Jean’s Word of the Week: PREP

Reduce Stress - Take Time to Think Ahead and Prepare Every Day

Jean Edelman: Great to be with you this week. The word of the week is preparation. Now, I consider myself an odd duck because I really like to be prepared for my day. If I'm going out, I like to make sure I've got some food, some water, some snacks. If there's details of the day that I've gone through and the boxes are checked personally, it's very comforting and calming to me. I think life could be so much easier if we take the time to prepare. Being prepared can give us the space, the mental space, and the ability to breathe and relax.

Now, sometimes we don't have the opportunity to be prepared for the unexpected. Last year there was a story outside the Washington, D.C. area where there was an accident and people were stuck on the road for hours. They couldn't get off. They're running out of gas. Their cell phones were dead. They didn't have any food or water. It was crazy. I know that we can't be focused on those types of emergencies. I feel that we're so focused on getting through our day that we're really not thinking of the unexpected. We don't think of the what ifs. What if we're delayed? There's always the possibility of an accident somewhere, depending on the time of year and where we are, the weather could change quickly. Do we have our meds? Do we have any emergency contacts that we need to have on us? Is our phone charged? Do we have a charger? Is our car full of gas? It's actually like playing chess. We're trying to think of these pieces, a couple of moves ahead.

But I think if we could just have the awareness of being prepared for the unexpected, that could be very helpful. So that's my action item for the week. Think about what could go sideways in our day. School is back in session. The kids might need something. It's just thinking a little bit more out of the box and preparing for the what ifs and the unexpected.

So my word of the week is just PREP.

The P is for pioneer, the first to accomplish something, to be an innovator. It's not always comfortable to be the first, but in moments of chaos, we will be glad that we were a few steps ahead of the crowd. So be that pioneer in your day.

The R is for reasonable and logical. This is not always the case in real life when our world is spinning out of control. This is when we need our calm, and we need our mind thinking and thinking and making good decisions. And so being reasonable in a time of chaos.

The E is for endure. We can endure a lot and we do endure a lot. But being ready can make it a whole lot easier.