I was on the phone with my brother a few days ago, and interrupted our call to speak to the Expedia representative I’d been waiting for.
I called him back after, and told him that I’d booked two tickets to Dallas for our annual Life Coach School Mastermind, where I’m going to be teaching Advanced Coaching, and had forgotten to cancel one of them within the 24 hour refund period.
I begged her for leniency, which I didn’t receive, so now I have a $1062 credit with Air Canada, and a $100 exchange fee when I use it.
I’m SO glad I told Mike about it when I called him back because he gave me the hugest gift, which, lucky you, I’m here to share –
BEST. Memory Hack. Ever:
He sets an alarm for 23 hours in advance, and labels it – cancel tix.
LABELS it??
Did you even KNOW you could label your alarms??
Man I LOVE technology.
I have the WORST memory. I honestly forget about what I’ve promised to do almost the minute I say “I will”. I make lists, I set reminders, I put it on my calendar.
Effectiveness – about 60%.
Because sometimes I just ignore my calendar or reminders.
Come on, I know you do too.
Now, I don’t even have to try to remember to check my calendar, and I really can’t ignore my alarm.
Here’s what I’ve been doing –
Setting alarms with my favourite songs (Yep. You can choose songs for your alarms too), and every now and then, a song starts to play, which makes me happy, and as I go to turn it off, it tells me what to do.
12.54pm cancel airbnb (luckily I didn’t have to – look where I’m hiding out with my hubby this summer!)
2pm return suits
7.00pm Bring $5 for Eden to pay Ani
9.00pm Get Eden camp reunion
8.00am Eden running shoes (my youngest daughter inherited my memory…..)
How wonderful is this life?
Now, you may think I’m just writing to teach you this memory hack, and I really do want to share it with you –
But there’s another reason I’m telling you about this –
Shame.
Many people I know would have been too ashamed to talk about this because they’d think they should have remembered to call and cancel.
They would make it mean something shameful about themselves.
As a life coach, I know that’s not true.
I choose to believe that it was meant to happen exactly how it happened, because it did.
If I were meant to have remembered, I would have.
So I have no shame.
YES. I would prefer to have the money in my bank right now.
But clearly, I wasn’t meant to.
If I were meant to, I would.
See where we’re going here?
When I’m in total acceptance of myself and whatever I do, I talk about it, and then sometimes I learn amazing strategies for avoiding this next time.
That $1062 credit will likely save me tens of thousands of dollars (not to mention unclaimed children) because of the memory hack I learned from my brother.
Which I wouldn’t have learned if I’d been choosing to feel too embarassed to tell him about it.
Let’s celebrate who we are this weekend, and every one to come – in all our glorious imperfections – just because it feels so much better.
And when we feel better, we really do do better.