I’m going to tell you about the amazing experience I recently had waiting in the Amazon returns line.  Sounds like a great time doesn’t it!

It actually was!

Don’t think I’m totally crazy, I’m going to explain to you why it was so amazing and how using the simple practice of Looking Forward can make any experience amazing.

When I got to the store where I was making my Amazon returns, there were probably 30 people ahead of me in line and I had the BIGGEST smile on my face!  I was ready for this.

You might wonder why anyone would have a smile on their face if there were 30 people ahead of them in a return line, but if you knew the back story, you’d be smiling too.

Like I was saying, I’m in a line with around 30 people ahead of me and as I’m standing there, I’m watching the people around me.  They aren’t smiling.  Some of them have small kids with them, some of them are looking around with anxious expressions on their faces, some of them are obviously MAD.  Some walk up and see how long the line is and immediately turn around and walk back out the door.  And I am standing there, actually happy!

How can this be?

Do I love long lines?

Do I have so much extra time in my day that standing in a line is a better alternative than doing anything else?

What is it that’s influencing my attitude?

Here’s the basics of it.

I had been to this exact location three times before in the last month since Christmas.

THREE TIMES!

THREE times I turned around and left.

Every time I came, the line was double or triple as long as what I found it that day.

What made the difference for me on time #4???

First of all, obviously, was perspective.

Because I had something worse to compare it to, it seemed like a better wait time than I had seen before.  Other people that were showing up had obviously never been there before and saw what a REALLY long line looked like.  They felt like I had on my first, second and third tries.  I understood where they were coming from but I kinda wanted to yell out to them, “This is the shortest line I’ve seen in a month!  You should stick it out!!”

The second part that made me show up and smile about the long line was that I had decided before I even left home, that I was going to stay and get these returns done… no matter what.

I wasn’t going to have this hanging over my head any longer.  I made it my #1 priority for that afternoon so it wouldn’t be sitting in the back of my mind as that one more thing that I needed to get done.  Making an absolute decision BEFORE it happened was a big part of being OK with whatever I found when I got there.

The final piece of the ridiculous smile I had on my face besides the perspective I had on the length of the line and the fact that I had already decided before I left my house that I was staying no matter how long the line was… the final and most important part of the smile on my face was that I had taken time that morning to Look Forward to what I had planned for the day and wrote down how I was going to show up for each thing I was going to do.  Looking Forward doesn’t mean that you’re looking forward, or anticipating with excitement, what you have to do, it means deciding before something happens how you want to feel or how you want to help someone else to feel as you do what you need to do. 

How are you going to show up for an uncomfortable conversation? 

What do you want to say? 

What expression are you going to have on your face if someone starts to argue with you? 

Looking Forward is one of the systems I teach in Camp Connection.  I use binoculars to represent this in the First Aid Kit that I teach you about.  I LOVE how using this system has changed so much about how I greet hard situations in my life.  It even helps with fun or scary or just new things that come up all the time. 

I would love to teach you more about how to use the Looking Forward system, as well as all the other systems, that are in the First-Aid Kit in the Camp Connection class I have ready for you. 

If you sign up after listening to this episode, I’m offering you a $25 off coupon!  Just enter the code… EPISODE83 when you check out.  You’ll find all of my courses at www.hunkeedori.com/courses.  I’ll leave the links in the show notes so they’re easy for you to find.

In the example I’m sharing today about waiting in the Amazon Return line, In the section of my morning planner where I “Look Forward” I had written what I was going to do and feel in that line, no matter how long it was.  I picked out two of the long podcasts that I rarely have enough time to listen to and downloaded them. That way, I would be entertained with something I was excited to do, while doing something I didn’t really want to do. I made sure to put my headphones in my pocket so I could do that when I got there.

Next, I tried a little manifesting. 

I’m not a big manifester, but I thought I’d give it a try. 

I imagined how I would feel if I got there and the line was shorter than I had ever seen it and how happy that would make me.

When I got to the store, I already had my plan of what was going to happen, before I ever got there. 

That was the reason for my smile! 

I had decided that I was going to feel excited about the line and it turned out that it was the shortest I had ever seen it.

Can you see the difference? 

I am a big believer in Looking Forward!  What if the line hadn’t been the shortest I had seen it?  I had still decided how I wanted to feel in that line.  I would have enjoyed listening to more of my podcasts. 

It really does work and I challenge you to try it. 

Take a minute of your morning and decide how you’re going to react to situations that are coming up in your day and think through how you’ll react…no matter what!  If you’d like to hear another example of how this works, go back and listen to episode #7.  That’s when I became a true believer in the practice of Looking Forward!

How much difference does our perspective make when we enter a situation?

What if the other times I had shown up to do my returns if I had the same perspective that I had this time? 

What if I had decided beforehand that I was going to make it a pleasant experience?  That when I got there it was going to be the perfect time for me to arrive no matter how long I had to wait.

I can tell you this…in the long run, I would have spent less time getting the returns done if I had just done it the first time.  If I would have just taken the 5 minutes it takes to Look Forward that first time. 

Oh well, it wouldn’t have made such a good story to share with you if I would have figured this out the first time!  That’s how you learn…by NOT doing it right the first time.

Maybe if the things that we get riled up about or make us feel worried or overburdened or mad, maybe we could lessen those “not so fun” feelings by just slowing down and Looking Forward.

I’d like to challenge you today to choose something that you’re not looking forward to doing and take time to visualize and write down the best way you could show up for the situation. 

Try approaching it from a different perspective that will create a better outcome.  Decide how you want to feel, how you’d like to help others to feel and how it can be a win/win all around…no matter what happens, you’ve already decided how you’re going to show up.

Thanks for joining me here today and remember:

I see you.  I understand how hard you’re trying, and I’d like to help however I can.

Have a wonderful day and I’ll see you back here next week.