When something unexpected occurs in your day does it throw you off for the rest of the day, or do you take it in stride? Thinking of unexpected losses or gains that have occurred in your life, did you stay on mission or get off course? You may not know what unforeseen things will occurs in your days or in your life, but if you develop a mindset to expect the unexpected there will be very little that can take you too far off of your mission. When the unexpected occurs, whether positive or negative, the person who expects the unexpected will adjust and recover much faster than the person who says, “I can’t believe this is happening to me.”
If we accept the fact that things will always occur that we have not planned and may not have wanted, we become adaptable and able to see the benefit of even negative occurrences. You may have heard it said that “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade and sell it.” Sometimes tragedy is a precursor to triumph. In his poem entitled “If,” Rudyard Kipling says success is being able to “meet with Triumph and Disaster ~ And treat those two impostors just the same.” It is what we sometimes call being able to ‘roll with the punches’ and ‘go with the flow.’
Discipline leads to success when we learn to expect the unexpected and readjust and recalculate our course in order to stay on mission.