Believing in Destin

This week I traveled to beautiful Destin Florida. White sand beaches, bright blue water, and Crystal Bay Senior Living-the site of my project and reason for my trip. Crystal Bay was one of the first projects I worked on when I started my job as an in house Interior Designer for a senior living company. After several revisions and budget cuts, it was finally approved this year.

The project consisted of a small wing of the building reserved for residents with dementia. When I first visited the community I was amazed with the beautiful property and surrounding area. Most of the building was tired looking, but not awful. The Memory Care wing was another story entirely. The furniture was old and tired, the carpet worn and stained, and the entire area was very dark in general. Not somewhere I would want my family members to live. Because of the market level of this project, (it is in a very nice area of Destin), this renovation was on the radars of members of company senior management. I could not screw this one up.

As I sat in the airport on Thursday I started getting a sick stomach. What if I didn't order enough furniture? What if the dining tables didn't fit? What if I forgot some huge component that was going to put a huge black mark on my record? This could be an awful trip.

Then I thought back to my theme this week. I was certainly not believing in myself! I had looked this project over a million times. I double and triple checked my specifications. If anything did go wrong, I was prepared enough to fix it. It was going to be fine!

And I was right. Once everything was moved into its correct spots it looked wonderful! I was still missing a few pieces that would be buttoned up in the coming weeks, so the project wasn't 100% complete when I left. But all my efforts (and the tireless efforts of the contractors and project managers) had created a space that was a complete 180 from what I had seen two years earlier. I had helped make it into a place I was proud of.

Believing that everything was going to be fine helped make the hours in the airport much less stressful(did I mention I traveled during the FFA's computer meltdown?). I wasn't running potential problems through my head, I was relaxing and enjoying my book. Even though I was about three and a half hours late to the site, I wasn't concerned. I knew it would all work out, and it did.

I read somewhere that 90% of the things we worry about never happen. Believing in our capabilities can help take that unecessary stress out of our lives and leave in its place a feeling of comfort.