A Guide to Navigating Life’s Detours

Let me let you in on a little secret: Being a speaker, a coach, and an expert on developing a growth mindset does not make me immune to the roller coaster of life.

In the first half of 2024, our family went through a challenging season; at times it was overwhelmingly stressful. But I was thankful that past experiences and my training gave me absolute clarity on at least one thing: I needed to shift my focus and energy to get us to a healthier place. 

This meant giving more attention to what was going on personally and prioritizing my family over work.

Knowing that this challenging season wouldn’t last forever helped me step back and have faith that, when we were all on firmer ground, I could recalibrate and work opportunities would present themselves.

Something I read in from an interview with Shonda Rhimes kept echoing in the back of my mind:

“If you are a working mother, you are often not there as much as you’d like to be. …If I’m standing on set watching some amazing thing being shot, then I am missing my daughter’s science fair. Or if I’m at my daughter’s dance recital, then I miss Sandra Oh’s very last day, and very last scene being shot on Grey’s Anatomy. That’s what happens. Those are the trade-offs. You have to make a decision that you’re going to miss one thing and be good at another.”

Knowing when you need to step back from one role to be fully present in another is an exercise in practicing acceptance, resilience, and flexing your mental strength and growth mindset.

Learning how to protect your inner peace, even when the world around you is full of stress, change, and uncertainty, is a huge part of our growth journey. Sometimes those challenges come from things that are very personal; sometimes, they’re the product of what’s happening in the world around us.

The current political season here in the States is a prime example of a particularly stressful season that’s touching all of us at the same time. With constant news, heated conversations, and seemingly endless opinions swirling around, it can be challenging to maintain inner peace.

Self-Care with a Growth Mindset

Developing a growth mindset isn’t just about believing that you can embrace personal challenges, but rather seeing them as obstacles and growing from them. It’s also about recognizing that challenging seasons—whether personal or global—are inevitable but also temporary.

You can’t avoid those hard times, but you can commit to using the gentler season to develop and practice tools that will carry you through whatever life sends you.

Positive Habits for Navigating Life Challenges

Here are four positive habits you can start building today to help you protect your inner peace. All of them are small shifts, but when you practice them regularly, they have a big impact on your mental well-being and are tools you can lean on when the waters get rough.

Build Up Your Calm

Developing equanimity—a balanced and composed state of mind—allows you to draw from a well of calm whenever you need it most. Build mindful moments into the rhythm of your day: 

🧠practice box breathing at every red light 

🧠do a body scan while waiting for your coffee to brew 

🧠use the fingertip exercise while you’re sitting in the school pick-up line 

Practicing in the quiet, calm moments will help make these practices second-nature so that you’re not adding to your stress by trying to learn them when you’re already overwhelmed.

Observe, Don't Absorb

We can notice what's happening around us without taking it personally. By avoiding internalizing negativity, you can protect your mental well-being. I loved this recent post from my guy Adam Grant about being flexible in our perspectives:

When you go through life internalizing that negativity, you’re absorbing all that energy unnecessarily. By taking things personally, we set ourselves up to suffer for nothing. Whether it’s a radical neighbor or a political ad, you can observe without absorbing. 

Create a Dopamine Menu

Have you seen those TikToks and Reels of people sharing their dopamine menus? They’re so great! A dopamine menu is a list of activities you can do to give yourself a boost of dopamine—your brain’s feel-good chemical. It’s a list you create, one that’s customized to you and the things that make you happy! When you take the time to think about what small things bring you joy, you’re more likely to remember to do them regularly, especially when you need something to raise your spirits. 

Need some help getting started? Here’s mine:

Protect Your Inner Peace Every Day

Inner peace isn’t something we achieve by shielding ourselves from challenges; it's cultivated by embracing life’s inevitable ups and downs with strength, clarity, and intention.

By building up these simple, daily habits, you are equipping yourself with the tools to remain calm in chaos, resilient in adversity, and grounded in the face of uncertainty. It’s a journey of growth and self-discovery, where every moment becomes an opportunity to flex your mental strength and nurture your inner peace.

So today, choose to take action.

Begin with one small shift—whether it's a mindful breath or a joyful moment from your dopamine menu—and commit to it. As you do, trust that each step brings you closer to a stronger, more resilient version of yourself, capable of handling whatever comes your way with grace and unwavering peace.