After months of continuous problems with my website, I’m finally back to share ideas on ways to keep going in the face of difficulty. There are still some ongoing issues but they are gradually getting sorted out so bear with me as I launch my new website and services.
One of the most important things we can have in the face of difficulty is resilience and the mindset to keep going. Stuff is always going to come up and we can learn a lot from these lessons or new directions. The challenges I’ve faced with my website have helped me take a new direction and for that I’m grateful.
One thing I’ve learned over the past 5 years, is that I have a strength in me that I never knew existed. And it only gets stronger as I work on myself and place my faith in something greater than myself. I’ve gone from being a strict atheist to becoming deeply spiritual and forever grateful for the life I’m now leading.
What I’ve learned, is that we are always going to face difficulty but it’s in the way we handle challenges that helps us learn lessons to help us thrive.
Here are some of the ways I deal with problems as they come up, particularly over the past 5 months.
Ways to Keep Going in the Face of Difficulty
Ask for help
We can’t do everything! We don’t know everything. So, when we feel like something is over our skill level, ask for help. Sometimes, it’s worth paying someone else to do something to ease the mental burden off ourselves.
We can still learn during this process but we don’t have to make it harder on ourselves by trying to do everything.
Beware of where our energy flows
You may have heard the saying ‘Where our focus goes, our energy flows’. Well, I have to say, this is very accurate, especially during times of difficulty. If we continually focus on the negative things, we will generally get more of that.
The trick is to not focus on the negative stuff. I definitely acknowledge it, but I don’t hold on to it. If I did, I would probably remain stuck in a negative pattern of behaviour.
In times of difficulty, it’s important to protect our energy. This might mean cutting back on work commitments, increasing our self-care, and most importantly, learning to say NO!
Respecting our personal boundaries is a form of self-respect and besides, what good are we to anyone else if we can’t look after ourselves?
Do what you can to protect your energy so you can place it on the things that matter. This will help alleviate some of the tension or burdens you may be facing at the time.
Impulse control in times of difficulty
It’s very easy to slip into bad habits when times get tough. But the only problem with this is that it can leave us feeling even worse than when we first were faced with the problem at hand.
This comes down to asking ourselves, is this going to make me feel better or worse? Quite often, the answer will be ‘worse’. So stopping ourselves before engaging in what could be destructive behaviour, listen to the voice inside and ask yourself if it’s really worth it! Then, of course, you have to listen 🙂
I’m currently taking part in a 30-day program to focus on my goals and intentions for this year. It involves no alcohol, no social media, sticking to a diet (that’s not a problem for me), and an exercise routine (this still needs developing although my motivation is improving every day).
The only way we grow is if we challenge ourselves and get outside our comfort zone. When faced with difficulty, train your impulses to reach for the good things instead of slipping back into old habits.
Related post
Develop resilience - it can be learned
I truly believe resilience can be learned. Often we don’t know how strong we are until we’re faced with an incredibly intense situation. We may have to be broken down to the smallest possible fragment of our being, but it’s worth it. You get to find out just how strong you are!
There’s always going to be obstacles – that’s life. And we live in a very polarising realm so learning to develop resilience is a must. People often think they aren’t strong enough but they are. They just haven’t found it yet. It’s in all of us. Some of us have to learn the hard way though first, and we may have to keep repeating patterns of behaviour until we break out of the cycle (could be a karmic one).
But once we’ve dealt with something, especially if we have faced it on our own, our resilience to future challenges is enhanced. We can take the lessons from the last challenge and put them towards the next one. And each time we overcome difficulty, we get stronger and stronger.
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Develop healthy coping mechanisms in the face of difficulty
If every time we choose a healthy coping mechanism when faced with difficulties, we are training our minds so that we can cope with challenges. We are basically saying to ourselves that we can cope and that everything will be alright. I guess it’s just like training muscles. You get muscle memory. Our mindset is like a muscle I guess and we are just creating new pathways that help us learn new strategies when shite hits the fan.
I’m in no way into organised religion but am deeply spiritual and believe in a higher power of some sort. What this is, I’m not sure. But having faith in something can help us stay on the right track. Not in a bribery sort of way, but in a way that we want to do the right thing, by ourselves, for our body, and for the purpose we have in this life.
When a difficult situation arises, start a new habit. Whether it’s cleaning, walking in nature, cooking a nutritious meal, or something that will help you feel better rather than feel like poo. It’s all in the training.
See difficulty as a learning opportunity
Boy have I had to do a lot of learning over the past 5 months. I now know a lot more about website development than I have ever known before. Did I want to do this, not really, but I’m not going to look at it as a negative. I see it as a positive. I’ve learned some new skills, probably got more grey hairs from it though, but overall, it’s been a massive learning curve.
Do I want to do it again? Probably not but hey when we get out of our comfort zone, we grow. This isn’t comfortable but nothing ever good ever comes out of a comfort zone does it! Sometimes we’re pushed though – and that’s a good thing because we not only learn new skills, we learn about ourselves at the same time and just how much we can handle.
Again, this helps us with future challenges and our ability to cope when difficulty arises. The trick is to keep going.
Mindset is key to remembering that 'difficulty' is usually a temporary situation
Most difficult situations are usually temporary. It’s usually our response to them that either keeps them going on or helps us move on. When a difficult situation arises we can ask ourselves if it’s fixable. Usually, it is or there may be a need to outsource help and support.
We are the only people who can answer these questions in the face of difficulty because we are all in different situations. We also handle things differently but again how we handle situations in a positive way can be learned. Practising a positive method over and over again can ingrain the right response to when difficult situations crop up.
If I’m having a not-so-great day, I just tell myself that tomorrow will be better. This usually works for me.
Formulate solutions when difficulty arises
Focusing on a problem will only make it worse. Remember that where our focus goes, our energy will follow. Try to focus on solutions.
One way I do this is through walking. I do most of my best thinking when I’m out walking. This is always in nature. It helps me feel calm, close to something greater, and helps me come up with answers rather than more issues.
If you find that your mind is behaving like a monkey, try writing stuff down as well. Write the problem, then write a short list of possible solutions. Get it out of your head and onto paper. This helps ease the burden a bit especially if it’s a very difficult situation that requires a lot of mental thought.
Regulating emotions in the face of difficulty
Being able to regulate our emotions when difficult crops up can be challenging. It’s easy to fly off the handle but what good does that do us? Getting angry or upset really only hurts ourselves, can also impact our immune system making us more susceptible to becoming run down, and can also impact the energy of the people around us. So I guess we have to make a conscious choice on how we handle our emotions in difficult situations.
This doesn’t mean we have to be emotionless or distant, it just means being able to acknowledge how we feel and not let it affect us. People can actually make themselves sick through worry, and this may sound dramatic, but people can actually die from it because the suppression of emotions will just surface somewhere in the body – usually resulting in disease.
Have a range of strategies that can be called upon when times get tough.
Bottom line
There is always going to be SOMETHING! Life isn’t easy 100% of the time. In fact, it’s really challenging a lot of the time. But just how much that challenge and difficulty affects us, comes solely down to us. We either let it consume us, or we come rising out from the ashes.
It’s totally up to us!
