I’m about to tell ya how the WORST DAYS EVER (when I want to set my computer on fire and just get a job in a supermarket packing shelves) can turn into the best days of my life!…..

One of those crappy "STUCK" days

I’ve been building websites now for 12 years and some days I want to put my keyboard through my computer screen and go get a job doing that requires no brain power. No offence to people who pack shelves for a living. How would we ever find our spaghetti cans without you!

I’ve been studying personal development for a few years now and I never stop learning. Sometimes it’s new stuff but most of the time its not. It’s the same ole stuff you always hear and think “Yeah Yeah! I already know that”. Catch is, most of us don’t apply it! The biggest lesson I ever got in personal development was so hoooooj that you’d think I’d never have a bad day again, BUT I do! This story is long but is powerful (at least I hope you this it is otherwise I’m just some raving looney!)

This personal story of mine I’m hoping will help people to work out how to get out of crappy days when you just feel STUCK! When everything’s going wrong and you just want to pack it all in and be a bum.

Hippo-Birthing

When I was pregnant with my first baby I heard about this “Hypnobirthing”. It sounded like some crazy stuff that hippys did while a hippopotamus was giving birth, but they said you could have pain-free labour!! so of course (being open to new things) I had a look. It was about training your mind to be calm during the labour and birth and how that would result in a faster, less painful, no-drama birth.

I convinced my partner to do the course with me and check it out. After all I was all for “mind-over-matter” stuff and thought it can’t hurt (excuse the pun )

Now I always swore I’d be one of those screaming mental chicks who ask for all the drugs in the world and make my man want to stand 6 metres from me so I don’t swipe him with a beauty right hook while I was trying to pass a mini-human through my pelvis, BUT… I’d grown a lot since then and wanted the experience to be as pleasant as possible.

After the 2 day course I listened to the visualization audios every night for the 6 months leading up to the birth. I visualized a nice easy pain free birth or 6 hours, NO DRUGS, being completely coherent, not even begging for drugs at any point and doing the breathing exercises to stay calm. My partner learned the key prompts to use any time he felt I was not breathing right or needed some encouragement.  The course also taught you how the womens body works during birth so we understood that we were MADE to do this and if we trust our bodies then it makes for a much more simple and manageable experience.

HERE WAS MY THERORY:
If I could stay calm during child birth then I could stay calm during ANYTHING that life through at me. I could get lemons and make Margaritas!

D-DAY!

D day came! My waters broke but I wasn’t in labour so I finished off two websites while I waited. (Crazy I know but they had to be done and what else was I guna do with myself?) The second I stood up from my desk and said to Rod (A.K.A. Big-Daddy-to-be) “I’ve finished – Let’s do this thing” my labour started.

Rod was magic! He knew his prompts, he encouraged me, he giggled with excitement now and then. The Nana’s and Grandad were all freaking out and Uncle Aza was whipping me up 2 bowls of instant pudding! (Couldn’t think of anything else I felt like but knew I needed the energy).

5 hours later we welcomed Milly Matija Tolhopf into the world. No drugs, no begging for drugs, no extra oxegen needed… a healthy baby girl…. EXACTLY as I had visualized. We were STOKED!!! I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway when he made fire… “LOOK AT WHAT I HAVE CREEEATEDDDDDD!!!!’ One of those laugh and cry at the same time moments that I’ll have vividly imprinted in my head forever.

As suspected, I thought “YUUUUSSSSSS!!!!!!! I did it! I kept calm under the most extreme circumstances. I was now completely invincible. I’m like the dude out of the Hylander movie.

I even went out 8 months later and did a half marathon just because I used to be a sprinter and always hated long distance so thought “Hey! I can squeeze out a human without drugs. What else I can do!”

Nothing could get me down…

…until something got me down

Yup! Turned out I wasn’t Hylander after all.  I started having days in my web design business where EVERYTHING got me down. The law of attraction in the negative. One thing would go wrong, then the computer would crash, it would rain so I’d take a drive to calm down but catch every red light. Then every project would have a hiccup, bills would come in the mail, every client wanted me to be there every second of every day and the supermarket shelf job was looking better every day.

How could this be! I had everything going for me! A new baby that slept like a champ! Our own home that I always wanted, a wonderful man who cleaned and even cooked when I was working, an excellent child care arrangement and I worked from home so I didn’t have to deal with traffic! Living the dream you’d think!

So why was a still having crappy days!?

Finally… here is the actual lesson in this long story

No matter how much you know about personal development, the law of attraction, one of the million other laws they talk about now……

No matter how much you studying mind over matter, read the books, go to the seminars – whatever blows your skirt up!……

No matter if you’ve had a near death experience, if you’ve squeezed out 8 babies with no drugs or if you’re a regular no-drama-not-much-happens-in-my-life type of dude or chick…

CRAPPY DAYS ARE STILL GOING TO HAPPEN…..

But here is the difference…..

If you are absolutely dedicated to learning more about yourself and life…

If you are passionate about CONSTANTLY improving and stretching your mind…

If you are 100% keen to to have the most fun and wonderful life you could EVER imagine…

You keep reading your books, going to the seminars, surround yourself with positive people, do a little bit towards personal development EVERY DAY… then….

No matter what life throws at you… you will see a light at the end of the tunnel. You will be able to snap yourself out of ANY bad state that is ruining your day. You will be able to laugh lots, enjoy every moment and jump out of bed with a THIS DAY IS GUNA ROCK! attitude……. I’m guna call it…..     T.D.I.G.R.A.   OK no I’m not. Those motivational acronyms don’t always work

So if you are doing something towards improving yourself every day…. even if it’s just giving yourself a high five each morning to say good on ya mate! (although high fiving yourself is really just clapping)….. keep doing what you’re doing!

I’ll leave you with this final message….

Sometimes we do little things towards bettering ourselves, sometimes we set massive goals that blow us away (even if its just temporarily). Find what drives you, be grateful for everything – good and bad… and the key is…. KEEP DOING IT…. EVERY DAY…. and the more you do… the easier it will be to snap out of the crappiest day EVER… and turn your day into one that makes you want to do cartwheels and dance like an epileptic helicopter!

Dude dancing like an epileptic helicopter

My reason for writing this is that I had one of the worst days ever yesterday. Everything went wrong. I even cried like a baby because I couldn’t handle it. So much to do, everything going wrong, every client wanting me to do their stuff RIGHT NOW. It got too much! By the end of the day, our team had got together and as a result produced the BEST project management and strategies to make work easy again, and fun that it turned out to be the best day ever. A friend bought me chocolates just because she knew I was having a shitty day, my man came home early with my favourite dinner and put bubs to bed so we could have a romantic dinner together. We had a baby scan and found out we’re having a boy in 5 months time…. so the worst day…. turned out to be the BEST DAY EVER!!! That’s what inspired this long winded rant that I hope everyone got something out of