Every business has their fair share of lemons & the nature of our business is often turning houses that are lemons into lemonade. See what we had to say in this article posted on UpJourney.com: What to do when life gives you lemons.
When most people face adversity or pain in their lives, the usual response is “How do I get rid of this pain as fast as possible?” Some firefighters call it “Putting the wet stuff on the red stuff.” Humans are conditioned to seek pleasure and avoid pain & they are the primary motivators in our decision-making process, conscious and subconscious.
What if, instead of trying to avoid the lemons, we took the counter-intuitive path and chose to lean into the pain or lemons? Could it be that the key to finding what you’re looking for is on the other side of the lemon you’re facing? What a great place to hide the answers! Exactly where no one is looking.
These days, with all the information in the world, it’s easy to believe that someone else possesses all the answers & if we can just find the next big secret, we can make that lemonade & be happy once and for all. While searching for knowledge, wisdom, and advice are all great, take a moment to consider that the answers to each of our lemons & problems are already on the inside of us; we just need to be ripe and ready to receive them and they need to be drawn out.
Sure, there are probably answers to each of our questions out there somewhere, but do you really have the time to search the planet, read everything ever written, or talk to every person on earth to weed through all the noise and find the answer that pertains directly to you? Do you really trust Google to be your personal therapist and find you the right answer? Why is it that we don’t trust and overlook the most important source for our answers; our heart?
So how do we listen to our heart to slice through those lemons? Four simple steps that I use:
- What are the facts about the situation? Get clarity on what is actually happening. Not your opinion, not your feelings about the situation, what are the 100% true facts. We have to have clarity.
- What are your feelings about the situation? Now that we have the facts, it’s healthy to acknowledge our true feelings. Sometimes we even need to speak them out loud or tell someone.
- Now that we know the facts and feelings, we want to spend some time focusing on the solution. Not focusing on the problem, focusing on different perspectives and giving ourselves permission to trust what our heart is saying. Sometimes this takes time if our mind is cluttered with chaos and busyness.
- Finally, we decide on one thing that we can do immediately to start us down the path we choose, and then we do that one thing. Not in a couple of weeks, not this weekend, immediately.
Life will never stop giving us lemons, so instead of trying to avoid them, our target should be to become a better lemonade maker. If we look for the gift on the other side of the lemon and we use that gift or lemon to expand and grow ourselves, our confidence will grow and lemons won’t interrupt our lives; they’ll be the catalyst for growth!
what to do when life gives you lemons