Decide Ahead of Time

Over these last few months, there have been many opportunities to react during this pandemic:

COVID-19 deaths

Stay-at-home orders

Lost jobs

Overworked and overwhelmed first responders

Closed businesses

Teaching your kids while you try to work from home

Sometimes it can seem as if reacting is the only thing you can do and it’s exhausting with everything that’s coming at you.

What if there was another way?

I had a client text me last week asking if I had some time to chat. She knew I had a double mastectomy a few years ago and wanted some support as she had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and had chosen to have the same surgery.

During our call, I noticed this capable, smart and strong woman focus on all the unknowns and what-ifs that were before her. She was in complete worry mode – which is planning for a future she didn’t want. I completely understood why. And I knew that wouldn’t serve her in creating the outcome she so desperately wanted.

Since her surgery was in two days, I wanted to help her get out of worry mode and into creation. I shared a few tips on what I had experienced back in 2009 and what she will want to ask her doctors and things to watch for.

Then we talked about her mind.

She had shared what it had been telling her and I asked if she was ready to make a huge shift into creating the thoughts and feelings that would carry her through her surgery, recovery, and beyond. She was all in.

I asked her to visualize how she wanted the day of her surgery to go, how she would feel, what she would be thinking, the surgery itself and how it would go, what her pathology report would say…

Then I asked her to decide what she would think and feel when she took her first shower.

I asked her to decide ahead of time how that would go.

I wanted her to be prepared.

I wanted her to be in charge of her own reaction – ahead of time.

This is what I did after my own mastectomy. I had been proactive and decided to remove my breasts after years of tests, biopsies, and lots of worries.

I remember the day I took my first shower. That was the day I would see my body in a new way. I decided before I took my robe off how I was going to think and feel about this new reality.

When I opened my gown and saw my scars, I cried.

Tears of pride.

Eleven years later I would make the same decision I did then.

And I would decide ahead of time how I would show up.

My client did.

She sailed through her surgery, got great news from her labs, and has a positive prognosis.

She took charge of what she told herself and how she wanted to feel.

That’s what I help my clients do.

Master their mind so they can create the career and life they crave.

So powerful.

P.S. What’s happening in your life that you are worried about or scared about or dreading? How different might it look if you chose to decide how you’d react ahead of time? This is what I help my clients do so they can create the career and life they crave. Ready to talk coaching? Schedule a consultation with me today and let’s talk about what you can decide ahead of time.