#28 Sailing through the perfect storm

On false starts, survival mode, and letting go of the plan

It was a slow Saturday morning. Freshly brewed coffee, the house quiet, that rare calm where everything feels briefly under control.

My husband is home for the holidays, a calm week behind us. I am about to return to work soon after a year of maternity leave. I feel rested. Motivated. In other words: perfect conditions.

There are these brief moments of main-character energy. Right before the plot kicks in.

Then the nanny calls in sick.

Oh well.

We regroup. Replan the entire week. The kind of calm, rational reset you do while being slightly annoyed by the inconvenience.

The next night, a storm rolls in. We sleep through it, half-awake at times, hearing this strange, loud pumping noise outside. The kind you register in your body, but decide to ignore because it’s 2 a.m.

The next morning, my husband steps into the attic and comes back with that look.

Part of our roof is gone. Not damaged or leaking. It’s gone.

And at that point, you almost have to respect the commitment to chaos.

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It’s something like a pressure cooker effect.

At some point, expectations quietly build pressure. You start believing that this time things will finally go according to plan. And then, not really. Everything breaks at once, and you’re forced to course-correct in real time.

This is true at work. In teams. And very much at home.

So here’s what I try to default to when everything goes sideways:

Switch to short-term survival mode

Strip everything down to what is actually urgent. Get rid of nice-to-haves. If this is survival mode, stop expecting peak performance. That expectation mismatch is where most frustration comes from. Pick the smallest non-ideal version that keeps things moving and stick to it.

Let go of control (plans are just educated guesses)

Most stressful situations test your boundaries, balance, and adaptability. I keep coming back to this idea: balance isn’t tested when things are calm. It’s when life pulls you apart, but you still return to your core.

Don’t blame yourself

When things fall apart, the instinct is to make it mean something about you. That you’re falling behind or something like this always happens to me. But that’s just objectively not true.
It’s simply bad timing plus too many variables colliding at once. Not a ground for a moral lesson or identity crisis. You adjust, you recover, and you can always try again next week.

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Sometimes it really is a perfect storm. The only real choice is to keep on sailing.

Happy Sunday,
Diana