How to overcome BIG CHALLENGES when LIFE gets really HARD!

Sometimes life can get really hard! You might lose your job or a person that you love, might deal with diseases or even have an accident that damages your physical body… When this kind of thing happens, is not easy at all, but there are some things that if you have in mind, might help you to go through these phases!

Your mind does not like uncertainties, so when big changes happen, it will drive you crazy and this will impact your emotions as well! So I will start this post sharing 3 thoughts that might help you to calm down your mind when you are going through rough times!

First, eventually everything comes to an end! So it doesn’t matter how good or bad a situation is, it will finish someday! And in the future, what you are going through now, will be just a distant past!

Second, it doesn’t matter how uncomfortable a situation is, it’s just a matter of time until it becomes part of your comfort zone! Because we adapt and we get used to things… Look back at your life, how many things that made you panic at first and now are part of your routine?

Third, when your mind starts to worry too much about the future, verify your reality in the present moment and ask yourself if you have all the necessary resources to do what you need to do…

Usually the answer is yes! So just tell yourself something like “one step at a time, for sure in the future I will have all the resources that I need, the same way that I have now”. This kind of inner dialogue might help you a lot to calm down your mind and your emotions!

Negative Emotions

You cannot control what happens in life, only how you react, but it might be a huge challenge, especially when you have to deal with a lot of negative emotions!

It’s normal to feel sorry for yourself, sadness or even anger, respect your emotions and feel them deeply, but don’t allow yourself to be get stuck on them for a long period of time!

After some time they might become part of your identity, and you don’t want this to happen! Is much easier to deal with them while they are just emotions, after they solidify as a personality trait, gets much harder!

Deal with them the best way you can, don’t deny, don’t numb yourself down with chemical substances, allow yourself to feel and give yourself time! You can even say something to yourself like “it’s ok for me to feel this way and I hope it will pass naturally, but if don’t feel better after a determined period of time, I will have to react!”.

Find a healthy way to deal with your emotions, therapy or interaction with people that went through the same things, might give you a new perspective and help you to deal better with everything.

Support groups are great as well, but don’t compare yourself to others! People deal differently with their problems, and to think that others have bigger problems and deal better with them, might let you down!

Mental Attitude

Your mental attitude is also very important! I don’t know if you realize but many of your emotions are consequences of your thoughts, and your adaptation skills will depend a lot on “what” and “how” you think!

When I became a flight attendant, it was written on the manual “in case of emergency landing on a remote area, your survival will depend on your mental attitude”, can you see the power it has?

After you give yourself time to go through the mourning period, you need to work on your mindset because the way you think might make things easier or harder.

If you can understand that with every end comes a new beginning, might bring you some relief! So stop looking at the past and to the things you lost, and start to look to the future and to the infinite number of possibilities that you can explore!

Have Faith

Have faith! And I’m not talking about religion or spirituality, of course it helps if you believe these things, but is very likely that when something difficult happens, you will be very angry at God!

Have faith on yourself and on the journey! Have faith that you will have all the resources that you need to get to the end of it as a transformed person! Have faith that if life gave you such a challenge is because you have the capacity of dealing with it!

And be sure that the hardest things are the ones that make you stronger! What in the beginning might look like a nightmare, maybe in the future you understand that it was a blessing in disguise, and might even feel grateful for the way it changed you and the direction of your life!

Don’t let yourself be defined by the things that happen to you in life, you have the choice of acting as a victim or as a creator! So it doesn’t matter what life brings to you, give your best to learn and grow with the situation!

If you like inspiring stories, have a look at a woman called Janine Shepherd! She was an athlete about to go to the Olympics when she was run over by a truck and became paralyzed from the waist down! It’s amazing how she overcame the situation, I will leave her Ted Talk below so you can get inspired as well!