Discovering new sources of supply

As Karen shared and Dr. Marie-Helene Pelletier discusses in her book The Resilience Plan, it is so easy to overestimate our sources of supply and to underestimate our sources of demands.

I think that it is also easy to underestimate what qualifies as a source of supply, looking only at the big, obvious sources (yet overestimating what they offer us), and discounting the smaller sources. But often it is the smaller sources that can more effectively give us the replenishment we need throughout the day, so that we don’t have to wait for a 2 week vacation before we can restore our energy.

Here’s my own example involving, of all things, the game corn hole! I hope it can inspire you as well…

I’ve been wanting to make our small backyard a little more conducive to fun activities, so last weekend i bought an outdoor games set, which included an interchangeable target for playing bean bag tossing games like corn hole, and modified versions of shuffleboard and skee ball. My son challenged my husband and then me to multiple rounds of the games, and won a number of times (even with both of us adults actually trying!). Later in the week when it was raining outside we brought the target inside and played indoors. As my husband said, it was like happy hour on a cruise ship!

So corn hole might not be your thing, but a week ago I didn’t know it would turn out to be my thing either. And of course, it isn’t so much corn hole specifically that serves as a source of supply for me, but what corn hole represents: doing something a bit active that allows me to connect in a playful way with the people I care about. Importantly, being open to trying something new (AKA, a willingness to get messy!) facilitated this discovery.

I hope you can also be open to discovering new sources of supply, big or small.