You try and try, but they keep showing up.

By Vicki Hughes     Posted March 10, 2013

Little annoying crap has the power to suck the joy right out of an otherwise lovely day. We’ve all done it;  The client who no-shows, the person in front of us, who spaces out, and makes us miss our big shot at getting through the light before it turns red, the bill we thought we mailed , discovered when we pull down the sun visor to put on our lipstick. Little. Annoying. Crap.

Everyone has it.

The real problem comes in when we start giving it our undivided attention. We go from being stuck in traffic, to thinking our boss is an idiot, to thinking we will never get out of debt, to lamenting the complete deterioration of Western Civilization because everyone sucks.

Whoa! It’s just a traffic jam! It might be keeping you from a head on collision, or helping you miss the creepy  (Did he just sniff me??) guy who likes to follow you too closely when you get out of the elevator.

Chill.

I have found a few little tactics I like to use when I feel myself boarding the Teeth Grinding Train.

1)      Tell yourself this situation may be working to your advantage somehow. A traffic delay may save your life, or cause you to meet your new best friend, or find a fifty dollar bill on the sidewalk. If you can’t change it, choose to imagine something good coming from it.

2)      Decide to be un-offendable. To do this, you can say, “It’s not me, it’s YOU!” I suggest in most cases, you do this silently. In other words, you remind yourself that the person making you feel bat-shit crazy is not doing it just to get under your skin. They would be doing or saying the same routine, no matter who was standing in your shoes. People do what they do because of who they are. Stop taking their actions so personally and remember; sometimes you’re the one driving people nuts.

3)      Say to yourself, “Let’s just pretend that didn’t happen.” When you were five years old, you created countless new opportunities, futures and possibilities by pretending. You let your imagination do great things. You still can! I’m not talking about living in complete denial, I’m  suggesting we choose to focus on what makes us happy instead of spinning out movie-length scenarios of how this one event is going to ruin our lives forever! When I say to myself, “Let’s just pretend that didn’t happen,” it frees up parts of my brain to notice things that are funny or inspirational or at the very least, neutral. Neutral thoughts are better than being dialed into the little annoying crap.

4)      Distract yourself with something. Spending the weekend with a deaf uncle who blares the news 24/7? I suggest taking walks, offering to clean his birdfeeder, cooking some chili while plugging into your iPod and cranking your own tunes, or challenging him to a game of checkers. Distraction is a powerful tool. You can’t raise toddlers without it! Use it when you feel the Cranky Train leaving the station.

5)      Don’t throw away the brownie because of a few annoying nuts. I’m not a nut person, but if you were to hand me a fudgy brownie with nuts, I would not be inclined to toss it in the trash. I would enjoy what I did like, and leave the rest. We can’t always guarantee that our brownies or our lives are nut-free, but we can choose to enjoy the sweet parts, and leave the rest.

© Vicki Hughes 2013