… make lemonade. Or, in my case, cry about it, b*tch to your husband, throw a minor tantrum, melodramatically insist that you cannot go on another day, grudgingly accept your circumstances, and make some damn lemonade. With Splenda, because you haven’t been working out lately.

I am officially having ONE OF THOSE WEEKS. My job is… oh, where to start? Ah. Completely frigging miserable. It is preposterously stressful, contentious, combative, and frustrating. My husband is applying for jobs in another city, so there’s a chance I’ll be able to quit soon, but I can’t really start applying for other jobs because I don’t know how long we’ll be in the area. So I’m trapped for the moment. Then one of my friends did something incredibly selfish and hurtful. She’s completely unapologetic, which makes it even harder to get over. My weekends are booked from now through April and I feel like I never have any time. Something is going on with my website–I can’t get the forums working and I have to write my posts in HTML. And on top of everything, my husband has had to travel a lot for work lately. He’s out of town right now and thus unable to tell me that I need CALM THE HELL DOWN.

Deep breath.

OK, I think I’m done whining now. But seriously, what should we do when it seems like everything is going wrong? Is there any way to make it easier on ourselves? Here are some strategies I’m going to try:

• Recognize that you are in control of your life. Even though it may feel like I’m trapped, I’m truly not. I could walk up to my boss right now and quit and there’s nothing that anyone could do to stop me. I am consciously making the choice to continue in this job. Owning that choice somehow makes all the B.S. easier to bear. Check out Frugal Dad’s great article on choice for more on this topic.
• Be grateful. I am so fortunate. I have a wonderful, supportive husband who believes in me. I have a wonderful family–including an adorable niece who turns one in a few weeks. I have awesome friends. I know what I want to do with my life and I’m working toward it. I have a job that pays well, and I love my boss and coworkers (the client, on the other hand, NOT SO MUCH). Wow. Even just writing this paragraph has hugely improved my mood.
• Practice letting go. I have no ability to control the INSANE behavior of my client. I can’t make my friend apologize for being inconsiderate. I have no power to change the mysterious inner workings of my website (I leave that to my husband). I can’t change these things, so I may as well let them go and focus on what I can change. I can change my attitude. I can change my reactions. I can change my environment. I can change how I cope with stress. If you can’t change it, let it go.
• Stop complaining. For the last week or so, I’ve spent a few hours every day complaining about work. What does this do? It reinforces the negative feelings I already have and focuses my attention on everything that’s going WRONG instead of enjoying the things that are going RIGHT. This does me absolutely no good.

Seriously. Just writing this post has made me feel a thousand times better–I can’t imagine what an improvement I will feel from actually implementing these suggestions!

For those who would like to participate in the Weekly Goal Support Group (my husband hopes to have the forums up and running tonight), stop by the original post to leave a comment and post your goals or let us know how you’re doing so far this week. And I’ve successfully completed 20 days of my 21-Day Makeover–tomorrow is the final day!

This post was included in The Next 45 Years Personal Development Carnival–check out the other great entries!

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