How to Face the Hard Stuff
Who else is not a fan of facing life’s hard stuff? I can’t tell you the last time I caught myself running around saying, “Life, give me everything you got!” “Make it hurt!” or “See how difficult you can make this on me world!”
Realistically, we are all averse to facing challenges, hard circumstances, difficult conversations or hard projects in our lives. Also, and equally as realistic, the hard stuff is just a fact of life. I was going to go as far as saying it’s an unfortunate fact of life, but then I realized that as unfortunate as the hard stuff may seem at times, there is goodness to be gained from it!
I’ve had a decent dose of the hard stuff lately when it comes to work and have found myself more often than I’d like to admit getting frustrated and regularly questioning “why me?!?!?” or “why the heck is this happening?!?!?” As it turns out, neither of these questions are really all that helpful when trying to solve any problem. . . big surprise right?!?! Truthfully, wasting time getting myself spun up on the answers to those questions is negative help. The time I’m spending getting myself worked up is valuable time I could be working on a solution to whatever challenge I’m facing. Yes, yes, yes, easier said than done, I know!
So in light of the hurdles I’ve been facing, I’ve been trying to develop a plan to help me work through them and decided I’d share what I came up with here!
1. Mindset shit! I’ve been trying really hard to remind myself over and over and over again that the way we know what’s happening in our lives is supposed to be happening is. . . because it’s happening. I’m not crazy. . . drink that sentence in! I know that whatever is happening in my life right now is supposed to be happening at this very moment for the simple fact that it IS happening. God, the Universe, the world. . . you name it, they know what we need and when we need it better than we do and so the obstacles, challenges and hard stuff in our life doesn’t just appear out of nowhere for no reason at all. Whatever’s happening is what’s supposed to be happening at this very moment for your growth and development as a soul on this Earth.
2. Get a game plan together! Good ole Ben Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Don’t get me wrong, failure is not always a bad thing by any means, but a lot of times when we wading through unfamiliar territory, which the hard stuff normally is, that’s not the time to be two sheets to the wind. Overcoming overwhelming circumstance, difficult tasks at work or critical conversations all take preparation and forethought. So get a game plan together. Think through the pros and cons of the situations, the ways in which it could go wrong or the obstacles you might face within the challenge. Think of solutions to those challenges before beginning. Think of alternative means for tackling whatever that thing might be and come up with step by step actions to reach the desired end state. How do you eat an elephant folks? Bite by bite right?!?!? The same goes for working through life’s hard stuff! Get a game plan together and then start taking things one bite at a time.
3. Let go of the outcome! While coming up with a plan for how to beat whatever hard challenge you’re facing is important, it is just as important to let go of your attachment to the outcome of the situation. Yes, this too is also easier said than done and it may seem silly to put in the effort to come up with a solution to the problem if you’re ultimately not going to be overly concerned with the outcome. When we create an attachment to the outcome though, we cause way more stress than we need to and we become emotionally invested in the situation. I am the world’s most emotional person, so this is hard for me, but when I assign emotions to the outcome of a situation, those emotions have power over me and take up energy I could be putting towards solving the problem itself. The way I get around not being emotionally invested and caring about the final result of the situation is by giving 100% to the task at hand. This way I can’t get myself too hyped up about the end result and I know that no matter the outcome, I’ve given my absolute best.
4. Be your own solution! Unfortunately, we can’t live our lives letting others solve our problems for us, we must learn to take action and be the solution (or find the solution) to our own challenges. I used to have a terrible habit of getting everyone else’s opinion before making my own decision about things. This is no way, as an adult woman, for me to to live my life and truly was just a crutch I used to take the easy way out. Yes, doing the research on our own, navigating our own feelings regarding the challenge we face, and coming up with a game plan are all things that take time and effort that often we’d rather not exert, but every problem is an opportunity for growth and learning. When you frame the hard stuff as a learning opportunity, as annoying as that might seem in the beginning, eventually you will start seeing the challenges that arise in your life as just that. . . a chance for you to become an even more awesome, better equipped version of your amazing self!
One last note, and probably the most important thing to remember when you come across a bump in the road. . . you already have all of the skills and abilities to tackle whatever hard thing is thrown your way in this life, you just have to remember that and believe it along every step of the way!
Light, Love & the Highest Vibrations,
Lon
