiday hopes ruined, their plans completely changed. A couple steps ahead, kids are crying and screaming wanting to see grandpa and grandma for the holidays, where all the parents can do is sigh in frustration, in sorts at the situation. People are frantically making calls, asking about their bags, frustrated to hear the next available flight is late Christmas day...
If you've never experienced this before, it's quite the scene, and it's easy to get wrapped up in all the emotion, the frustration, the uncertainty, the Christmas hopes vanquished. We can be just us frustrated and get wrapped up in the complaints of "this stupid agent didn't help me", "this line is taking too long", "I can't believe this is happening", all subtle comments that can change the energy and attitude toward our personal travel delay or cancellation situation.
Holiday travel is NOT the most wonderful time of the year. Agents who are simply trying to help are berated by a lot of people, some quite frankly who didn't plan. Because let's be honest, this type of weather with plane delays and cancellations is actually more typical. Lucky if plans go to plan.
You see, last year, T and I did NOT plan ahead well and our Christmas Eve flight got cancelled and we spent Christmas day in airports. This year, we decided to come home one day earlier already having a back up plan in case weather impacted travel. So when we entered -5 degree country and the dreaded red bold letters "CANCELLED" showed on my app, honestly the last thing I did was panic, I had planned for this. Now was I already thinking of logistics, and nervous about the uncertainty of how long the wait would be and where the next flight would take us? Of course, I'm human. But having a plan ahead of time allowed me to remain calm in the storm of chaos at the Delta service counter. I think a lot of things in life play out this way, either leaving us reeling on the "reactive" end, leaving panic and emotional ruin in our path, or planning one step ahead, having the solution after next, where that next solution to the new unforeseen circumstance is well-rehearsed in our mind, seamless is implementation, and almost stress free emotionally.
Until you take a step back, and realize, although there are things out of control, how we respond makes the biggest difference. Our whole body responds to calm and it changes our ability to think clearer and RESPOND to the situation as we should. Cool, calm, collected, unphased, despite the stress and chaos around us.
How about you? What's your back-up plan in 2023 if things don't go as planned?
- that promotion you were waiting on got delayed or isn't going to happen
- what you thought would be a great lifestyle change in your workouts and nutrition, actually leaves you feeling burnt out, unmotivated, and your will to continue disappears
- the business had expected growth of X amount, but high inflation, and low consumer demand has led to stalled growth, or more often decay
The people getting ahead and anticipating situations before they happen and PREPARING for those situations, typically won't be phased, and will be the people that others lean on in the face of chaos.
All you have to do is trust your plan, and then stay calm when the storm hits.
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