The Five-Step Recovery Plan When the ‘Schizzle’ Hits the Fan

The basement floods.  You exit the store and notice someone scraped your car.   You get home and realize you left your wallet at the store.   Technology fails you at this inopportune time.  When you finally make it out for some “self-care” time, you get a call from the school nurse, “Your daughter threw up on the classroom floor.”

You know what I am talking about, right?

These are the days when the schizzle hits the fan.

What do you do?  What happens when the pressure is mounting and you’re in the ‘Schizzle Spin Zone?’

The goal is not to avoid these moments and judge ourselves when they happen.  We all know schizzle happens.

We can’t control everything, but we can control how we handle it.

The best goal in these times is to simply reduce the lag time between one of these moments and when we return to our personal best—our true self.

Doing this has become a new type of competition for me.  My goal is to reduce the time and thereby, the power I give over to such circumstances.

Recently, when I lost a complete and edited document hours before it had to go out, I removed myself from the spin in less than 30 seconds.  That’s a new personal best! I didn’t move from my computer.  I simply began typing it from scratch again.

My old way was to swim in the swamp.  I’d call others, dump, talk about how dreadful things are and get them to affirm that life is hard.

Now, as a recovering drama-queen (definition: one who feeds and gets sustenance from chaos), I’ve learned it doesn’t work to spin in the proverbial shizzle.

I am not a master, but I am a master student of not allowing these moments to control me.  That’s a good thing.  Because these days with three kids, a primarily technology run business, and a travelling husband schizzle happens.

Here’s what you can do the next time the schizzle hits the fan in your world.

Step 1- Get it out!  Trying to hold back what you really feel is the equivalent of emotional constipation.  It is going to come out.  Let it.

The feelings are neither going to kill you nor do they mean you are spiritually un-evolved.  You are human.  Get angry.  Cry.  Call a trusted friend who will listen and not seek to solve.   One of my favorite tools is to shout it out to the bathroom mirror.

I had one of these days recently.   It caught me off guard.  I confided in my mother.  Typed an email to my “sister.”   Then I told off the bathroom mirror.  Surprisingly, within an hour I was back on course.

Step 2- Time limit.  Sometimes it’s not that easy.  It may take longer to return to center.  Give yourself a time limit of how long you’ll allow yourself to fester.  Be generous but not too generous.

Step 3 – Remind yourself “This is temporary.”   Years ago when I was in a job I hated, I wrote these words on an index card and set it on my desk. With this reminder, I was able to re-direct my energy to contribute to a solution rather than stew in the dilemma.

Step 4 Take a time out. Drop everything.  Stop holding yourself to the same standards when it is not your best day.  Give yourself permission to have an “average day.”  Let go of your agenda.  Ask what your spirit needs, listen and act on it.  Take yourself to lunch. Go to a movie or a batting cage.  Mix it up.

Step 5 “Next.”  Move on.  Pain happens.  Suffering is a choice.  The past is history.  Be more interested in what’s next.

Each day we’re given a certain amount of energy.  How we choose to use it is within our control.

The good news is tomorrow is a brand new day, and I’m setting my intention that it’s a ridiculously amazing one!

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology which uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.