I Am Sorry

💥 Things Won’t Always Go to Plan

One of the most frustrating parts of this whole ordeal is that I even stayed up late on the eve of travelling abroad to finish the issue, only for it not to save!

Even when you think you’ve done everything right, sometimes things won’t go to plan.

You might think that this is a terrible and stressful thing, but when you’re able to get to a place where you recognise and embrace that things won’t always go to plan, there’s a peace and liberation that you can experience.

It helps when people remind you of this too. I was really fortunate to have both Zac and my wife put this into perspective after I had finished exclaiming expletives.

Things won’t always go to plan, and that’s alright. Embrace it.

The next learning that I have taken from this experience is…

🫂 You Are Not Defined by Your Slip-ups

If you have read some of my previous issues, you may know that I have depression.

I am fortunate to say that I don’t suffer from depression anymore, but I still have to fight some of the symptoms of it on a daily basis.

The most common battle is challenging the negative beliefs that I regularly have about myself, and this situation gave my brain a prime opportunity to beat me to a pulp.

“You’re a failure. You’re a rubbish creator. You’re such an imposter.”

Thankfully, I am now equipped to fight back when these things try to bring me down.

Practicing what I preach in The Wise Guide to Journaling, I always have a journal close to hand, so I pulled out the pocket pad and pen and proceeded to prove that these thoughts were pointless and preposterous.

Journaling is a great tool to have mental clarity, and merely putting pen to paper helped me to realise that this was a small slip-up that doesn’t define me.

I’m not a failure, rubbish creator or imposter - I’m human!

I’ll make mistakes sometimes, and you will to, but that doesn’t mean that we are failures. We’re only failures if we accept that as our identity, right?

I am not defined by this little slip-up. Instead, I’m focussing on our mission: to get wiser and encourage you to get wiser!

With that in mind, the third learning from this experience that I wanted to share is…

🧠 There’s a Learning in Everything!

This might seem obvious, but if you approach all circumstances with the mindset that you can learn from them, you’ll accelerate your ability to get wiser.

I liken this to gold panning. We often have to sift through dirt to get the gold from a situation. The gold in this analogy is the lesson.

A great way for identifying the learning in any situation is through SOLE. This stands for:

• Situation - What’s going on at the moment?

• Observation - What’s significant about this situation?

• Learning - What is a learning that I can take about this situation?

• Emotion - How do I feel about this situation?

This is a journaling method that I reference in our e-book that helps me to make that most of situation.

Consider trying SOLE for yourself!

🙏 To Summarise…

I am sorry for accidentally sending you a draft version of last week’s newsletter. Zac & I have already put things in place to avoid this happening again.

And even though I’d rather it didn’t happen, this experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on how things won’t always go to plan, that I’m not defined by my mistakes and that I can find a learning in everything.

Ultimately, this opportunity has helped me to get wiser, and I hope you found something worth reflecting on here too.

If you did want to read last week’s issue of the WISER Newsletter now that it’s been fixed, you can find it here:

❓ So What Do You Think?

Normally I scribble some journaling prompts here to reflect on today’s topic, but instead I’ll invite you to try SOLE.

• Situation - What’s going on at the moment? What’s a particular circumstance that you are thinking a lot about?

• Observation - What’s significant about this situation? What makes this unique?

• Learning - What is a learning that I can take about this situation? Is this a lesson that you have learned before?

• Emotion - How do I feel about this situation? Do you feel how you would like to about this situation?

✍️ Consider journaling through the above questions yourself.

💬 Also, if you want to chat about this, email or DM us! We’d love to hear from you!

Recommendations

Here are a couple recommendations of things that we think could help you get wiser:

1️⃣ The first recommendation is for Williemien Brand’s and Pieter Koene’s book: Visual Thinking.

This book serves as one of the best starting points if your interested in communicating visually.

With attention spans getting shorter each year, understanding how to grab someone’s attention to communicate with them has never been more important.

Consider learning more about Visual Thinking by buying their book here:

2️⃣ Today’s second recommendation is Daniel Levitin’s TED Talk called How to stay calm when you know you'll be stressed.

In my research for writing this newsletter, I stumbled across this TED Talk, and I am confident that it compliments what we’ve shared.

Consider watching this if you want to learn how to prepare yourself better for the next time that you’re stressed:

* Please note that these may be affiliation links. Purchasing through these links could support Wisdom Made Easy encourage more people to get wiser.

✍️ What We’re Working On

So this is where we normally tell you about the projects that we’re working on. Today, we want to talk to you about something different…

📰 Sponsor This Newsletter!

Our newsletter is growing FAST. The eagle-eyed ones of you will have noticed that we’ve grown by approximately 350 subscribers in the last week alone.

And once we hit 2,500 subscribers, we will begin paying to allow you to receive Wise Insights Shared by Email Regularly, but we are keen to keep this newsletter free for you and the rest of our audience whilst we provide this weekly value.

In an effort of continuing to bring our audience value, if you want to pay to feature your product or service in this newsletter, we’d love to hear from you!

To hear about how many people you can expect to see your sponsored message, get in touch here:

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😊 Thank You!

Thanks for checking out this issue of the WISER Newsletter. If you have any feedback, we would love to hear it!

Simply reply to this email, and we will get back to you.

Alternatively, just DM us on social media. You can find us here:

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Catch you in the next issue!

Thanks,

Michael and Zac!