Episode 123: Don't Eat Caesar Salad With A Steak Knife

Trust me, everyone makes mistakes, from little goofs to epic fails, including the people you think "have it all together". The difference lies in how you respond to  the mistake. Today we're talking about how we can avoid being stuck in a "what's wrong with me" loop and use these frustrating experiences as springboards for growth.

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The information contained and documents referenced in the podcast “Your Priority Centered Life” are for entertainment, educational and informational purposes only, and are not intended as, and shall not be understood or construed as, professional medical or health treatment, diagnosis, or advice. We strongly encourage listeners to consult with medical providers or qualified mental health providers with issues and questions regarding any physical and/or mental health symptoms or concerns that they may have. Furthermore, the opinions and views expressed by podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates are not necessarily those of the podcast host. Dr. Alise Murray’s opinions and views are expressed in her individual capacity and are not to be construed as those of any of her podcast guests, partners and/or affiliates.

Transcript

 (Transcript is auto-generated and may contain minor errors.)

Hi, I wanted to share something today that even though it's a camping story, if you have never been camping in your life, I'm guessing that you might find this story more relatable than you think.  So, let me explain. I love camping. I grew up camping.  We had a Winnebago trailer when I was a kid. My cousins would have a campsite nearby, and they'd be in their tent, and we would be up late giggling in the tent, playing cards, talking. The next day we would be going out on the water, you know, sitting around the campfire. Lots of good memories of camping when I was a kid.  Becoming an adult, I married someone who also loves camping, and so my husband and I spent Many happy vacations taking the kids camping.   

During the pandemic shutdown, I was realizing I didn't have a lot of social stuff going on. So I decided to join a women's camping club because I thought being outdoors sounds like a safer way to socialize and have fun. And so I joined this club and it's been great.  These camping trips that we go on a few times a year are weekend trips, like three day weekends. So, I would take Friday off and,  get up Friday morning, load up the car , and go. 

So when I started with this club, in the very beginning, I was shocked at how long it took to get all my gear together, get it packed, get it loaded into the car. It used to always be a team effort when we would go camping. My husband and the kids would all pitch in and we'd load up the car, but now doing this on Friday mornings, my husband was at work. The kids were at school. I was on my own trying to get down the ice chest, trying to get to the sleep bag, the air mattress, all these little things, trying to figure out Okay, where on earth is the tick puller?  Where are the citronella candles? Trying to get everything together. 

So on One of the very first trips that I took I was running all over the house, running all over the garage , Trying to pull everything together and pack it on Friday morning so that I could get on the road for the campsite.  I worked late back then on Thursday evenings, so I needed to do it on Friday morning.  And I finally got everything packed. I went to the store on the way to get food and ice. And between packing, loading the car, buying groceries, it took me seven hours just to get  on the road to the campsite.  So definitely way more time than I anticipated, but I got there,  set up my campsite, and then I realized that as I'm blowing up my air mattress, my batteries were running low. The motor was starting to die. So I went to the woman with the campsite next door and I asked, do you have any batteries that I could borrow? and explain the situation. She said, sure, no problem. So she gave me some batteries to borrow. 

I blew up my air mattress. Everything's good.  And then she noticed that I was in the dark because by now it had gotten dark. And she said, do you have a flashlight? And I said, actually, no, I don't. So she,  had brought like three or four flashlights. She said, oh, I just get like a bulk pack, you know. And so here. Take a flashlight. Just keep it. So I was very grateful to her. Had the flashlight. Everything's good.  

So the next day It's lunchtime and I get out my Caesar salad that I had bought at the grocery store for lunch and Looking forward to eating this salad and then I realize I had left the plastic knives forks and spoons behind  So all I had was a steak knife. 

So here I am trying to eat a Caesar salad with a steak knife, trying to avoid cutting my lip, trying to avoid stabbing myself in the gum, not being terribly successful. , and  the woman next door,  ambles by on the way to the bathroom and she's like, Oh, did everything go okay last night? And I'm like, you know, hiding my steak knife and saying, Oh yeah, yeah, thank you so much once again. And, and just feeling  Really dumb. Feeling really foolish.  

And so let me ask you, do you ever feel like you're eating a salad with a steak knife? Do you ever feel like, like you're trying to act like everything's fine, perfectly normal, and then you're looking around, as I was, at other people at campsites having their lunch. And it seems like, okay, they have it all together. Why am I struggling? What is wrong with me? Why can't I do the simple act that is necessary to enjoy this activity? I mean, so often  we find ourselves in this kind of situation. 

As I said, I am willing to bet that even if you're not a camper, you have probably found yourself in this kind of situation. Cursing under your breath,  feeling. Aggravated with yourself while flashing a smile at others, just being like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, everything's fine.  

Maybe this has happened to you when you got so involved in working on something, you totally lost track of time and now you're late. Or maybe a friend is on their way over, you know, they've texted you and said, Hey, I'll come on over and pick up that thing that I left at your house. And you realize your house is an absolute mess.  Or. You rush out the door and then you realize, Ugh, I have to go back home because I forgot my briefcase or my purse or whatever it is.  And it's at these times when you're just so aggravated with yourself that,  you know, you're probably wondering, why is this so hard? This is a pretty simple adult task. What is wrong with me  that I'm struggling with this?  

But let me tell you, I mean, modern life is hard.  If you think about the fact that smartphones came out in 2007,  our parents, so one generation ago, they didn't have,  the constant interruptions we have, with notifications, with texts, with email on our phone, and our parents did not have the expectations of being instantaneously available to everybody that we have, if we're not careful.  We're all running around smiling and trying to look like everything's fine. You are not alone in this.

Going  back to the Caesar salad and steak knife story this has become something where my clients will sometimes tell me.  If they've heard this story, you know, I'll say, hey, how did the week go? And sometimes they will say, this was an eating Caesar salad with a steak knife week. So it's just become a metaphor. But let me tell you the lessons learned from this literally painful experience of stabbing myself in the gum.  

1.     Allow more time than you think you need.  

So I made arrangements, fortunately I was able to, where I no longer work Thursday nights.  So I can do a little bit in advance. I can get to bed early before going on a camping trip. Very helpful because you might think that you can get something done in a certain period of time and be way off, especially if it's something that you don't do very often.  

2.     Get stuff out of your head.  

I use the Pack Point app. And it's really great because what it does is you tell it your activity that you're packing for, you tell it, okay, I'm going on a trip, it's a business trip, it's a pleasure trip, it's a camping trip, it's hiking, whatever it is, and you tell it where you're going and when, it will look at the weather forecast and it will tell you, okay, here are some things that you should be packing. And you can adapt it as needed, you can  create it. Saved list. You can add items that are always going to be on your list that may not be on their suggested list. So I have a saved list for these camping trips. That's really helpful.  

3.     Check items off as you go. 

Which may sound obvious, but for something as complex as packing for a trip or packing for a move, check items off as you pack, but then check them off again as you load them into the car So that you don't end up with your plasticware. sitting in your garage when you're trying to actually enjoy your meal.  

4.     When things go wrong, Don't beat yourself up. 

And I know this is hard, but just, just breathe.  If possible, use some humor about it. Sometimes I'm able to, as frustrated as I am, sometimes I'm able to see the ridiculousness of the situation. I'm able to think, okay, right now I'm pissed. In the future, this will make a good story.   I will be able to laugh at this and other people probably will too.  This moment is not going to last forever. This aggravation is not going to last forever. 

If you're able to do that, fantastic. Humor is really your ally. If you're not able to do that, well,  bottom line, don't beat yourself up because it's really not effective. Treat what's going on as data. And as soon as you're able, jot down some notes about what happened, what you could do differently, and come up with a straightforward plan to take an action step as soon as possible to try to turn this around, because the natural tendency for a lot of us is when we've experienced something that is embarrassing and frustrating, then  first we might beat ourselves up, Second, we might try to forget about it, because it's not fun to think about making a mistake. So we're just like, okay, that's over and done with, moving on.  And then we miss out on the opportunity to learn from it. Instead you want to come up with an action step and take action as soon as possible.  

With this eating a salad with a knife situation, I was so aggravated.  That I, that night, I'm sitting in my tent and I placed an order on my phone right away for a camping lantern, a headlamp  flashlight, batteries, and a couple of other little odds and ends that I just wanted to make sure that I had  Extras of, and I made a note in my to do list to pack the plastic ware because we always have tons of that. Anytime we get takeout they give you plastic ware even when you tell them don't give me plastic ware. So we had a lot of that. I didn't have to buy that. But I immediately placed an order for some of these other things so that I would have my own.  When everything arrived, I went to work right away. I created a camping box just for  my solo camping trips, with everything I need. I put the larger items, like the ice chest, on my pack point list.  So that I could just, boom, grab the camping box, grab the larger stuff,  and if there was any question about where things were, things that we use for family camping trips, I made a little note on  my PackPoint list, and so now, it's not a quick process, but it's a much more streamlined process. Which brings us to the next point. 

5.     Try to develop streamlined routines. 

 When you have a fairly complicated task that you do.  on a semi regular basis or a regular basis, then  what are some things I can do to just make it streamlined and efficient?   I have saved a lot of time just by having most of the work already done for me. All the camping stuff is together. Another thing that I do as part of this streamlined routine is these camping trips that I go on  with my camping club,  I am always expected to bring a potluck dish for a dinner. So I bring the same potluck dish every single time because I know exactly what the ingredients are. 

I don't have to consult a recipe when I'm going to the store as I head out of town  then I can just pick up the items. I can assemble it in 10 minutes at the campsite. And  everybody enjoys it. So that is something that, you know, no decision needs to be made. The decision is already made. So streamlined routines really give you that gift of not having to make a decision, not having to do extra work trying to figure something out. Boom. It's done. It's less time.  

6.     Don't suffer in silence.  

It feels good to help others  as long as your request is reasonable and you give other people the freedom to say no and you express gratitude. Usually people feel like it's a positive experience to help someone. So in this situation  It's a plastic fork.  It's not an over the top request. And what was getting me stuck was that the woman in the next campsite had loaned me batteries, she had given me a flashlight,  and I just thought I cannot ask her for a plastic fork. But that got me so stuck that I didn't stop to think. Well, there are dozens of campsites in this campground. With my camping group, There were about 16 campsites that we were taking up, so I could have easily just walked down the lane, looked for somebody who was there at their campsite, and just asked, could I borrow a plastic fork? And you know, it wouldn't have been a big deal.  I can't really imagine anybody being annoyed with that.  But instead, I was seething in anger at myself. So, not particularly productive. Don't suffer in silence.  

7.     Remember, everyone makes mistakes. Don’t overapologize.  

Sometimes we can tend to over apologize, and there's really no need for that. There's no need to say, I'm so sorry, I forgot to bring this.  Sorry to inconvenience you. You know, it's, it's not a big deal.  Again, if your request is reasonable and you're giving people the freedom to say no,  and particularly if you're taking an action step to try to prevent this from happening over and over, because yes, I mean, if you ask the same person over and over, can I borrow this? If you don't give it back, if you don't express gratitude, then yeah, it's not going to be fun for them to help you. But otherwise People usually feel good about helping somebody else. It's just the way we're wired. We're social animals. So, be careful about over apologizing.  

8.     Get support as needed.

If you do run into the same difficulty over and over,  don't stay stuck with your embarrassment. Don't let this self talk stop you, this what's wrong with me?  Other people have it together. I don't have it together.  Stop. Don't stay stuck in that self talk. Get support.  A fresh perspective and some coaching and accountability can be really helpful. 

So often my clients will say,  Wow, why didn't I think of that? Or  they'll say, I knew what I needed to do. But I just couldn't get it done, and I never would have done it without you checking in on me regularly,  without your voice in my ear,  then I wouldn't have done it.  

Life is hard.  You will make mistakes. I will make mistakes. Don't stay stuck in your frustration and embarrassment. Choose to focus your energy on solving a problem that is causing you a lot of frustration. Taking an action step to get the ball rolling. And give yourself the kindness of getting coaching and support as needed.