Ever feel like you’re having one of those weeks?

You know the sort – where one thing after another seems to go wrong. And little phrases like “these things come in threes” pop into your head, even though you think that’s a load of old tosh.

Well that’s been my week!

  • The car broke down so had to go back to the garage (8 miles away in the middle of nowhere) for the fourth time in three weeks! Not the best of timing as we’ve lent our other car to our son to help him out while he’s working on a TV crew job in London.
  • I hurt my knee and was advised by the doctor to sit with my leg up as much as possible. Not very practical on a week when Julian was out running training sessions every day, at least not in the eyes of our dog who still seemed intent on going for the large number of walks he’s used to.
  • And then our heating went wrong – at just the time of year when we want to have it on every day.

So I began to think of that three things thing. But I don’t really believe in any of all that, I think we tend to see what we expect to see. The ‘three thing’ saying is just because we look around to see what fits our expectations. We notice a couple of irritating things have gone wrong and we’re almost on the lookout (maybe without realising it) for the third to fit the pattern. And guess what, our experience fits our expectation.

Then I thought, “Wait a minute, this isn’t me, this isn’t the sort of thinking I like to indulge in.“

What about all the good things that have happened recently – like having the highest number of downloads on our podcast so far?  What about the great interview we just recorded with a sought after speaker? What about the fact my book, Changeability: Manage your Mind – Change your Life went back into the top 100 bestseller Kindle books on Amazon in personal development? Maybe good things come in threes!

“But hang on,” I thought. “It’s much more than three good things, because even the annoying irritations and inconveniences of the week had silver linings.”

  • The great friends who gave us a lift to the garage.
  • The fact we’re able to help our son do the job he loves better by lending him our car, and he was able to surprise us with a visit home this week. The result of the x-ray on my knee, which showed there is no permanent damage, so it will get better.
  • Even the broken boiler heralds a visit from our heating engineer – and you can’t help but love having our boiler man come to see us because he is one of the happiest most upbeat people you could ever wish to have in your house. (I’ve even mentioned him before in a post about ‘The Pursuit of Happiness’!)

And I could go on – with a list of the lovely people I know, a list of great things about my house and where I live, and a massive list of wonderful things about being alive which could go on and on and on.

So now I’m not having one of those weeks – I’m just having a week in my life. Irritating things happen, great things happen and life happens. And just sometimes it might be more about how we see it than what it actually is.

And I remember that appreciation, thankfulness and gratitude are the best places to start from and return to when we think things aren’t going our way, or even when we do.

So hope you’re having a great week.