Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to just aim for a few enjoyable moments.
Speaker 1: If you are in a situation that is likely to
Speaker 1: be challenging, keeping your expectations low can keep you from
Speaker 1: telling yourself a story that everything is terrible. Every summer,
Speaker 1: I make a summer fun list. These are things I
Speaker 1: want to do to make summer feel like summer, to
Speaker 1: create memories and enjoy the season. I knew we would
Speaker 1: be taking a family trip to the Virgin Islands this summer,
Speaker 1: which was going to be a big adventure, but traveling
Speaker 1: with a toddler in particular is always challenging, so I
Speaker 1: said that my goal was to have at least a
Speaker 1: few enjoyable moments. With that as the bar. We definitely passed.
Speaker 1: There were several genuinely enjoyable moments. There were also some
Speaker 1: rough patches, and I am sorry if you happen to
Speaker 1: be sitting near me and my toddler on the flight
Speaker 1: from St. Thomas to Newark, and I particularly extend my
Speaker 1: apologies to the cleaning crew who had to deal with
Speaker 1: the bag of goldfish crackers that he dumped on the
Speaker 1: plane floor. If I was aiming for total bliss, being
Speaker 1: up with a toddler one night from two am to
Speaker 1: four am in my hotel room could leave me despondent.
Speaker 1: Here I am on vacation and I'm miserable. Life is
Speaker 1: horrible and terrible. But since I was just aiming for
Speaker 1: a few enjoyable moments, I could think about seeing fish
Speaker 1: through the clear bottom of a kayak one night, and
Speaker 1: going on a sunset cruise one night, and seeing a
Speaker 1: giant turtle while snorkeling. The narrative need not be all
Speaker 1: good or all bad. It's just life. I have learned
Speaker 1: that sort of stoicism over years of having little ones,
Speaker 1: but I realized that sharing that mindset might be helpful.
Speaker 1: When I blogged about my trip, our reader wrote that
Speaker 1: she had been very unhappy about her recent family vacation
Speaker 1: because of some rough spots, but when she saw that
Speaker 1: my goal had just been having a few enjoyable moments,
Speaker 1: it changed her perspective about the trip. Did her family
Speaker 1: have at least a few enjoyable moments in the course
Speaker 1: of their multi week road trip, Well, yes, yes they did.
Speaker 1: They also had some tough spots, of course, but neither
Speaker 1: needed to define the narrative. If you are going into
Speaker 1: a situation that is theoretically supposed to be one but
Speaker 1: might be challenging, it might help to set this as
Speaker 1: your goal too. Just aim for a few enjoyable moments.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's a family wedding. It's supposed to be fun,
Speaker 1: but it's quite possible that the airline will lose your luggage,
Speaker 1: and the bride's uncle will do something inappropriate, and your
Speaker 1: kid might start screaming in the middle of toast number seven.
Speaker 1: If you are not careful, these points of evidence can
Speaker 1: lead you to a story that the whole trip was
Speaker 1: a disaster. But if you aim for just a few
Speaker 1: enjoyable moments, you will probably succeed in seeing those. The
Speaker 1: cake was uncommonly good for a wedding cake, there was
Speaker 1: a beautiful sunset at the reception. You enjoyed talking to
Speaker 1: the bride's other uncle, the one who was not so terrible.
Speaker 1: Those things happened too, and so all is fine in
Speaker 1: any case. As we often say on this podcast, low
Speaker 1: expectations are easy to meet. Reality is what It is.
Speaker 1: Better to have low expectations and wildly exceed them than
Speaker 1: to hope for perfection and be constantly disappointed. We often
Speaker 1: can't change reality, but we can change our mindset and
Speaker 1: it really does make a difference in the meantime. This
Speaker 1: is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's to making the
Speaker 1: most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast Pod that's B the number four,
Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at iHeartMedia dot com.
Speaker 1: That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For
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Speaker 1: favorite shows.