I recently listened to The Ten Thousand Doors of January on Audible, a fantasy novel about manifestation, loss, and discovery. Set in the early 1900s, it explores the power of opening new possibilities. The protagonist, January, learns that her thoughts can shape reality in ways she never imagined. Without giving too much away, this book resonated with me. I’ve been working on shifting my mindset, practicing gratitude, and finding mindfulness in daily life.

An opportunity arose to practice this recently. I had to make an unexpected trip to Walmart on a Tuesday night because I forgot to pick up dog food on my usual Sunday run. If you knew my dog, you’d know he would be perfectly happy skipping the kibble and having a bowl of rotisserie chicken. But off I went anyway.

Shopping at Walmart on a Sunday is crowded and fast-paced, so I thought a Tuesday trip would be a nice change. Instead, I found myself navigating a grocery store patience challenge. It was as if I had entered a world of sloths disguised as humans. Sloths with a particular talent for cutting in front of me and reducing my speed by half.

I tried to remember my gratitude practice. I reminded myself to be grateful that I could go to the store. I reminded myself to be grateful for the abundance of choices before me. It provided a modicum of comfort. That is, until yet another sloth strolled into my path and parked their cart squarely in the center of the aisle with no way around.

At that point, I realized I had a choice. I could remain frustrated, or I could shift my perspective. After all, if the same thing kept irritating me, maybe I needed to reframe frustration into opportunity. Maybe there was something in me that needed to change.

I thought about The Ten Thousand Doors of January and how January wrote about doors opening for her. I decided to try my own version. “The path opens before me.”

Each time I repeated it, the tension in my chest eased. My focus shifted from frustration to mindfulness, from resistance to acceptance. The words possessed the power to shift my mindset and turn an aggravating errand into something peaceful. I couldn’t change the people in the aisles, but I could change my reaction. The real door that opened wasn’t in front of me. It was inside me.

By the time I left the store, I had the calm shopping trip I had originally envisioned. Not because the people around me changed, but because I did. When I stopped focusing on myself, my expectations, and what I felt was lacking, everything shifted.

In moments of frustration, we all have the power to shift our mindset. Perhaps not to another world, but to a better mindset. Whether it’s through practicing gratitude, repeating a mindfulness mantra, or simply stepping back to breathe, the path opens before us if we let it.

What doors will you open today?