By Dianne McKim, C.A.C.L.C.
Have you ever been stuck or gotten stuck in something and gotten scared that you wouldn’t be able to get out or get help? This exact thing happened to me.
I was trying on clothes a few years ago in a local store. I was looking for a dress to take on a trip to St. Thomas, so I was pretty excited as I was shopping! I tried on several outfits. One in particular that I really liked was so cute and I thought it might be great for the trip… but something went terribly wrong.
It had a zipper down the back of the dress. When I went to take it off, the zipper broke and I was stuck in the dress. Yup, it didn’t go down far enough for me to be able to pull it over my head or slide it down. What was I going to do? I tried and tried but couldn’t get the zipper to go up or down. Of course my blood pressure started to rise and I started to sweat! I couldn’t get the dress off! Finally I was able to shimmy my shoulders out so the dress hung around my waist.
I shifted it so the zipper was in front and tried and tried again with no luck. I pulled and tried to rip it and no luck. No one else was in the dressing room and I had been shopping by myself so I didn't have anyone with me to help. So, there I was in the dressing room with the dress hanging on my waist… stuck in a compromising position.
What do you do when you are excited to do something but it doesn’t turn out like you planned or hoped? What do you do when you find yourself in a compromising situation? We can allow the disappointment and struggle to keep us from looking at the situation to see what we can learn or to keep us from enjoying and seeing the funny part of what did happen so we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Not everything in life goes the way we would like!
Here are 3 things to do when things don’t go according to plan.
1. Being flexible and willing to adapt goes a long way in helping us get the most out of what comes our way… no matter what.
2. Having a backup plan, just in case, can help so you are not scrambling last minute.
3. After it’s over, evaluate what happened and see if there are things you could do differently next time to avoid the same pitfalls.
To find out what happened to me in the dressing room tune in to the next blog post. I look forward to “seeing” you then.
Let me know of situations you found yourself in that didn't go according to plan! (Keep it clean please!).