Optimism Can’t Fix Everything

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I consider myself to be a very positive person. I’m known for having my act together, being organized, thinking on my feet, problem solving in my sleep and being productive and efficient. I mean — I’ve dedicated blogs, my stream-show Inside Scoop and even two books, Listful Thinking and Listful Living to these things!

So I don’t like to admit that even I struggle to stay optimistic sometimes.?

When we purchased our first apartment in Manhattan, renovated the apartment, and moved – it shattered me.

For anyone who’s struggling to pull themselves out of a funk, I wanted to share my experience. During this time (which was supposed to be exciting and fun), I was literally frozen, paralyzed and felt helpless.?

Not only is this not what I’m known for, but being an optimist actually got in my way.

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Optimism Failed Me

I can’t believe I’m going to say this but being optimistic failed me. It made me ill prepared for the ups and downs that go along with home ownership, renovations and moving.

I’ve moved before. It’s always a pain.

But for some reason this entire episode was a comedy of errors. None of which was particularly funny. The amount of things that went wrong is mind numbing:

• The guy we bought the apartment from owed the IRS serious cash and we couldn’t close on the apartment until he settled up.
• We closed a month late (everyone said this would happen, but I didn’t believe them).
• We had just a few weeks to renovate the apartment (gut bathroom and kitchen, build closets, have The Container Store supe them up for optimal organization, stain the floors a gorgeous dark brown and build amazing radiator covers that double as wall length storage for even more organization. Everything needs a place!)
• Our contractor said he needed exactly 30 days to do the work. He lied.
• We waited 2 weeks for a plumbing permit.
• We moved into our apartment and had no toilet.
• We had to move out of our new apartment and live with friends and family while the bathroom got finished.
• We lived for weeks with dust and heavy equipment all around us.
• I didn’t want to even touch anything in the apartment – let alone clean it! So I let it get dustier and grosser.

I was really upset. Nothing worked the way I wanted it to work. And trying to stay positive throughout the stress didn’t fix it. I had a brand new apartment in New York City and I felt like I failed. And I had a list of reasons…

• I didn’t pick the right contractor.
• I didn’t pick the right building.
• I shouldn’t have bought something that needed work.

Yeah well good luck with that last one! I told my hubby – no way would we do renovations when we first started looking for a place. However, then I came to realize just how expensive “move in ready” was, I quickly changed my mind. I still didn’t like it — but I changed my mind.

It wasn’t one of my shining moments. I saw a side of myself I didn’t want to see. I had to give up control, which I hate doing and I had no choice.

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The Positive Spin

As much as this was a dark time in my life, there was a light at the end of the tunnel. I loved that apartment. Eventually, it became everything I wanted it to be. Now that all of this is behind me, I can look back at some of the things I learned from that experience.?

Hopefully you might learn something from my failures! I realized the following:

1. Life can’t always be planned out with every detail. Sometimes things go wrong or there is no plan and that’s okay. (I still hate this fact, but it’s true)
2. Don’t ever believe your contractor. Tack on a few weeks or months onto whatever the estimated time is.?
3. When people tell you “it will all be worth it” – resist the temptation to slap them. I hate to say it, but they’re right. It actually is all worth it in the end.
4. I need to work on being less rigid and uptight. If I had been OK with giving up control the whole thing really would have been much easier.
5. You can’t always get what you want. Sometimes you have to compromise to get what you need.
6. No one actually notices if you wear the same jeans 4 days in a row. I spent a lot of time living with this friend and that friend and trust me – no one cares.

It’s easy to look back on painful experiences and find lessons. But they need to be over in order for you to get that perspective. If you’re in the middle of something difficult, do what you can to make yourself feel better and know that once you’re on the other side of things, you’ll be your happy self once again.

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BONUS FREEBIE: Want even more ways to stay organized, productive and less stressed? Click here to get access to my List-Making Starter Kit. It will boost your efficiency and get you back to doing more of the things you love.

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