5 Tips to Deal with Obstacles

When it comes to scheduling daily events, I did not have a calendar. Instead, I trusted Google Calendar to see if I had any events scheduled for the day or not. When it reminded me that I had no events scheduled, I felt comfortable, and each day I wished there had been a general close in the city to take a break from the tasks, but my wish didn’t come true. My brother shared a screenshot with me to help me book a flight, but he lost his mind when he found out that I did not have a calendar.

Here are 5 tips to deal with your obstacles:

1. Listen to the others, they’ll see your obstacles before you see them:

My brother asked me how I knew if I had appointments. I told him that when I had a specific appointment with people, I asked them to remind me when the due deadline was, and he told me that’s not a mature person’s style, but I didn’t care what he thought and he considered this recklessness from me.

However, he was right. So, I checked my calendar everyday, especially after  my husband left, who was helping me remember important things.

2. Focus on objectives that concentrate on positive obstacles:

My ex-husband left the house, but he still comes three or four days a week to take the kids to the doctor’s clinic on time. That’s good because I don’t like driving, and as I mentioned earlier, I don’t keep a calendar, and I can’t tell the doctor to remind me of the exact appointment.

My ex-husband was late to take the kids to the doctor’s clinic, but I tried to ignore this, and I tried to be grateful that he was driving. I told myself that if I was going to write about him, I had to mention the good things he was doing, and maybe if I showed him a little or any gratitude at the stage of our marriage, we wouldn't have gotten to the point of divorce.

3. Test out options that looked bad before, as they might look better now:

My ex-husband and I were trying to avoid spending time together, but we failed at that. Our son always asks us what we will do when they leave the house. When my ex-husband and I stay alone, both of us sit alone. I'm pretending not to write about him, but I will write about him a lot because I don’t know how to love someone without writing about him.

I want to know what he wants to talk to me about, but I’m trying to look like I’m not interested, and I want to know how much he still hates me, but instead I ask him about his work , his parentsو or if he wants to eat lunch. I usually make lunch for my son and ex-husband together, but when my son has lunch at work, my husband doesn’t ask me to make food.

4. Look at the situation from other perspectives:

I’m trying to organise my calendar right now, and I’m adding everything I can think of because I don’t want to bother my brother because of my poorly organised calendar, as he helps me in many aspects of life. For example, when I make a promotional offer about a new company to investors after a long break from the profession, I ask my brother to help me send links through the Zoom app and I tell him that it is very easy to carry out such tasks when you are still young, but he thinks some women won’t agree with me.

My ex-husband asked me: “When will our son come to dinner with us?” I replied in astonishment: “When did you go to your house for dinner with your parents as a young man? Although your university was only a few metres from your parent’s house.”

He replied that he never went, but he missed his son.

I felt like I had to write about it, so I wouldn’t start reprimanding him about how stupid he was for leaving the family when his son was only four years old that I appreciate that he did not being to reprimand me for how stupid I was to miss so many doctor’s appointments for so long. He’s just scolding me because I ruined his life, and that’s 15 years ago, when we got divorced, and since then he’s never berated me, so I’m trying to repay him.

5. Reframe the situation to gain power:

Our son called to tell us that he was going to work an extra hour, as the long working hours bother me. However, now I say to myself that I should be grateful for the number of problems solved by the long-hour job for our family, and I shouldn't worry so much that I don't have faith in my kids just because they're working a job that has no future instead of developing their passion.

Every discussion between me and my ex-husband comes to a dead end. He believes that I’m the one who thinks everything in life is blocked, and I believe that he’s the one who thinks so. He always says to me “When you think everything is a dead end, it doesn’t mean that it really is, but it just means that things are not going as you plan.”