Happiness Coping Strategies When Your Birthday Plans Get Cancelled

Chere Bork Birthday Dinner, from How to Cope when your Birthday Plans are Cancelled

I LOVE birthdays! I have a birthday club and collect people born on my birthday! I celebrate half birthdays as big as the real deal. I start to create my birthday plans at least a month in advance.  This year was no exception!  What I love most is family time so I requested Dave and Danielle prepare me a birthday meal and spend time with me.  They are fantastic healthy cooks and create eye appealing, and very flavorful food. Gary was not feeling well five days before my birthday. On the day we were going to celebrate Gary decided it was not a good idea to have baby Rowan come over. So the day was cancelled. I was sad! Sue and Tom Brown surprised me and popped into to see me on my birthday. I secretly thought I was having a surprise party as they traveled all the way from Wisconsin and Gary was pretending to be sick. My hopes were dashed when I realized they were in town from a party the evening before. No surprise party for me. After they left, I was wondering what I can do “next” to save my birthday.  I sat around for a few minutes and then invited my friends Linda and Dana over for a visit. They came over and I finally opened their Christmas gift that sat by the fireplace for over a month. I told them I was not going to open their present unless they were with me.  As the day progressed Gary seemed to get sicker and sicker and was getting quieter and quieter lying on the couch. It was 4 o’clock and I was getting sad at the thought of “doing nothing” and watching TV.  (I never watch TV and could not possibly watch TV on my birthday!)

It was my birthday. I decided I needed to go out of the house and not watch Gary lying on the couch. But who would be available last minute on a Sunday night? Katrina Gasser! Katrina had been texting me about wine she had bought for me. Maybe Katrina was available. I called her and 30 minutes later we were happily dining at Axels in Chanhassen. The birthday was saved. We had a nice meal of scallops served with a gorgeous cab wine that Katrina picked out.

Chere Bork Birthday Dinner, from How to Cope when your Birthday Plans are Cancelled

Chere Bork Birthday Dinner, from How to Cope when your Birthday Plans are Cancelled

Later that evening, I was complaining to my sweet friend Lane about my wrecked birthday plans and she felt badly for me. She invited me to a flower show the next day at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. At 8 am the next day she texted me saying she was afraid to disappoint me but she was woke up with the flu and had to cancel our plans. Two days in row, my birthday plans were cancelled. I told myself, “Chere you can be upset or you can reinvent another day!”  During the time I would have been at the flower show at the Arboretum I scored tickets for the Elton John concert for February, 2019.  Yes, a year in advance. If I had been at the flower show I could not have gotten tickets as the seats were going fast.  This birthday yielded many surprises!

Happy successful people have positive mental attitudes.

 They know that their attitude influences their results. Our attitudes control our thoughts. Our thoughts control our actions and our actions control our destiny.  As my birthday plans got bombed on Sunday and then on Monday again I knew I had to get a handle on my beliefs.

Life doesn’t just happen to you.

What happens to us has a cause and effect. Most of what happens we set into motion ourselves by our beliefs, whether they are positive or negative!

Here are four actions I took to flip the switch from my bombed birthday (negativity) to positivity.

  1. Focused on what was working instead of what was not working.  (At least I was healthy, unlike like everyone else around me, and I was truly grateful I was celebrating another birthday!)
  2. Focused on what I was in charge of. I was in charge of re-inventing my birthday plans and didn’t need to sit at home.
  3. Focus on my beliefs. Were they negative or positive?
  4. Decide to act on my beliefs. We become who we envision — one manifesting thought at a time.  What did I want to manifest?

As my birthday plans got bombed I realized I had “stinkin’ thinking” and created a new birthday! What you allow into your mind becomes what you do. This shapes your decisions and actions you take.  Life doesn’t just happen, as Alan Kay reminds us, “The best way to predict your future is to invent it!”

Life is full of sweet surprises if you get over the past, get out of the future and get serious about manifesting fun!

 
Chere Bork Birthday Dinner, from How to Cope when your Birthday Plans are Cancelled
A week later the birthday steak dinner was rescheduled and it was worth every delicious minute of waiting!
 
Chere Bork Birthday Dinner, from How to Cope when your Birthday Plans are Cancelled
Unexpected birthday celebration with my siblings in Milwaukee!

What strategies do you use when your wonderful plans get cancelled?