Did You Know You Can Choose Your Problems?

I wanted to share a really good concept with you this week that one of my favourite mentors, Brooke, shared during one of her classes — and that is the fact that we're going to have problems in life, but we can kind of choose the problems that we're going to have.

We can either choose very low-quality problems… or we can choose high-quality problems.

And honestly, for those of us juggling work, life, kids, partners, school concerts and the mental load of December — this idea is such a breath of fresh air.

I was thinking about this in the context of my life as I drove home yesterday...

My low-quality problems

One of my low-quality problems – and I’m going to use the term road rage even though it's not quite rage – but you know what I mean. Getting annoyed at other drivers is a problem I can really create in my life if I'm not keeping it in check. That’s a pretty low-quality problem.

Another low-quality problem I can get into is overwhelm around my tasks. That’s something we can all slip into very easily… and then we end up having a really crappy day because we're like, “Oh, I didn't get enough done.”

Often we just spin in our minds instead of actually getting things done or intentionally planning out our day.

I find that can be a low-quality problem as well and cause me to have a low-quality day.

And honestly, I do think I'm choosing those problems – they are far more in my control than some other things in life might be.

So what would a high-quality problem look like instead?

Let’s take the same themes and upgrade them.

A high-quality problem might be:

“What am I going to do with all this free time once I've focused and got everything done?”

That’s a fun, high-quality problem, right?

When you finish your work and you think, “Should I do more? Or should I luxuriate in my free time?”

Let’s make that the problem.

And then for the road-rage-y one cause I'm guessing it's increasing because there's so much traffic at this time of year…

“How am I going to see all the people I LOVE over the festive period?”

Because often we turn that into a low-quality problem too:

"Every weekend is packed… I’m so busy… I haven’t got any time… I’ve got to go from this function to that one and buy this present…"

Which, of course, you are welcome to go ahead and hate on because that is a very normal human reaction.

But what if we turned it into:

“How am I going to spend time with all the people I love over the festive period?”

Suddenly – for me anyway – my jaw softens, my chest opens, my shoulders relax, and I think:

What a bloody high-quality problem to have.

Working out how to spend time with all the people that I love!

I’ll leave you with that this week...

Tell me – are you into New Year’s resolutions or not?

I’m going to be sharing something in January that is super fun. I’m very excited to share that with you.

But for now, enjoy your high-quality problems!