Motivation
5 Steps To Stay Motivated In Times Of Uncertainty
It was a Saturday morning, sunny and relatively warm even though it was the middle of winter. Driving toward the highway, I reminded myself to rehearse my elevator pitch a few more times before that morning’s networking meeting.
But before I could rehearse my pitch, I spotted a “Going-Out-of-Business Sale” sign at one of my favorite shops. I sighed. Another business who had failed! I thought of the somber statistics I had read on several Internet sites: on average, 8 out of 10 businesses are doomed to fail. A chill settled in my gut.
What if my business became one of the losers? What I failed? And if I had such a high chance of failing, was it even worth it to spend my Saturday at a networking meeting? Why bother? That’s when I realized that the uncertainty of my future was putting my motivation—and confidence—at risk.
If you feel that your uncertain future might be hurting your motivation, you might benefit from these 5 steps:
1. Create a list of positive and negative scenarios
I wrote 5 possible scenarios, ranked from “Life Is Perfect” to “What a Nightmare!” My immediate reaction to the worst-case scenario was that the chances of it happening were ridiculously low, which made me feel safer.
You, too, might realize that a disaster scenario, while probable, is not the most likely to materialize. This encouraging realization will allow you to keep going with a much more positive mindset.
“See the positive side, the potential, and make an effort.” – Dalai Lama
2. Write the possible consequences of each scenario
Listing all possible scenarios isn’t enough. I expanded my list by imagining what would happen if each of the 5 possible scenarios came true. This objective assessment was a powerful way to pinpoint potential obstacles to overcome in case of a least-desirable scenario. It was also a gauge of the delightful results I would realize if things went according to plan.
Start with the worst possible scenario and work your way up to the best. If you end this exercise by imagining the wonderful life that awaits you if you’re successful, you’ll spark positive momentum to skyrocket your motivation.
3. Devise a plan to avoid possible problems
Lack of foresight is one of the most common precursors of failure. Knowing this, I listed all the action steps I need to take to avoid the 2 worst case scenarios. Because I knew the problems that could potentially arise, I was in a great position to prepare for these challenges and avoid them altogether.
It’s your turn to be proactive. Create a comprehensive list of action steps you will follow to avoid possible issues in the future, and leave time in your schedule to execute these action steps. Seek outside help if you need it.
Being prepared will not only minimize your chances of failure, but will motivate you to keep working hard to achieve what you desire.
4. Create a worst-case scenario strategy
Having an exit strategy is a key to succeed in business—and in life. I asked myself, “What will I do if the worst happens?” I created a detailed “Plan B” that would also allow me to use my gifts and live my passion.
What would you do if things went wrong? Don’t focus on the unwanted results. Instead, place your attention of alternatives that would, in the end, also lead to fulfillment and satisfaction. Keep the end goal in mind but also keep an open mind.
This is a powerful exercise that will temper your feeling of uncertainty. You will feel safe and encouraged. You’ll know that a deviation from your original plan is not a failure. Instead, it’s an opportunity to explore a whole new set of possibilities.
5. List the times things worked out exactly the way you wanted them
To no avail, I tried to find a time in my life when my future was 100% predictable. That’s when it hit me. Life is never certain, and that’s what makes it exciting!
Remember that you have learned and grown as a person because of life’s endless surprises. Some of those surprises will be pleasant, and some will not. But in the end, you are who you are today as a result of your life experiences.
In a few words, certainty is an illusion. This is a profound realization that will help you look at the future without fear.
“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” -Winston Churchill
Follow the 5 steps above to keep your motivation reserves healthy and plentiful, and continue taking daily, focused steps to design a successful and fulfilling life!
How do you stay motivated in times of uncertainty? Please leave your thoughts in the comment section below!
Did you know that more than 57% of Americans hit the snooze button? That adds up to 3.5 months of our lives just snoozing! Why would we waste time snoozing when the intention is to actually get up to get things done? Is it laziness, a lack of discipline, motivation, or commitment? It doesn’t actually matter.
The fact is, you can’t be as productive as you want when you are getting out of bed late! That is the obvious part. The not so obvious part is how to actually get of bed, when every part of you is screaming to sleep a bit longer. Let’s create a bit of pain first, because I’m assuming you actually don’t see the downsides to snoozing, or you are being ignorant and ignorance will never get you the results you want.
Sabotaging Success
Did you know that every time you set yourself an intention to wake up early and you don’t follow through with it, you dramatically lower your confidence and belief in yourself? Your word to yourself start to mean less and less. You can say to yourself, I will do this, but you know you probably won’t.
Nothing will sabotage your success more than losing faith in your own word. You need confidence to get results in life! Are you somebody who follows through with their word or not? You either are or you aren’t.
The second consequence, is that you are losing income and awesome results you could be having sooner. Why choose the easier things now and have a harder life later on, when you can choose the harder things now and have an easier life later on? Don’t settle in life, this will never ever fulfill you.
4 Hacks to get out of bed when that alarm goes off:
1. Don’t negotiate with your brain
If you start negotiating with your brain, you will always lose. So don’t go there, don’t even start that conversation in your mind! If you have decided to get out of bed, then do it, follow through with your word. Why change your mind in the morning?
The ‘pleasure seeking’ part of your brain is always on automatic and it’s so strong, your ‘pre-fontal’ cortex doesn’t have much chance of winning this battle when you are half asleep in bed. Once you are out of bed, habit stack. It’s the 5 second rule – you are up already – don’t you dare go back. Do exactly what you would do habitually. Do you go straight for the shower or do you get a glass of lemon juice? Know what you are going to do already to take any thinking out of it!
“Lose an hour in the morning and you will spend all day looking for it.” – Richard Whately
2. Look at your identity
You behave according to what you believe. You believe what you repeat. Look at your own language, what do you say to yourself about getting up? Do you say things like; “It’s so hard to get out of bed in the morning” or “I’ve never been a morning person.” What you say becomes your reality of yourself and either motivates or demotivates you.
What you want to be saying to yourself is: “Just get out of bed. It’s easy, just get up. I can do this because I want to, I decide and control my actions. I am in control.” I can almost guarantee, if you struggle to get up when your alarm goes off, there is a part of your identity that believes this is who you are. If you change how you talk to yourself, about who you are, and tell yourself you can do anything, because you said so, your actions will be completely different.
3. Leaping out of bed
Unless I have a very compelling reason, I know it would be hard to get out of bed. We need to use our minds to motivate us into action, and the best way to do this, is to get excited the day before. Write down at least 5 reasons on a piece of paper; list why you want to leap out of bed tomorrow. This can take 2 minutes! The next morning, when your alarm goes off, look at that piece of paper, immediately so you know what awaits you and get up.
4. Use accountability and peer pressure
Create a game with your friends, family members, coach, colleagues, or business partner, I don’t care who it is, as long as you know that person will hold you accountable. Have fun with it, take a picture fully dressed and showered and send to your accountability partner, or call a ‘penalty’ if you don’t, like taking your friend out for dinner or spouse every time you sleep in. Get creative and use your support system. The point is, it doesn’t matter what system you set up, how crazy it might seem, what matters is if it works!
Remember, you don’t need to make big changes from the outset, if you feel like an hour or 30 minute change is too much, start with 5 minutes earlier each day or 10 minutes earlier each week. You must be getting enough sleep and not over sleeping either. You have one life and if you are a business owner, I know you are missing out on results and lowering your confidence indirectly too.
“Life is getting up an hour early to live an hour more.”
You can have the best intentions to get up earlier every day, but if you let that snooze button control you, you will never follow through with your intentions or get your results! It is the small changes that can give us the biggest results. Try one these hacks to finally get out of that bed in the morning and finally take back your time! Don’t allow it to be more powerful than you.
If you are not finding challenges that knock you flat on your back then you are missing out. A darker side of success that some have touched on is that you need to fail more. In addition to this, we should consider finding the challenges that punch us in the mouth and knock us unconscious.
The easiest place to be in life is one of comfort and knowing what tomorrow will bring. This brings little growth and requires very little effort because it’s safe. However, if we look at our role models who have done great things, then we will surely see that they have failed spectacularly.
Michael Jordan locked himself in his room and cried after he didn’t make his varsity basketball team as a sophomore. Walt Disney’s second business that failed miserably was called Laugh-O-Gram. JK Rowling was rejected by 12 literary publishers before she found any success.
Most likely you can think of some challenges that you rose up to beat in your own life. I would venture to say that the most difficult challenges that meant the most to you knocked you on your back right before you conquered them.
“Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache, carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or greater Benefit.” – Napoleon Hill
These obstacles are there for a reason. They are an important part of the puzzle for you. So if you find yourself in a place where you feel stuck or overwhelmed by a burden that seems insurmountable then this is a very good thing.
Life gives you everything you need
Life will give us everything we need, including the message that you have to get back up and go back at it with more determination, more will, and more fight than what you had before. Sometimes the moment we are down and out is the moment we have to regroup, reorganize, and come up with a new strategy to overcome those impending obstacles.
The reason the challenge knocks us down is because we need it. Just like an ocean wave knocks down an inexperienced surfer, it’s just a sign that the young surfer has to grow and become better.
Just like a surfer, the same is true for you and wherever you are at now. You have faced many things in your life which force you to become stronger for what is now in front of you.
However, what is most important in all this is having a challenge that can move you. For the surfer, the thrill of riding that perfect wave is worth the cost of getting beaten down by ocean waves again and again. For the man creating a business and putting his heart and soul into it, the reward of being a success and changing lives is worth battling each and everyday to get his enterprise up and off the ground.
For the woman who runs a marathon, the thrill of running across the finish line and having that experience was worth all the training and the grueling exhaustion she had to endure so that she could get to that point.
These experiences are the ones that can move you, but if your goal can have such a positive affect on you, then it can also have a dramatically negative affect as well. This is why you need challenges that can break you.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J. K. Rowling
Why you need failure
The surfer is devastated after breaking his arm and having to spend time away from his passion, but after his recovery he is reinvigorated. The business fails and the man is crushed, but he comes back stronger and more experienced with another business. The runner fails at finishing her marathon, but trains harder and comes back even better.
For this reason, failure is only feedback and something to be used as a positive for getting to where you want to go. If you get knocked down you might just need to rest and try again. Or it could mean that you should go get some help and try again.
Remember, failure isn’t final and success within failure is having the opportunity to try again.
You should only be alarmed when you have failed challenges that aren’t breaking you. This means that you are playing it safe and need something more compelling to propel you forward.
If the challenge breaks you then you know it means something to you. Even more importantly, you have the opportunity to go again, harder and even more determined.
How do you handle failure? Let us know in the comments below!
We all go through tough times.
A few examples of mine are:
- Multiple consecutive breakups
- Walking away from a business that could have made me a lot of money
- Having my career come to a grinding halt
- Dealing with mental illness
The list is very long and I’m sure yours is similar. It’s not about the tough times we go through though because they are guaranteed and you already knew that before you clicked this article.
What matters during tough times is what you tell yourself.
This is what I say to myself during tough times — well there’s actually four things I say to myself depending on the tough time I’m facing:
“This will pass”
No event in your life lasts forever. Today may be a really tough day, but that won’t last forever. We delude ourselves at times by saying in our head “I’m always going to be like this.”
“Why does this always happen to me?”
“Here we go again.”
These negative phrases tell our brain that things are never going to get better. When we say these phrases to ourselves enough, we start to believe them. During a difficult period in your life, in that moment, things will suck.
The way to get out of your head is to see the truth: this will pass. In one day, one month, or one year this tough situation will have passed and you’ll be onto the next part of your life.
Nothing lasts forever unless you allow your mind to trap you in the moment and believe a lie which is that this moment won’t pass. It will. You will come out the other side.
“I’ll be stronger having dealt with this situation”
When you reframe your tough times into strength building exercises, they take a whole new meaning.
All of a sudden, your current situation that may be wearing you down becomes like reps at the gym. The reps are a struggle and it hurts, but if you keep moving forward, you end up with mental toughness and strength.
“Exchange your tough times for mental toughness”
See this challenging situation for what it is. It’s the chance to come out the other end stronger.
Stack your tough times up like gold medals.
Have you dealt with cancer? Good, then you won’t take your health for granted ever again.
Have you lost a loved one? Then you’ll never take the rest of your family for granted and care for them more than you did before.
Did you lose your job? Amazing! Now you can work somewhere else and discover more of your hidden talents!
Without tough times, you won’t have the strategies you need to deal with the impossible. Your heroes are your heroes because they’ve used their tough times to become stronger.
Failure and rejection are the building blocks to whatever your definition of success is. Tough times make you hungryand that’s a good thing.
“Keep taking baby steps forward”
Tough times can feel like quicksand sometimes.
If you don’t keep moving forward though, you’ll eventually sink into the quicksand. The best thing you can do during the toughest of challenges is take baby steps.
When I battled severe anxiety, I took baby steps such as these:
- Walked 15 minutes a day
- Drank an extra glass of water each day to hydrate my body
- Read one book a month on anxiety
- Exposed myself to one small fear each day. It started with going two levels in a lift (something I couldn’t do before). Then I’d go three levels the next day and so on.
That last dot point is critical. Overcoming tough times requires you to take baby steps in the form of being uncomfortable. When you’re growing each day, you don’t have time to be too concerned about a particular tough time.
My battle with anxiety eventually led me to flying long distances (another thing I couldn’t do before) and then speaking on stages in front of a lot of people.
As you can see, the first few steps — like going two floors in a lift — are quite small. Then the steps get bigger and bigger until what used to seem impossible becomes a piece of cake.
Take baby steps.
“It only takes one person”
Tough times often require someone to believe in you. From my experience, you only need one person.
One person to believe in your idea.
One person to love you.
One person who has gone through the same tough times as you.
This one person exists. You have to go out there and find them. That one person for me was a team leader when I was working in a call center. He believed in me enough to take me aside and coach me one on one.
He believed I was going to go on and change the world through personal development. He was right and I did!
Don’t give up. Your one person exists as well.
<<<>>>
These four things are what I tell myself during a tough time. One of these phrases will always be the right one depending on the circumstance.
Believe that there is a way out and you’ll find one. It’s during the tough times that you’ll develop the skills and experience to help others.
What I’ve learned is that to get through the tough times, one of the best hacks is to focus on helping others. When you’re focusing on how you can serve, your own selfish problems become insignificant.
Seek out people who have even bigger problems than you do and listen to them. See if you can help them.
That’s how you deal with the tough times.
Tell yourself the truth. You deserve to hear it.
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
I was sitting down last week with a friend for lemongrass and ginger teas — because that’s how we roll in Melbourne.
My friend was telling me his recent life challenges and why he’d stopped replying to everybody’s messages.
I’ll get to the point: he’d got stuck in the daily grind.
Your life is not this:
- Wake up
- Eat breakfast
- Go to work
- Have lunch
- Come home
- Ask your partner how their day was
- Play with kids (if you have them)
- Look forward to the weekend
- Go to bed
- Rinse and repeat
If this is how your life is, chances are you’re going to have challenges. Not because these daily activities are a problem but because there’s so much more to life.
When every day is the same, and you don’t know why, you become lost.
What do I mean by lost?
You go back to old ways. In my friend’s case, his mental health issues kicked in again. He started feeling sorry for himself. He lost his way.
For me, getting lost looks like going back to a state of negativity. A state where the world is against me and everything feels impossible.
Your life can be different if you choose it to be.
This is not hyperbole. Your life can be different.
How?
By not getting stuck in the daily grind. The way you do this is by being present. Noticing right now instead of looking down at your phone.
You can also break your routine. Don’t do the same thing every day. Add some small twists and turns to how you do things.
Your life doesn’t have to be boring and full of routines. Habits are good to have as long as they don’t become 99.9% of your day. Having nothing but habits takes the variety out of your day.
You end up thinking the same way day in and day out. This stops you from seeing the endless opportunities that are available to you if you can only see them.
There has to be meaning.
No matter how big or how small, meaning gives you a reason to wake up outside of just following some pre-defined routine.
My friend that was going through issues last week didn’t have a meaning. He’d forgotten why he came to work. To shake up his reality, I told him about the day before where I’d volunteered at the local homeless shelter.
He asked me why I did it.
I told him “It gets you out of your head. It makes you think and feel completely different. You stop feeling sorry for yourself. It reminds you of what it’s like to have a meaning.”
We make the mistake of thinking everyone’s life is perfect except ours.
“I get this all the time. People think I live some rockstar blogging lifestyle full of free lunches, endless high-fives, smiles and opportunities. The reality couldn’t be further from this fake idea”
I have the same battles and challenges.
I get stuck in routines too.
I sometimes chase productivity over meaning as well.
No one has a straight flush of perfect days where all their hopes and dreams come true. Rejection, punches to the face, and disappointment affect us all.
The way you choose the good life is to acknowledge and push through the difficult parts of life.
As hard as I try, some days just suck. Some days I don’t feel like writing or my career is in the dumps.
The only difference is what you choose.
For me, I choose to keep moving forward. I choose optimism even when nothing makes sense and all the chips are stacked against me.
There’s no secret hack other than choosing to not settle for a life of routine and one that contains no variety.
You get to make that choice. That’s the difference.
The life you want is your choice. It’s not made for you.
Choose to change things up.
<<<>>>
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
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Life
Build Up Your Social Media Presence Using These Three Personal Powers
Instead of being on defense when it comes to social media, show the world you mean business with respect, compassion and dignity. Ask anyone of your friends or online connections if they’ve found themselves going down a rabbit hole online and a bunch of them probably will say, “Yep, it happened just the other day.” (more…)
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Excellent article. I loved phrases like Certainty is an illusion. Worst-case scenario action steps. This piece of advice will be very useful to every entrepreneur.
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Cloris, your articles are excellent .You are very smart. I enjoy your comments about Donald Trump are great. Being a successful person, like you has an important message: Never stop
Congratulation -
Very sound advice Cloris! As both you and Bertie’s comment point out – much of the pain of “failure” is due to the shock of unanticipated developments. With a plan like you’ve described here, you’ve considered the best and worst case scenarios and the implications, so are prepared for the unexpected.
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Hi, true indeed that lessons learned in life made us who we are today. Failure, bad experiences, doubts, disappointments comes in our life but learning to deal with them through listing the positive and negative aspects would help us a lot. Thanks for sharing a very motivating post.
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I was particularly touched by #5. In fact, I remember there were times where I *thought* my future was safe and predictable. Working for a solid company, with a good salary and a probable promotion in sight. But some unanticipated events turned everything upside down. So I learned that even when you feel safe and comfortable (or perhaps, specially in that case) you shouldn’t think that bliss will last forever. There is no other way than embracing uncertainity in life, and making the most of it.
Did you know that more than 57% of Americans hit the snooze button? That adds up to 3.5 months of our lives just snoozing! Why would we waste time snoozing when the intention is to actually get up to get things done? Is it laziness, a lack of discipline, motivation, or commitment? It doesn’t actually matter.
The fact is, you can’t be as productive as you want when you are getting out of bed late! That is the obvious part. The not so obvious part is how to actually get of bed, when every part of you is screaming to sleep a bit longer. Let’s create a bit of pain first, because I’m assuming you actually don’t see the downsides to snoozing, or you are being ignorant and ignorance will never get you the results you want.
Sabotaging Success
Did you know that every time you set yourself an intention to wake up early and you don’t follow through with it, you dramatically lower your confidence and belief in yourself? Your word to yourself start to mean less and less. You can say to yourself, I will do this, but you know you probably won’t.
Nothing will sabotage your success more than losing faith in your own word. You need confidence to get results in life! Are you somebody who follows through with their word or not? You either are or you aren’t.
The second consequence, is that you are losing income and awesome results you could be having sooner. Why choose the easier things now and have a harder life later on, when you can choose the harder things now and have an easier life later on? Don’t settle in life, this will never ever fulfill you.
4 Hacks to get out of bed when that alarm goes off:
1. Don’t negotiate with your brain
If you start negotiating with your brain, you will always lose. So don’t go there, don’t even start that conversation in your mind! If you have decided to get out of bed, then do it, follow through with your word. Why change your mind in the morning?
The ‘pleasure seeking’ part of your brain is always on automatic and it’s so strong, your ‘pre-fontal’ cortex doesn’t have much chance of winning this battle when you are half asleep in bed. Once you are out of bed, habit stack. It’s the 5 second rule – you are up already – don’t you dare go back. Do exactly what you would do habitually. Do you go straight for the shower or do you get a glass of lemon juice? Know what you are going to do already to take any thinking out of it!
“Lose an hour in the morning and you will spend all day looking for it.” – Richard Whately
2. Look at your identity
You behave according to what you believe. You believe what you repeat. Look at your own language, what do you say to yourself about getting up? Do you say things like; “It’s so hard to get out of bed in the morning” or “I’ve never been a morning person.” What you say becomes your reality of yourself and either motivates or demotivates you.
What you want to be saying to yourself is: “Just get out of bed. It’s easy, just get up. I can do this because I want to, I decide and control my actions. I am in control.” I can almost guarantee, if you struggle to get up when your alarm goes off, there is a part of your identity that believes this is who you are. If you change how you talk to yourself, about who you are, and tell yourself you can do anything, because you said so, your actions will be completely different.
3. Leaping out of bed
Unless I have a very compelling reason, I know it would be hard to get out of bed. We need to use our minds to motivate us into action, and the best way to do this, is to get excited the day before. Write down at least 5 reasons on a piece of paper; list why you want to leap out of bed tomorrow. This can take 2 minutes! The next morning, when your alarm goes off, look at that piece of paper, immediately so you know what awaits you and get up.
4. Use accountability and peer pressure
Create a game with your friends, family members, coach, colleagues, or business partner, I don’t care who it is, as long as you know that person will hold you accountable. Have fun with it, take a picture fully dressed and showered and send to your accountability partner, or call a ‘penalty’ if you don’t, like taking your friend out for dinner or spouse every time you sleep in. Get creative and use your support system. The point is, it doesn’t matter what system you set up, how crazy it might seem, what matters is if it works!
Remember, you don’t need to make big changes from the outset, if you feel like an hour or 30 minute change is too much, start with 5 minutes earlier each day or 10 minutes earlier each week. You must be getting enough sleep and not over sleeping either. You have one life and if you are a business owner, I know you are missing out on results and lowering your confidence indirectly too.
“Life is getting up an hour early to live an hour more.”
You can have the best intentions to get up earlier every day, but if you let that snooze button control you, you will never follow through with your intentions or get your results! It is the small changes that can give us the biggest results. Try one these hacks to finally get out of that bed in the morning and finally take back your time! Don’t allow it to be more powerful than you.
If you are not finding challenges that knock you flat on your back then you are missing out. A darker side of success that some have touched on is that you need to fail more. In addition to this, we should consider finding the challenges that punch us in the mouth and knock us unconscious.
The easiest place to be in life is one of comfort and knowing what tomorrow will bring. This brings little growth and requires very little effort because it’s safe. However, if we look at our role models who have done great things, then we will surely see that they have failed spectacularly.
Michael Jordan locked himself in his room and cried after he didn’t make his varsity basketball team as a sophomore. Walt Disney’s second business that failed miserably was called Laugh-O-Gram. JK Rowling was rejected by 12 literary publishers before she found any success.
Most likely you can think of some challenges that you rose up to beat in your own life. I would venture to say that the most difficult challenges that meant the most to you knocked you on your back right before you conquered them.
“Every adversity, every failure, and every heartache, carries with it the Seed of an equivalent or greater Benefit.” – Napoleon Hill
These obstacles are there for a reason. They are an important part of the puzzle for you. So if you find yourself in a place where you feel stuck or overwhelmed by a burden that seems insurmountable then this is a very good thing.
Life gives you everything you need
Life will give us everything we need, including the message that you have to get back up and go back at it with more determination, more will, and more fight than what you had before. Sometimes the moment we are down and out is the moment we have to regroup, reorganize, and come up with a new strategy to overcome those impending obstacles.
The reason the challenge knocks us down is because we need it. Just like an ocean wave knocks down an inexperienced surfer, it’s just a sign that the young surfer has to grow and become better.
Just like a surfer, the same is true for you and wherever you are at now. You have faced many things in your life which force you to become stronger for what is now in front of you.
However, what is most important in all this is having a challenge that can move you. For the surfer, the thrill of riding that perfect wave is worth the cost of getting beaten down by ocean waves again and again. For the man creating a business and putting his heart and soul into it, the reward of being a success and changing lives is worth battling each and everyday to get his enterprise up and off the ground.
For the woman who runs a marathon, the thrill of running across the finish line and having that experience was worth all the training and the grueling exhaustion she had to endure so that she could get to that point.
These experiences are the ones that can move you, but if your goal can have such a positive affect on you, then it can also have a dramatically negative affect as well. This is why you need challenges that can break you.
“It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all, in which case you have failed by default.” – J. K. Rowling
Why you need failure
The surfer is devastated after breaking his arm and having to spend time away from his passion, but after his recovery he is reinvigorated. The business fails and the man is crushed, but he comes back stronger and more experienced with another business. The runner fails at finishing her marathon, but trains harder and comes back even better.
For this reason, failure is only feedback and something to be used as a positive for getting to where you want to go. If you get knocked down you might just need to rest and try again. Or it could mean that you should go get some help and try again.
Remember, failure isn’t final and success within failure is having the opportunity to try again.
You should only be alarmed when you have failed challenges that aren’t breaking you. This means that you are playing it safe and need something more compelling to propel you forward.
If the challenge breaks you then you know it means something to you. Even more importantly, you have the opportunity to go again, harder and even more determined.
How do you handle failure? Let us know in the comments below!
We all go through tough times.
A few examples of mine are:
- Multiple consecutive breakups
- Walking away from a business that could have made me a lot of money
- Having my career come to a grinding halt
- Dealing with mental illness
The list is very long and I’m sure yours is similar. It’s not about the tough times we go through though because they are guaranteed and you already knew that before you clicked this article.
What matters during tough times is what you tell yourself.
This is what I say to myself during tough times — well there’s actually four things I say to myself depending on the tough time I’m facing:
“This will pass”
No event in your life lasts forever. Today may be a really tough day, but that won’t last forever. We delude ourselves at times by saying in our head “I’m always going to be like this.”
“Why does this always happen to me?”
“Here we go again.”
These negative phrases tell our brain that things are never going to get better. When we say these phrases to ourselves enough, we start to believe them. During a difficult period in your life, in that moment, things will suck.
The way to get out of your head is to see the truth: this will pass. In one day, one month, or one year this tough situation will have passed and you’ll be onto the next part of your life.
Nothing lasts forever unless you allow your mind to trap you in the moment and believe a lie which is that this moment won’t pass. It will. You will come out the other side.
“I’ll be stronger having dealt with this situation”
When you reframe your tough times into strength building exercises, they take a whole new meaning.
All of a sudden, your current situation that may be wearing you down becomes like reps at the gym. The reps are a struggle and it hurts, but if you keep moving forward, you end up with mental toughness and strength.
“Exchange your tough times for mental toughness”
See this challenging situation for what it is. It’s the chance to come out the other end stronger.
Stack your tough times up like gold medals.
Have you dealt with cancer? Good, then you won’t take your health for granted ever again.
Have you lost a loved one? Then you’ll never take the rest of your family for granted and care for them more than you did before.
Did you lose your job? Amazing! Now you can work somewhere else and discover more of your hidden talents!
Without tough times, you won’t have the strategies you need to deal with the impossible. Your heroes are your heroes because they’ve used their tough times to become stronger.
Failure and rejection are the building blocks to whatever your definition of success is. Tough times make you hungryand that’s a good thing.
“Keep taking baby steps forward”
Tough times can feel like quicksand sometimes.
If you don’t keep moving forward though, you’ll eventually sink into the quicksand. The best thing you can do during the toughest of challenges is take baby steps.
When I battled severe anxiety, I took baby steps such as these:
- Walked 15 minutes a day
- Drank an extra glass of water each day to hydrate my body
- Read one book a month on anxiety
- Exposed myself to one small fear each day. It started with going two levels in a lift (something I couldn’t do before). Then I’d go three levels the next day and so on.
That last dot point is critical. Overcoming tough times requires you to take baby steps in the form of being uncomfortable. When you’re growing each day, you don’t have time to be too concerned about a particular tough time.
My battle with anxiety eventually led me to flying long distances (another thing I couldn’t do before) and then speaking on stages in front of a lot of people.
As you can see, the first few steps — like going two floors in a lift — are quite small. Then the steps get bigger and bigger until what used to seem impossible becomes a piece of cake.
Take baby steps.
“It only takes one person”
Tough times often require someone to believe in you. From my experience, you only need one person.
One person to believe in your idea.
One person to love you.
One person who has gone through the same tough times as you.
This one person exists. You have to go out there and find them. That one person for me was a team leader when I was working in a call center. He believed in me enough to take me aside and coach me one on one.
He believed I was going to go on and change the world through personal development. He was right and I did!
Don’t give up. Your one person exists as well.
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These four things are what I tell myself during a tough time. One of these phrases will always be the right one depending on the circumstance.
Believe that there is a way out and you’ll find one. It’s during the tough times that you’ll develop the skills and experience to help others.
What I’ve learned is that to get through the tough times, one of the best hacks is to focus on helping others. When you’re focusing on how you can serve, your own selfish problems become insignificant.
Seek out people who have even bigger problems than you do and listen to them. See if you can help them.
That’s how you deal with the tough times.
Tell yourself the truth. You deserve to hear it.
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
I was sitting down last week with a friend for lemongrass and ginger teas — because that’s how we roll in Melbourne.
My friend was telling me his recent life challenges and why he’d stopped replying to everybody’s messages.
I’ll get to the point: he’d got stuck in the daily grind.
Your life is not this:
- Wake up
- Eat breakfast
- Go to work
- Have lunch
- Come home
- Ask your partner how their day was
- Play with kids (if you have them)
- Look forward to the weekend
- Go to bed
- Rinse and repeat
If this is how your life is, chances are you’re going to have challenges. Not because these daily activities are a problem but because there’s so much more to life.
When every day is the same, and you don’t know why, you become lost.
What do I mean by lost?
You go back to old ways. In my friend’s case, his mental health issues kicked in again. He started feeling sorry for himself. He lost his way.
For me, getting lost looks like going back to a state of negativity. A state where the world is against me and everything feels impossible.
Your life can be different if you choose it to be.
This is not hyperbole. Your life can be different.
How?
By not getting stuck in the daily grind. The way you do this is by being present. Noticing right now instead of looking down at your phone.
You can also break your routine. Don’t do the same thing every day. Add some small twists and turns to how you do things.
Your life doesn’t have to be boring and full of routines. Habits are good to have as long as they don’t become 99.9% of your day. Having nothing but habits takes the variety out of your day.
You end up thinking the same way day in and day out. This stops you from seeing the endless opportunities that are available to you if you can only see them.
There has to be meaning.
No matter how big or how small, meaning gives you a reason to wake up outside of just following some pre-defined routine.
My friend that was going through issues last week didn’t have a meaning. He’d forgotten why he came to work. To shake up his reality, I told him about the day before where I’d volunteered at the local homeless shelter.
He asked me why I did it.
I told him “It gets you out of your head. It makes you think and feel completely different. You stop feeling sorry for yourself. It reminds you of what it’s like to have a meaning.”
We make the mistake of thinking everyone’s life is perfect except ours.
“I get this all the time. People think I live some rockstar blogging lifestyle full of free lunches, endless high-fives, smiles and opportunities. The reality couldn’t be further from this fake idea”
I have the same battles and challenges.
I get stuck in routines too.
I sometimes chase productivity over meaning as well.
No one has a straight flush of perfect days where all their hopes and dreams come true. Rejection, punches to the face, and disappointment affect us all.
The way you choose the good life is to acknowledge and push through the difficult parts of life.
As hard as I try, some days just suck. Some days I don’t feel like writing or my career is in the dumps.
The only difference is what you choose.
For me, I choose to keep moving forward. I choose optimism even when nothing makes sense and all the chips are stacked against me.
There’s no secret hack other than choosing to not settle for a life of routine and one that contains no variety.
You get to make that choice. That’s the difference.
The life you want is your choice. It’s not made for you.
Choose to change things up.
<<<>>>
If you want to increase your productivity and learn some more valuable life hacks, then join my private mailing list on timdenning.net
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Jay
Jan 1, 2017 at 10:45 am
Excellent article. I loved phrases like Certainty is an illusion. Worst-case scenario action steps. This piece of advice will be very useful to every entrepreneur.
LOURDES CAIBE
Mar 17, 2016 at 11:51 am
Cloris, your articles are excellent .You are very smart. I enjoy your comments about Donald Trump are great. Being a successful person, like you has an important message: Never stop
Congratulation
Pamina Mullins
Mar 17, 2016 at 8:23 am
Very sound advice Cloris! As both you and Bertie’s comment point out – much of the pain of “failure” is due to the shock of unanticipated developments. With a plan like you’ve described here, you’ve considered the best and worst case scenarios and the implications, so are prepared for the unexpected.
leadership skills
Mar 17, 2016 at 1:56 am
Hi, true indeed that lessons learned in life made us who we are today. Failure, bad experiences, doubts, disappointments comes in our life but learning to deal with them through listing the positive and negative aspects would help us a lot. Thanks for sharing a very motivating post.
Bertie
Mar 16, 2016 at 3:45 pm
I was particularly touched by #5. In fact, I remember there were times where I *thought* my future was safe and predictable. Working for a solid company, with a good salary and a probable promotion in sight. But some unanticipated events turned everything upside down. So I learned that even when you feel safe and comfortable (or perhaps, specially in that case) you shouldn’t think that bliss will last forever. There is no other way than embracing uncertainity in life, and making the most of it.