What we get to do

"Looks like somebody's got a case of the Mondays..."

For those of you who haven't seen the movie Office Space, that's a quote early in the film, where the secretary is needling the main character for not being chirpier as he comes into the office. He has just battled stop-and-go traffic, ducked-and-dived to avoid seeing his slimy boss, and skulked into his cubicle only to be aurally abused by the sound of a colleague on the phone. (It's a hysterical film, and I highly recommend it for some silly late-winter fun.)

I love that quote because it captures so succinctly the feeling that so many of us have at the beginning of the week (or sometimes throughout the whole week!). We are all so over-committed, and over-to-do'ed, and overwhelmed, that it's easy to be consumed with unceasing dread about all the stuff we have to do...
Now some, maybe all, of us have felt like that little kid above... maybe we're feeling like that right now. I know that "ugh" feeling, and it can be palpable.

But one of the magic tricks that I picked up years ago that has helped me cope better with that "ugh" feeling is this: reframing all of the things I feel I have to do, into things that I get to do.

It's a small mental shift but can have a powerful effect on how we perceive the day and week and tasks ahead. It reminds us that we are lucky, even if only in a small way, to have the opportunity and the ability to do the things we do.

I don't have to review my P&Ls, I get to review them because I am in the happy position of being a CEO of two successful business and have a powerful brain that enables me to decipher numbers. I don't have to take my daughters to nursery, I get to take them there because I am the lucky parent of two amazing children and have a healthy, functioning body that enables me to walk fast while pushing a stroller. I don't have to get back in touch with a client, I get to email them because I have worked hard to develop a strong reputation, and people trust and want to work with me.

Do you see how the energy changes almost immediately? Very quickly we can go from feeling put upon and burdened to feeling lucky and energized.

That's the power of what we "get" to do.

Now I know this may not work every time, and there are many, many things that just have to be endured (life's not about being in our "happy place" all the time). BUT, if we can change the way we feel about what's ahead of us, even just a little bit, it makes that thing just a little bit easier.

Little shifts, little energy boosts, little mental reframings.

They all add up over the course of a day, a week, a lifetime, and can help us to become do-ers instead of complainers, and to feel activated (maybe even a bit excited?) instead of deadened.

So the next time we catch ourselves dragging our feet, hitting the snooze, moaning about what we have to do, let's remind ourselves that we get to do it, too. And not everyone is so lucky.