When things aren’t going well it is easy to get discouraged and want to give up. Once you feel overwhelmed it becomes impossible to see anything clearly. Problems look enormous and unmanageable and you begin to feel small and helpless.
It’s difficult to feel good about anything when you feel like you are being squashed by the heaviness of your life.
Inertia and procrastination do nothing to fix things. When you get stuck and can’t see a way out, no amount of affirmations or attempts at positive thinking will help. The way out is to do something that gets you moving in any direction. It’s a good time to break down the problems into segments and then start to deal with them one at a time.
Action – Big problems can turn into huge problems if we ignore them. And when there are enough of them, it can seem like everything starts to go against you. Like attracts like, so when you are feeling overwhelmed and helpless the universe will magically send you more things to make your life seem even more out of control.
It’s time to take action. Whatever you are dealing with, identify the one thing that is the most important at this very moment. If you can’t change it or fix it right now, at least you can plan how to make it better than what it is and then figure out a way to deal with it.
Steps – Get everything out of your mind and onto a piece of paper. Problems that swirl around as thoughts always seem impossible to fix until we detach from them and start to break them down.
Write down everything no matter how insignificant it may seem. Then look at the list and find the two or three things that are the most urgent. Pick one of those and focus only on that.
Now brainstorm possible solutions. Don’t think of the reasons why it won’t work, just write down anything that comes to mind. The purpose of this is to get your mind focused on finding answers.
When you are finished, find something on the list that you can do today. It might be a phone call, doing research, or making an appointment. Whatever it is, take some sort of action. Breaking the inertia is important and will give you a sense of control.
Why It Makes You Feel Better – Nobody likes to feel powerless. By identifying what your problems are and starting to look for solutions, you give yourself a feeling of optimism and hope that you can do something to fix things. Then by taking action you signal to your mind that you aren’t willing to be a victim anymore.
Whatever the situation is, the way you look at it is everything.
Example – I was stuck in a business that wasn’t making any money and in a relationship that wasn’t working, and I couldn’t see a way out. It felt horrible. No matter where I looked I was stuck and there was no easy way to fix it. I kept going through the motions and hating every bit of it.
It was making me physically ill. Something had to change.
Once I made that decision, the momentum began to build. I looked at what I wanted my life to look like instead of what it was. I knew that the business had to end and I needed to get a job, so I started to focus on that. Once I began to do something the momentum built and within a year I was in a completely different place.
Was it scary? Of course. Was it easy? Not really, but neither was staying where I was. It all started with a decision and once I made up my mind, change began to happen.
Focus on one thing you need to fix today and then take some sort of action. The feeling of control will instantly make you feel a little better than you felt before.