My son had a bad dream this morning.

Something about a giant monster called a Hopper and from what I gathered, he was a mean dude, throwing my son in the air and scaring him because he wouldn’t stop when my son asked him to. Not until one of his favorite Skylanders showed up to save the day. It was 4:45 a.m. and I had been awake for a good 15 minutes.

My son crawled into bed, snuck his feet under the blankets and we turned on the cartoons with me laying on my belly researching ideas for a new short story.  My husband played his guitar in the living room, practicing his skills. We were all up, way before the sun. Good thing we’re all morning people right?

Sometimes you think you know exactly how each moment will go. You draft a plan. You start to take those steps when something unexpected happens. In my case, I thought I’d get up early and have some writing time. I didn’t expect my son to wake up so startled like that, but change can be good too.

Before long, my littlest one was up, dragging her feet, shuffling to the bedroom and rubbing her eyes with her pink milk cup in hand. We loved on each other, they watched their cartoons, and I made the moment work.

My thought today is this—flexibility is a good thing. Change is a good thing. And just because we face a setback, doesn’t mean we can’t come out of it with something great and new. Maybe you couldn’t keep up the same pace, maybe you slipped on your nutrition plan and you ate something you never meant to eat, maybe you didn’t get up when the alarm screamed out to you, or maybe you skipped a workout. There’s always more work to be done. You’ll catch up. Just don’t give up.