January is a cursed month for me.
I don’t know if it’s the moon, the stars, Mercury in Gatorade, or Cthulhu himself waking up cranky, but every January things go sideways.
Shit breaks. People lose their minds. Plans implode. The universe decides to test exactly how much fuckery I can handle before I snap.
And this January? Right on schedule.
Luckily I have a little re-frame which helps me from going postal and that is: WCYD
What Can You Do?
That’s it. Four words. Simple as hell.
When things go wrong and they will, constantly, especially in January apparently…
I’ve got two options.
Option one: Blow up. Go absolutely batshit insane. Rage at the SkyDaddy. Have a complete meltdown about how unfair everything is and how nothing works and why does this always happen to me and fuck everything forever.
Option two: Take a breath. Look at the situation rationally. Ask myself what I can actually do about it. Then do that thing.
The second option sucks less.
Does it feel good when things don’t go your way? Fuck no. Is it annoying when plans fall apart and you have to scramble? Obviously.
Would I prefer if January just skipped itself entirely and we went straight to February? Absolutely.
But the one thing and only power you have is how you respond.
That’s it. That’s the whole game. No secret $997 course with a $30k yearly mastermind and the soul of your next child.
You can’t control what breaks. You can’t control when people lose their shit. You can’t control the universe deciding to throw a wrench in your plans just for funsies. But you can control whether you make it worse by crashing out (as the kids say), or whether you take a breath and ask yourself…
What can I do right now?
Sometimes the answer is “fix the thing.” Sometimes it’s “wait it out.” Sometimes it’s “pivot completely and try something else.” Sometimes it’s just “survive today and deal with it tomorrow.”
But there’s always something you can do. Even if that something is just choosing not to make yourself crazier than you already are and I mean in generally we’re all crazy enough.
That’s the power in WCYD.
Not toxic positivity bullshit where you pretend everything’s fine when it’s clearly not. Not some guru nonsense about manifesting better circumstances through vibes.
Just a simple, practical question that pulls you out of the spiral and puts you back in the driver’s seat…
What can you do?
It works when clients flake. When tech breaks. When plans implode. When January decides to be January and everything feels like it’s held together with duct tape and spite.
You can rage about it and sometimes you should, briefly, just to get it out, or you can ask what you can actually do about it and then do that.
One of those options keeps you sane. The other one doesn’t.
I’m not saying I’ve mastered this. I’m still white knuckling my way through January like everyone else. But WCYD has kept me from completely losing my shit when every instinct says to burn it all down.
So if you’re having one of those weeks or months or where nothing’s going right and you’re about three bad days away from a meltdown and a self destructive habit or 3.
Stop. Breathe. Ask yourself what you can actually do.
Then do that thing.
It won’t fix everything. But it’ll keep you moving forward instead of spiralling.
Stephen Walker.