Advancing Through Adversity
Take Time to Reflect and Regroup
Don’t confuse a single defeat with a final defeat.
Even one day may make a big difference in your energy, ideas and prospective.
It’s better to reflect temporarily, recharge and think through your situation.
Identify and Take Care of Your Priorities
This is your best hope of making things better and preventing things from getting worse.
Take Responsibility for Your Actions
Challenge your pessimistic and negative beliefs.
The power is within us to choose how we emotionally respond in life; we just need to nurture and believe in our ability to do so.
Choose the healthiest attitude in each situation. Be self-reliant and flexible. Take on learning, coping and surviving mentality.
Renew Your Goals Often
Focus on your goals one week at a time, then one day at a time. Keep a journal of daily and weekly progress with an action plan for your next immediate steps.
Look for Progress not Perfection!
Those who look for progress always feel encouraged.
Those who look for perfection are more likely to feel discouraged.
Progress is achieved though success and failure.
Focus on what you must get done. Keep focused on the task at hand and think about all the positive things that might happen.
Concentrate on each situation as it presents itself.
Don’t Take Failure Personally
Good decisions are often the result of having made a few bad decisions.
Realize your actions are not your identity. Your actions may have failed, but you are not a failure. Separate your self-worth from your set back.
Give yourself credit for whatever initiative you may have taken thus far. Henry Ford said, “Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
Take Action
Get moving and overcome inertia one day at a time.
The best way to get yourself out of a mental quagmire is to do something productive, even if it’s only something as simple as cutting the grass or going for a walk.
To get ‘unstuck’ you may even need to renew your focus a few times a day when you are under the most difficult of situations.
Have Faith in Something
Bigger than Yourself
Develop a trust in a Supreme Being.
I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said, “If your problems are too big then your God is too small.” During difficult times, it is comforting to have a personal relationship with a knowing and loving God.
Count Your Blessings and Achievements
Make a list of all the achievements and blessings in each area of your life.
Continue a personal journal of blessings and accomplishments to strengthen your appreciation for what you have, who you are and what progress you can feel good about.
Create a Strong Identity
in all the Areas of Your Life
Develop a strong self-concept and have goals in all the areas of your life.
Not having life balance is like putting all of your eggs in one basket. If that one basket drops, there won’t be a healthy internal support system to help pick up the pieces.
Expect to Win
Losing a few battles does not mean you lost the war.
Believe every setback is only a steppingstone for new opportunity. Choose to live each day with positive expectancy. Believe in your potential to overcome obstacles, and trust in your ability to create solutions.
Accept Change as a Natural Part of Life
We learn at a very young age that everything is in a state of change. The only consistency in life is change.
Both the best of times and the worst of times are temporary. The better we learn to adjust and adapt, when necessary, the faster we can recover and get back on track with our lives.
Accept What Cannot Be Changed
Letting go is difficult but necessary for our mental well-being.
Living in the past or holding on to negative emotions drag us down.
People who are most resilient have an uncanny ability to ‘get over it’ and move on.
Visualize the Positive
Mentally create and rehearse what you want to see happen and feed that positive video into your psyche. Program your subconscious to create and attract the positive.
Make the Commitment to Succeed
Be willing to fight for what you want.
Dedicate yourself to do what it takes to make the best out of whatever circumstances you’re working through.
One of my favorite scenes in any movie is in Apollo 13.
The NASA scientists are called to a meeting to see what they can do to bring the crippled spacecraft back from the other side of the moon.
Actor Ed Harris, who is playing Gene Kranz, head of Mission Control has them bring into the conference room all the items that are on the spacecraft. They dump a box of what looks like common junk on the table. One scientist shouts out, “It’s impossible, we’re going to fail!” Ed Harris, confidently leans forward onto the table, looks him dead in the eye and says, “Failure is not an option.”
Be Patient with Yourself
Personal change takes time to take hold.
Don’t get discouraged if you are falling short of your intentions. The key is to recommit again and again to personal change.
Transformation is a stretching process. Patience creates endurance, and endurance creates change.
Listen to and Read Positive Material
Expose yourself to as much positive programming as you can handle.
Stories and ideas that will encourage you to stick it out, suck it up and push it forward.
Rent a couple Rocky movies then run up a flight of steps.
Don’t Mind Criticism
I once heard of a good way to deal with criticism: “If it is not true, disregard it. If it is unreasonable, don’t let it bother you. If it is ignorant, smile. If it is constructive, learn from it.”
Focus on Your Priorities
Don’t drop out. /////negativechange me!
Identify what your priorities are in each area of your life and make a concerted effort to keep them going.
Keep things as alive and healthy as possible while you are working through difficult times.
Have a Positive Support System
Be a part of a positive support or mastermind group.
Get together with others who can enthusiastically share your goals and your challenges in an open and caring environment.
Your supporters can be family, friends, or associates.
Exercise Regularly
Make exercise a regular part of your weekly routine.
It opens the mind and purges the poisons stress secretes into the body.
Keep in mind mental and emotional fitness go hand and hand with physical fitness.
Know There is Always a Way Out
Embrace the philosophy that “no problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking.”
Commit yourself to finding and working on many solutions until you find the one that is acceptable to you.
Look for Partial Solutions
Big answers aren’t the only answers.
Be grateful and take advantage of every little movement forward.
Capitalize on Your Strengths
Use all your resources. Take a personal inventory of all your strengths in all the areas of your life.
See the Funny Side
Use the healing power of humor to relieve tension and take on new perspectives.
Don’t take yourself too seriously, it adds to your stress and shrinks your comfort zone.
Learn Relaxation Techniques
Learn and practice relaxation techniques that will help you cope during difficult times.
Yoga, meditation, and many other modalities are easily available in today’s wellness conscious culture. Experiment to see which ones work best for you.
Know it’s Ok to be Afraid!
It’s been said, “Courage is not the absence of fear but the conquest of it.” It’s ok to be afraid.
The danger happens when we refuse to do what we may need to do to succeed because we are waiting for the fear to disappear. The key is to feel the fear and do what you need to do anyway, developing the capacity to stare fear in the face and carry on.
Learn to channel our fears into positive action. The secret to beating fear is to get comfortable with it. Choose courage as an option.
Most fear is caused by uncertainty and doubt. One way to help alleviate some uncertainty is to write out the best scenario and the worst scenario.
Then develop a comprehensive plan for correcting the course of the worst scenario. Having plan B as an option may even help you see a win/win situation and create more positive energy and emotions.
Reach Out to Others
Not many things are as spirit lifting as the good feelings we generate by making a positive difference in someone else’s life.
Look for opportunities to extend acts of kindness to others; it comes back in ways we least expect.
Don’t Give Up
It’s been said that 90% of failure comes from quitting.
Hang in there; sometimes it’s the last key that opens the box.
Choose Optimism
Toast to the celebration of life and the good times ahead!
Look at every possible way you can apply your assets.