Five Reminders for When Your Life Gets an Unexpected Overhaul By Carla Laureano

I’m the first to admit that when it comes to life, I like to have everything ahead of me planned out. Maybe it’s a function of being a writer, and a “plotter” at that: I rarely dive into writing a book without knowing how it’s going to end. But that can make that all-important trait—flexibility—a little bit difficult to display at times.

Ironically, 2020 has turned out to be a year that has demanded flexibility of us all. I certainly didn’t think I would be quarantined with my whole family for two months, that we would need to cancel our long-planned trip to the UK, or that I would be struggling to support my kids’ online schooling while I tried to maintain my writing career . . . which doesn’t exactly look like I thought it would either. The “downtime” has made us take a hard look at how we were living our lives and discuss how we want to make changes going forward.

But maybe your change doesn’t seem to have any positives attached. Maybe it was a lost job, a divorce, even the death of a spouse or family member. In a single instant, your future looks nothing like you planned. You’re grieving a loss—whether physical or emotional—and it’s hard to see your way forward. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you navigate unfamiliar, murky waters.

Changing course doesn’t mean failure

I constantly have to remind myself of this fact. I’m usually okay if some outside factor messes up my plans. I’m not happy about having to cancel my trip, for example, but it was out of my control, and I can accept that I have no influence over a global pandemic. But when I’ve got my future all planned out, when I’ve mapped my goals and exactly how I’ll accomplish them, a sudden change in direction feels very much like failure. A failure to execute, a failure to achieve. (If you’re guessing that I really, really hate failure, you’re right.) But changing course can often be a sign of wisdom. You now have more information than you had when you created that goal or formed that desire. You now have the ability to make better decisions, to change your plans, to form a new or transformed goal. In fact, it’s far worse to continue blindly along a path leading nowhere, simply so you can say you’ve seen it through to the end, than to regroup, form new plans, and carry on in a new direction.

You don’t have to have it all figured out right now

The chance to find a new course when you face an unexpected change in your life doesn’t meant that you immediately have to figure out what to do. There’s wisdom in taking time to mourn the losses, recognize the fears that you’re feeling, pray and meditate on your next course of action, and then act. I understand the impulse to fix things all too well. Lose a job? Go find a new one immediately, even if it causes more problems and disruptions, so you don’t have to feel the pain of unemployment. Have to let go of a dream? Find a new one posthaste so you don’t have to grieve the loss of the old one. When we’re facing uncertainty, pain, or trauma, the need to do something can cause us to make poor decisions that we will regret later.

Focus more on the journey than the destination

I’ve always had a tendency to see life as a series of steps that will get me to my end goal . . . and things that upset that end goal can send me into a tailspin if I’m not careful. But what if we looked at life as a series of moments that have value in their own right? Maybe they will get us to that end goal and maybe they won’t. Spending an few extra minutes on my deck, watching the sunset, doesn’t accomplish anything. But it expands my soul, gives me some peace, instills in me an appreciation of the beauty of God’s universe and the fleeting nature of every moment. I will never regret those few minutes spent away from the hustle . . . but I might someday wish I’d put aside the hustle long enough to appreciate the quiet moments.

When you’re facing massive upheavals in your life, sometimes the best thing is to get through each day, looking for the grace in every moment. Solutions, plans, and goals can all wait until later. It’s enough to know that you lived a single day as well as you could under the circumstances.

Leave room for the unexpected

Another reason for not jumping into new plans after a major life change is that you don’t know what that change might be making space for. Maybe you lost your job because there’s another opportunity coming, one that you would pass by because you were focused on a different goal. Maybe you had to give up a smaller dream because there’s a much bigger one on the horizon—one that you haven’t even dared give words to. While change can be painful, scary, or downright catastrophic, it can also be a way of wiping the slate clean. Resist the impulse to immediately fill it back up until you know what’s coming.

You might not know where you’re going, but God does

The biggest reason a major overhaul is so disturbing is that we like to believe our lives are under our control . . . which of course is just an illusion. The loss of that illusion makes us grip tighter to everything else, to make new plans, to dive immediately into a new course of action. And in some cases, practicality requires that we act fast and decisively. Just don’t forget that you see only a foot in front of you, while God sees the whole path. If you seek His wisdom and listen carefully to His guidance, you’ll be better prepared for the new adventure ahead.

Author Bio:

Carla Laureano is the two-time RITA Award–winning author of Five Days in Skye, London Tides, and the Saturday Night Supper Club series. She is also the author of the Celtic fantasy series The Song of Seare (as C. E. Laureano). A graduate of Pepperdine University, she worked as a sales and marketing executive for nearly a decade before leaving corporate life behind to write fiction full-time. She currently lives in Denver with her husband and two sons.

In addition, Carla’s most recent release is Under Scottish Stars that releases July 7th. Below is more info about the book and how you can preorder here: Tyndale or Amazon

Under Scottish Stars

Recently widowed Serena MacDonald Stewart focuses on her children to the exclusion of her career, her art, and her sanity. When her brothers ask her to oversee the family guest house on the Isle of Skye, it’s a chance to dust off her long-ignored business skills and make a new start. But her hopes for a smooth transition are dashed when the hotel manager, Malcolm Blake, turns out to be irritating, condescending . . . and incredibly attractive.

Malcolm Blake gave up everything—his home, his girlfriend, and his career—to return to Skye and raise his late sister’s teenage daughter. With few job opportunities available on the island, he signs on as the manager of the MacDonald family hotel, which he’s soon running successfully without interference from the owners. That is, until Serena shows up, challenging his authority and his conviction that there’s nothing missing from his new life on Skye.

Before long, Serena and Malcolm have to admit the spark between them is more than mere irritation. But as single parents, there’s more on the line than their own hearts. Will their commitment to family be the thing that draws them together or the only thing that could keep them apart?