I was planning a Bridal Shower with an acquaintance.

Planning a party is easy to me. You decide what you want, delegate tasks, and then make sure there are enough people to comfortably handle said tasks.

I had a difficult time party planning with this particular person because the whole process had to be chaotic and stressful. Everything was in place and then problems were caused out of nowhere.

It wasn’t logistical problems like, “The caterer can’t deliver until 3pm, we need to find another one;” it was trivial things like deciding to redesign the centerpieces last minute when we still had to set up the table and chairs in time for the guests to sit.

Upon observing, I noticed that while she is used to getting things done, the mindset she has is that life has to be chaotic. There has to be a million things going on and it has to “feel” like a production in order to be significant.

By the way, it’s way easier to observe someone else doing this from a non-emotional outside space. I do the same shit in different ways until a friend or my therapist calls me out.

Anyway, did she truly care about how a leaf in the centerpiece was off? No. She made it important so it would take up time and make her feel stressed about catching up to do her other tasks.

After the Bridal Shower was done, what could have been point A to point B stroll in 2 hours ended up being a 16 hour unnecessary trek through the mountains!

The result of the party would have been the exact same despite whichever road was taken.

The brain likes what is familiar.

If you grew up thinking that life is a struggle, you’re going to cause it to never be easy.

I hear from photo clients sometimes: “Wow, I can’t believe how easy the shoot was.”

People have preconceived notions that photoshoots, relationships, travel, work, party planning, etc. are supposed to be hard. They don’t have to be!

When I was dating, for a long time, I was choosing partners that made relationships hard because I was used to them being hard. It took years of habit and mindset changing to get myself to believe that the right relationship is actually really easy.

And that is the #1 word I use to describe my marriage to Pete. Easy.

I joked when I first met him that it was so easy, sometimes I don’t know what to do with him. Nothing to fix, no drama, no worrying. Hey, life is good this way!

If you are wired to think life is hard, you will magically look for things to make it hard.

You’ll create drama, choose partners who aren’t compatible, and trek through the mountains when you can sail downstream with a margarita in your hand.

Mindset is everything. Sure there are times when life is truly challenging (break-ups, loss, death), but there are ways to not fight it and let it be as easy as possible. 🙂