Keep Going
Apart from the near-total demise of the Essendon AFL team, the world does seem to be having a moment.
This week, I was stranded in Sydney for 30 hours thanks to the weather. Now, reading about flight delays from the comfort of your own home is one thing. Living through them is quite another. I spent the better part of that time rotating between taxis, terminals and hotel lounges, achieving almost nothing except a growing intimacy with bad airport coffee and the phrase, “We’ll update you shortly.”
It was not, I can assure you, a spiritual retreat.
Meanwhile, back home in the Yarra Valley, I had a sick horse and my long-suffering property manager and friend, Kaz, was once again left to save the day, sacrificing her own family weekend in the process. This did not help my mental state, which was already performing interpretive dance somewhere between irritation and despair.
And that is when something rather fascinating happened.
I went straight to blame.
Not sensible problem-solving. Not perspective. Not grace under pressure. No. My mind opened the doors and let everyone in for criticism. The airport. The airline. The systems. My assistant. My lifestyle. Humanity in general. At one point, I was quite sure the whole episode might actually make me ill, which is always a lovely touch when you are sitting under fluorescent lighting, eating a sandwich wrapped in regret.
But on a small scale, it struck me as a neat metaphor for where many of us are at the moment.
There is a lot going on. Disruption. Uncertainty. Delay. No clear endpoint. Too much noise, not enough clarity, and the nagging sense that someone, somewhere, ought to be running this better.
And yet, here we are.
That is when Craig kicks in.
Who is Craig? Craig McRae, of course. As a Collingwood tragic, I find his wisdom applicable to almost everything in life. I do not play football, and no one is asking me to run through a banner, but his observations on mindset are gold.
Craig talks about refusing to take a loser’s response (could someone please tell the multiple taxi drivers I experienced this week).
Now that may sound a bit football-club blunt, but it is excellent advice.
When people have a bad meeting, fluff a presentation, lose their train of thought or fail to land a message, they often turn on themselves with extraordinary enthusiasm. The self-flagellation is immediate. “I was hopeless.” “I ruined it.” “I always do this.” It is dramatic, unhelpful and, frankly, boring.
A much better question is: "What can I learn from this?"
That question changes everything.
It moves you from blame to responsibility. From emotion to reflection. From spiralling to strategy.
I actually rang a wonderful assistant at Virgin Platinum Plus and asked what I could do to make this a better experience next time and learned that although I was told there was no reimbursement for my extra hotel expense, it would be honoured. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Actually knowing there was nothing else I could have done helped and the blame disintegrated.
Over the last few weeks, I have received several lovely recognitions, including being named among the Top 150 Women Thought Leaders, Analysts and Influencers globally during International Women’s Week. A thrill, of course. And while I’m still not entirely sure how these things happen, I do know this much: the harder I work, the luckier I seem to get.
Not glamorous, but true.
So perhaps that is the message for all of us.
When the world is chaotic, when your plans fall apart, when your football team tests your will to live, when work goes badly, when the news cycle is too much and your own head starts behaving like an unreliable group chat, you may only have one thing fully in your control: your own mental state.
That does not mean pretending everything is fine. It means choosing your response. Catching the blame spiral. Asking better questions. Taking the next action. Learning. Adjusting. Continuing.
In other words, don’t let the bastards get you down.
Keep learning.
Keep moving.
Keep perspective.
Keep humour.
Above all, keep going.
I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Love,
Dr Louise Mahler