What to do When Things Don't Go to Plan

Today Andrea dives into the universal experience of facing setbacks and how to navigate when plans fall through, both in significant life events and everyday hiccups. Andrea shares a personal story and introduces a fail-proof three-step focus to regain direction and positivity in any situation. . With actionable advice and examples from her life and those of her clients, Andrea's discussion is aimed at inspiring listeners to overcome obstacles with resilience.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Well, hey there, welcome back. Today we're going to be talking about when things don't go to plan, whether you have an idea or a goal or something that you're just trying to learn and it is just not working out. You have stumbling block upon stumbling block and it is stressing you out. I'm going to give you some quick examples of a big thing that didn't work out for me and then some small things And then a fail proof three system focus that I use to get back on track or to make me feel good about where I am in this journey, no matter what the goal is, or what the plan is.

And if you do find this episode helpful and hoping that you do because they are very actionable ideas that I'm going to give you, please don't forget to share it with your friends, your family on social media, tag me.

I love to look for those. Write a review wherever you listen. That does help the podcast grow and it helps inspire me to continue to bring you out. Good content with really great guests. And don't forget to follow along for the show, wherever you listen. If you go to the top right corner, there's normally three dots [00:01:00] and there'll be a drop down where you can either subscribe or follow so you don't miss any episodes every time they come out every Wednesday. 

 And before we get into today's episode, I want to give a quick shout out to sleep. Yes, sleep, because it is so important no matter what your health and fitness goals are. Sleep is so crucial and it's one of the reasons that I like a really comfortable bed and really comfortable sheets. So I use Cozy Earth Bamboo Sheets.

They are temperature regulating and they are incredibly soft. They have so many variety of options from luxury bedding collections to pillows and sheets and blankets, and just more casual collections as well.

I love that I can use them year round and they were on Oprah's favorite things list in 2018. They also have an amazing. Lengthy warranty if you don't like your sheets, but I know you are going to like them because I've loved mine I've had them for a couple years. They wash really well, and they always still feel very comfortable

 Cozy earth has provided an exclusive [00:02:00] offer for our listeners today up to 40 off site wide. Yes, that is 40 Just use the code simple 40 for 40. I promise you will not be disappointed in the quality of their products and for me It's those bamboo sheets cozy earth 

So I want to start out by telling you a story about myself. When something did not go to plan and it was a really, really big deal. And I learned kind of this three step system in that process, but I have [00:03:00] seen it in tiny little small things along the way of just small things that happened to, which I'm going to give you examples with myself and with clients and other things, because I feel like whether you are in a big situation that is not.

panning out the way you thought, or a small situation like the workout for the day is not panning out as you thought. I feel like these three steps, these three thoughts or action steps are going to help you fix that and get back on track or find a route that's going to work for you. When Paul and I were first married, I worked for a mental health company as a health guide. So I worked for the company for probably three to four years and they were contracted through the state and we would help people who had mental health issues, making sure they had appointments. And then I would also connect them with their physical health appointments.

So let's say someone went to the hospital and they were a client of ours for our mental health company. I would make sure they had a therapy appointment for their mental health. And [00:04:00] then let's say they had an issue that was more medical based like diabetes or something else.

I would make sure they had an appointment with their PCP. Sometimes I would go into the hospital to see these people, but I actually worked on the management side. So we kind of go into the clinics that managed people with their social workers and stuff. It was a great job. I graduated in public health education, So this was my main job. And then of course, I was teaching fitness classes. I have done that since I was 19. So I taught probably three classes a week after work.

Now, the company I was working for, as I mentioned, they were contracted through the government. So we actually lost our contract. And I was about nine months pregnant when we lost the contract. Everyone is pretty much laid off or moved on with the new company, but I. had baby twins and I was a at home working employee and they wanted everyone to come back into the office.

So I knew that wasn't going to work out for me. But I kind of had a long time to understand that was happening. And my husband was, he had a great job at the time. So [00:05:00] he was working. And so I let go of that position. And shortly after that, my husband was laid off. We definitely struggled for a couple months.

That was definitely not our plan. But A couple months after I had left the company because, you know, a new company took over and I couldn't work from home anymore, my previous boss reached out to me because she had gone on with the same company, but they still had a couple of spots. And she and I got along really, really well. And she said, Andrea, I have a job for you.

It's only four hours a day. You can work any hours you want. So I don't care if you do your four hours in the morning, at night, in the middle of day, 30 minutes here, 30 minutes there. It was very, very relaxed, but I just had to do four hours a day. I could do it from home. And my twins at this point, we're just a little under a year.

And it paid way better than my last job. And it was perfect. I was so excited. I liked what I was doing. It was similar to what I did before where I was connecting the mental health and the physical health and people who [00:06:00] had needs and I had a lot of freedom in it. So I was so excited. She didn't even interview me.

She basically called me and said, you're perfect for this job. Can you come in and we'll train you? At the time, as I mentioned, my husband had been laid off. It was not that far after, you know, the 2008, nine, 10 crash where. Okay. Jobs were scarce and he graduated in construction management and he was working for a friend, but he was working on starting his own landscaping business. So I knew this was the perfect opportunity.

My husband was going to start a landscaping business. I was going to get to work from home for this company and have so much freedom and I would be able to kind of help support the family in just these four hours a day while my husband built his business. So later that week, obviously I went in and I started to train, saw my old boss, a couple of my old coworkers, which I got along with really, really well.

And I was stoked.

As my coworker was starting to teach me what I was going to be doing, it connected very easily with what I did before. I saw my boss in her office get a phone call and she quickly called me in and [00:07:00] I came in and she said, Andrea, did you forget to take your drug test? And I had totally spaced it. I literally forgot to take this drug test because it was so simple to me because clearly I don't do drugs. Ironically, I don't even drink alcohol. Ever. And I even limit my caffeine intake. So I just wasn't thinking about it.

It wasn't a big deal to me and I just spaced it. I was a young mom. I was tired. I had baby twins and I completely forgot to take this drug test to rework for the company. And I said, Oh my gosh, I completely forgot. I can go do it right now. My boss was like, I'm so sorry. You can't work here with us because, you have to take it within the window or they consider that a fail, even though you actually didn't take it.

And you have to wait six to eight months before they will let you apply and get a new job here again. I was devastated. And I remember driving home from the office feeling like I just [00:08:00] ruined. This perfect plan, because I forgot to do something so simple, which was so easy for me that I just spaced it. I just spaced it.

And I remember being so angry with myself for forgetting. And I remember feeling like I had ruined a plan that was perfect for my family.

To say that I drove home from that situation devastated is an understatement. And then feeling the weight the next couple of days was rough. Now. Let's take that story and pause for just a moment and let's talk about some smaller scale things where it doesn't pan out. You see a plan, you see a way, you see a route, and it can be very, very simple.

Small things every day that don't plan out. Something happens. Maybe you're trying to work out and it doesn't go to plan because you have a sick kid. Or something comes up and you don't make it to your fitness class and it doesn't go to plan. You didn't get time to meal prep because something came up that was out of your control that day.

Or [00:09:00] you just spaced buying something you really needed at the grocery store to make that meal prep effective. All kinds of different things happen on very small scales every single day and don't go to plan. Now, as with this big situation that I explained and also these very smaller situations. The blueprint of how to adjust and how to fix it is actually the same.

So I'm going to give you these three simple tips, whether you're feeling like something huge isn't working out, or whether you're feeling like just tiny tasks day to day aren't working out. My three tips, and I'm going to go into them in detail, are stop dwelling, shift to rise, and don't compare. So let's talk about Stop Dwelling first. In the experience with my job, I can say that I ugly cried for probably three days straight. Like, I don't think I ever stopped crying for three days straight because I felt like I had messed up so bad and I was so upset with myself.

And I remember [00:10:00] beating myself up over that because it was something that was so important, but yet, it didn't work. I'd messed it up.

I can still remember ugly crying sitting on my bed, like on day three. And I had twins to take care of. I needed to move on. And Paul came in the room and said, Andrea, you have got to stop dwelling.

It happened. Let it go. Stop replaying it in your mind of what you should have done because it won't change anything. And that is so true. When something doesn't work out, you can replay it as much in your mind as you want, but it won't change it. You can't go back. You have to let it go. I had to let go that I made a mistake and it was one that I was really sad about.

In these small examples that I talked about day to day, you have to let them go. If you didn't get your workout in, there is no point at beating yourself up for the rest of the day saying you failed because you didn't get a workout in. If you had a [00:11:00] meal that you didn't plan on and you ended up going through fast food and that wasn't your plan, there's no point in shaming yourself because you had a hamburger.

Like, It's okay. So even on this small scale, you can still beat yourself up and that's not beneficial. You have to stop dwelling. So when you catch yourself in these things, big or small, I need you to tell yourself, stop dwelling. Once you stop dwelling, I want you to shift to rise.

So at the time that I didn't take this drug test and I lost this job opportunity, when I stopped dwelling, I cleared my mind and I said, That's it. I'm going to go all in on this fitness page. I want to share what I know. I'm good at teaching. I understand nutrition. Well, I was training people in person at the time, and I said, I'm going to go all in.

And here we are 12 years later, listening to this podcast. I had to shift. I had to choose to do something else. [00:12:00] I could have continued to beat myself up, but I had to figure out a new route, a new plan, a new adjustment. And for me at that time, it was literally, okay, I'm going all in on this Instagram account where I'm going to share fitness and I'm going to be consistent and I'm going to build it and start to train people online.

The truth is when we fall down, you have two options. You can stay on the ground and feel bad for yourself and continue to dwell, or you can shift and rise and stand back up and figure out a different way. So talking back about these small situations, you have to choose to rise and shift. We can't allow a failure, a misstep, something that was out of our control.

Many times take us to the ground and then keep us on the ground. You have to shift and rise. So here's something that I've noticed in working with clients online. Now that I do this, obviously for a living, and it worked out much better than my first plan, but [00:13:00] sometimes clients will write in for their check ins and I often will read their forms and I can see clearly that they're still dwelling on how the week did not go to plan.

The week tanked for a number of different reasons. And that client, I can tell through the way they're communicating with me and sometimes with my coaches that they are still sitting on the ground. They have not risen. They are still on the ground from falling. Then I will have other clients write in for check in forms or to ask questions and review their week and they will tell me how they stumbled, how they made mistakes, how this workout didn't work, they got sick, they ended up having to run errands, they couldn't meal prep, lots of different things.

But then they're already telling me how they're going to do it differently next time or how they adjusted in the moment. They have shifted. They are standing again. Now the sad thing is these are two different types of clients. One person has not risen from the mistake or the hard [00:14:00] moment where things didn't work out and one person has.

The sad thing is is I often see the clients who have not figured out how to shift and how to just find a new plan. I see them have one bad week and it turns into two bad weeks and then they start to beat themselves up and then they say this isn't working and they give up and then they just allow themselves to feel like a failure.

Instead of just saying, yeah, that was like a rough week, which honestly, we all have bad weeks, no matter what you're working on. Doesn't even matter fitness or non fitness related. If you're working on something, we all have weeks where we're like, well, that was a disaster. I have those weeks where I definitely think that was a hot mess.

I don't know what happened. Everyone has those. But you can't let those weeks take you down. And sometimes that happens with clients where they will spiral and then the next week they spiral and then they spiral so much that they just want to distance themselves from the plan that's not working out. So they walk away and they leave it, but it [00:15:00] feels incomplete and Isn't something that makes them feel powerful anymore when really they could have just shifted, said, Hey, that didn't work out.

Given a couple of suggestions. Why ask the coaches for a couple of suggestions, what to do better next week, which is why we're there is to help them get ideas and they could have shifted to rise. To be better, to stand up. So no matter what your situation, you've got to stop dwelling and then you have to shift to rise from what you consider a fall or a misstep or just the plan, not working out and find a new way.

So let's give a couple of quick examples. If you didn't get your workout in. Maybe you take a child to the park and you circle the park. I have gone to soccer games where I didn't get a workout in, and I watched a soccer game while I'm walking around the field. Nobody notices! I'm circling the field. I probably did 20 laps around the field.

I watched my child play. And I still got exercise in, it wasn't maybe the workout I planned, but it was a shift and I stood up from feeling like it didn't [00:16:00] pan out and I made something work. Sometimes it's okay to chalk up the situation as just a miss and let it go, just move on. If you missed a class, maybe chalk it up as a miss or try the class that's right after that.

Even if it's one that's not your favorite or you've never been to, it's still better than nothing. Or simply ask a kid to go on a bike ride with you Or do something where you're moving around. Maybe that's not the day you normally clean your house, but you're like, I'm going to clean my house today. You're going to move around. Great. It's going to be a great shift.

It's going to be okay. And if none of those ideas work again, chalk it up as, yep, it didn't work out today and move on. Don't dwell, Shift into maybe not a new workout, but into planning your workout for the next day.

Let's say that you didn't get your food prep planned, or you didn't eat the healthy meal that you wanted to. So it didn't go to plan. You can again, chalk it up as one day and don't let it ruin your plans all week. Or you can commit to prep maybe one item. So this is something I do often. [00:17:00] I won't have time to prep all of my food.

I could feel bad about that and feel like a failure and just do nothing. Or I could do something. So in those situations, I'm like, okay, I can quickly cut up. A ton of vegetables, throw them on a pan, and at least I can have roasted vegetables with whatever other foods I eat.

That's a win. Or I can grab some frozen chicken, I can throw it in a crock pot, put in a couple sauces. No matter what else I eat, at least I have some simple protein to have. Another really easy idea if you're like, I can't even food prep anything is make sure you have a healthier food takeout place in your back pocket.

So you can go there if dinner doesn't work out. Or if you don't have one of those, something simple that I sometimes do is if I know my dinner is not going to be great, because let's be honest, sometimes your dinner is not the healthiest and your dinner is not ideal. I will often drink a protein shake just like almond milk and protein before I have dinner.

And then I make sure that I'm getting some nice quality [00:18:00] protein and it keeps me a little bit fuller and then I have whatever I'm having for dinner. So even if my dinner doesn't have a lot of protein in it, I have that shake first and then I make sure I'm getting that in with whatever else I'm eating.

So none of those are Perfect ideal options, but they do make a difference. The last quick option I do is I keep a couple of really simple food items in my house for when situations arise and dinner's just not happening. Like we just don't have time to make it really simple. One I do is I have a key lime, more protein based yogurt. I mix it with some cottage cheese. I throw in a handful of slivered almonds, and then I crumble up those Trader Joe ABC cookies. I crumble up like one or two of those. Now it's not my favorite, favorite dinner, but I keep it on hand for when dinner or lunch falls apart.

It's easy. I know it's going to fill me up. I know it's good. And I know I can just have it on a whim. And it stores fine in my fridge. Like separate, obviously all the ingredients separate. This is the same way I feel about eggs. I will [00:19:00] often eat eggs for dinner. So my family, when dinner falls apart, it's easy and it's quick.

So do have a couple of simple food items kept in your fridge. So when crap hits the fan, you can be like, all right, we're having eggs tonight or whatever it is that is a fit for you or fit for your family as well. And I really do love that key lime little treat. It's actually kind of more of a treat, but again, yogurt, cottage cheese, slivered almonds, and a couple of ABC cookies, which are like graham cookies.

It kind of tastes like key lime pie, but not, but it's just a simple idea. So think of those simple ideas for you. So that you can shift and rise and not guilt yourself or not dwell on the situation.

 So now that you're going to stop dwelling, you're going to shift to rise from the situation and make a new plan or make an adjustment. The last thing I want you to do is remember, don't compare. Comparing helps nobody. I have so many episodes on comparison because I've seen it over and over with clients and friends and in different situations where we [00:20:00] allow that comparison to tell us we're not good enough and whether it's happening externally in our lives or mentally in our minds, it's not helpful.

So I'm going to encourage you at all costs, not to compare because it is a huge problem in fitness and just in life in general. Truly, comparison is the thief of joy. So you have to stop comparing to Tina's fitness journey, Tina's family, or assuming that someone else has it all together and that you're the only one who struggles with, insert, whatever you're working on, whatever your goal is.

I posted a couple of weeks ago, a post where people will often say to me, wow, you're a super mom. You work out with your kids. And in the post, which I'll link in the stories, I show a quick clip of me working out with my kids. And then I show what my laundry looks like sometimes, what my house looks like sometimes, how I burn my cooking, how I'm not that creative, how sometimes my mental health is a fire dumpster.

And that's true. That's a hundred percent true. We all have strengths and we all have weaknesses. And the truth is, most of the [00:21:00] time. When we're looking at people online or even with friends, we tend to display and share things that we excel at. Hence why I always share fitness and health tips. That's my thing.

But you're not going to catch me doing a post on decorating. I'm not a good decorator. One of my best friends is a decorator and she comes to my house and she moves stuff all over the place. And when she goes, she's fantastic. When she goes to like TJ Maxx or HomeGoods or wherever, she'll like bring over pots and stuff and she'll be like, this would look good in your house. And I'm like, great.

Anything you ever see in my house. I didn't do it. It's not my talent. You're also going to never see me talking about how to do my hair really well. I'm really proud of myself when I brush my hair and it looks nice. In fact, when I drop my kids off at school, sometimes I'm looking at like the smooth ponytail I did on Easton and I'm like, yeah, I really did a good job today.

And I watch her walk into preschool and then a little girl walks in behind her who her hair is straight up ready for the Oscars. And I'm like, holy cow, how do you even do that? So my point is everybody [00:22:00] has strengths and everybody has weaknesses. And there are things that you could teach me and I would love to learn from you.

And hopefully there are things that I am able to teach you, But comparing our weaknesses to others strengths makes no sense. We have got to stop doing that.

 If you feel like you often catch yourself comparing, I am going to highly, highly suggest you listen to episode 140. It came out June 28th of 2023. It's titled How to Avoid the Comparison Trap. It's going to give you some really great ideas of how to stop comparing. Because the truth is, we can learn to stop comparing.

tips and tricks from others and their strengths, but we don't need to compare their strengths to our weaknesses because that is not going to help you. It is going to make you feel bad and discourage you on whatever your route is, working on whatever plan you're moving towards. So stop comparing. I know this episode was a little bit different, [00:23:00] but I really do believe in these three simple things.

If you find yourself dwelling over something that's not working out, I want you to ask yourself this simple. Can I stop dwelling? Can I shift and rise? And can I not compare to others? That's it. Write them down, put them in your phone, put it on your fridge, put it on your bathroom mirror, Wherever it is that you're going to see them and ask yourself those three simple things and move on. And let go and realize you are always doing so much better than you think you are. All right. That's it. We'll chat next week.