Hello,
I had a sudden realization over the weekend. It came after I was looking at a phenomenon I have noticed recently on Facebook. Some people post when they are happy, others post when they are upset, sometimes very upset!
This enticed me to look at the real reason behind upset, why does it occur? You can be going along in life very nicely and all of a sudden, flash, you are upset. What causes this to happen and why so suddenly?
I started to look behind this. It occurred to me that to have an upset, you must be expecting something to go one way and it does not follow your plan. So upsets are related to missed expectations. Ah Ha! I thought, (a quite big Ah Ha, in fact)
Taking this forward a bit, expectations are related to goals and aspirations. So for there to be an upset, there must have been a dream of goal that was denied in some way. This is the Setup, a vision of your desires projected out into the future containing all the steps necessary to make it happen. As happiness is the progressive realization of worthwhile dream or goal, following a great setup creates abundant happiness.
For example, you have your heart set on going to the first baseball game of the season with your son. Tickets purchased and everything planned. You are excited and really looking forward to is. The morning of the game, your boss calls you up and says, “A prospective customer with a very large account is coming in today and I need you to attend a dinner in his honor tonight. I know I can rely on you. I’ll see you at the LaBella restaurant at 7pm sharp tonight”. Your heart sinks, know you will have to give up the game and also tell your son the bad news. You agree with your boss to attend. Immediately you feel upset. Your dream is shattered. Your setup has been thwarted by an event outside your control.
Here is the sequence:
Setup - Your vision of what you desire projected into the future. A strong and vivid setup drives you forward. Great visions of you and your son enjoying a ball game together.
Targets - The stepping stones along the way to attaining that dream or goal. These steps are part of the complete plan. Set the date, buy the tickets, setup the time to leave for the game.
Distractions - Things that get in the way of you achieving those targets. They can also be referred to as disruptors. The call from your boss.
Upset - Distractions have caused a target to be missed. You are now off track and may miss the entire setup.Disappointment in missing the game.
Let’s take a deeper look at what happened in our example. Was the event truly out of your control? Well, not exactly. It wasn’t a hurricane or a flood, or any other unavoidable disaster. You could have held your position and explained to your boss that this was an important family event. Better still, you could have built an understanding with your boss from the time you took the position that for you, family comes first and work second. So, the real issue was the setup and your certainty of it, not the distraction and the resulting upset.
The strange thing is that when upset, most people concentrate on trying to fix the upset, not correct the setup. And this is why concentrating on fixing the upset does not actually correct the situation. It only handles the effects, not the cause. By going back to the setup and examining exactly why the target was truly missed, optimum corrective action can be taken to realign the setup and happiness will reign once more.
Have an excellent week
Malcolm
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