10 Things You Can Do When You Think Life Sucks

When things aren’t going your way then you may become upset. That’s normal and Acceptable. So instead of attempting to push these feelings away acknowledge and analyze them.

But also know how to not get mired in them because then they’ll simply take a lot of energy and time from your week.

One way that helps me to minimize that irritation so I can go ahead once again is to stop my thoughts from bouncing around in the past or a hypothetical future by reconnecting with this now.

Two of my favorite approaches for achieving it are to:

Concentrate on my breathing.

I sit down with closed eyes and then simply concentrate on the air coming in and out of my nostrils.

I do that for 1-2 minutes while making sure that I take calm and slightly deep breaths than I typically do and I breathe from my belly (and not my chest) (and not my chest).

Concentrate on what is around me for 1-2 minutes.

The individuals walking by out on the street. The small airflow from one of the windows. The warmth from the radiator.

The snow softly falling outside my window and the nice garments on my skin.

This draws my focus entirely back to what is here right now.

By performing one of these activities for just that short period of time I relax down and it becomes easier to concentrate and to think properly again.

I then follow it up with the following habit in this article…

This is generally my next step when I wish to lessen frustration. Yet it works great on its own also when you feel like life stinks.

And at such moments it’s easy to slip from feeling sorry for yourself for a bit into full on victim mentality that lasts for too long and pulls you down.

I find that zooming out a little at these times helps.

So I ask myself: what are 3 basic things that I can still be thankful for having in my life?

A few of responses that I seem to come back to regularly are at least partially things that are fundamental for me but many out there in the world still don’t have access to.

As for example:

A roof over my head and a cozy house.

Lots of drinking water.

I don’t have to go hungry.

The simple joys of life like a sunset or a pleasant stroll in the woods.

My family and friends.

Analyzing what occurred and what you feel is undoubtedly crucial.

So instead of pursuing the conventional way of obsessing on the whys of the unfavorable circumstance 80% of the time and seeking for solutions 20% of the time turn those percentages around.

Focus more of your attention on discovering the little and practical measures you can take to make things better (even if it’s only a bit better at this moment).

By doing so you’ll start to feel more confident and less trapped and immobilized as you are going ahead once more.

Just though this day or the past week didn’t go well doesn’t imply that there is not a fresh new day tomorrow.

A day when you may start over.

By taking action to go towards what you want, likely having a little more success and when it will be easier to realize that this tough moment is just temporary and not forever (even though it may seem that way right now) (even if it might feel that way right now).

It is quite easy to become lost in concentrating on the bad things when you start believing that life or your week or month isn’t going well.

But don’t forget that there are still things that are going well in your life. It may be tiny things.

When I experienced multiple failures last year I asked myself this question and it helped me to open up my thinking and to not get too focused on just the things that weren’t going so well.

By expanding my thoughts I could see that many critical things like my little company, my exercise routine and flossing practice were truly going well and that some pleasurable things had occurred lately too.

I realize this may seem like a cliché. And when I’m having a terrible time , it’s not what I normally prefer to hear.

Yet at the same time I must confess that it’s frequently accurate.

And it’s a crucial thing for me to reminding myself of since it lowers the agony I experience from a setback because I know that this will pass and that I will typically gain something good out of it in the end.

Now, a popular way of looking at failures, blunders and barriers on your road is of course as something bad and as something that should be avoided.

Yet attempting to aggressively avoid them at whatever costs frequently leads to analytical paralysis and a lack of taking any major action at all.

Yet the setbacks and blunders in life may really be quite useful. If you allow them. So before you start moving on from one of them question yourself:

What is one thing I can learn from this situation?

How can I modify my route to avoid this trap/making the same error and to likely perform better the following time?

These questions have helped me to improve a lot about how I do things in life and to avoid making the same errors over and over again.

Sometimes a bad day will simply be a terrible day. Even if you employ a handful of the prior recommendations and tactics.

Because no matter what you do, life will never be great, fantastic or tranquil all the time.

It will still have natural troughs even if you acquire numerous new and beneficial behaviors.

And that’s Fine.

But here’s the upside…

If you genuinely accept that this is how life is from time to time – and you stop clinging to a fantasy of perfection – then your life will become lighter and simpler and you’ll be less stressed out and able to more constructively face that awful day when it does show up on your doorstep.

Holding things bottled up and not letting them out makes it – in my experience – easier to start constructing mountains out of molehills. Creating unbeatable nightmares out of things that actually truly terrible.

So let what is weighing on you out.

You can do it by:

Talking things over with someone close to you.

Maybe you simply need to rant and to work things out for yourself while he or she listens.

Or maybe the two of you can speak it out to root the issue in reality. And to come up with the beginnings of a strategy for what you can accomplish.

Write about it in a journal.

Simply putting your thoughts, fears and feelings out on paper or a computer screen may be a relief.

And it may enable you to start arranging things, to think things through and to start recognizing potential answers or tiny steps you can take.

When things are horrible and you cannot reason yourself out of the frame of mind that it leads you to then pick another way.

Quit using your mind and start utilizing your body.

Go for a stroll in the wintery countryside.

Play badminton or soccer with buddies.

Go to the gym and work out in some manner.

Would the scenario potentially still stink when you go back? Yes. But maybe less so than you initially assumed.

So now you have reduced inner stress and greater mental clarity and vigor.

I have noticed in my own life that this makes a significant difference to shift my viewpoint and to start working myself out of a bad position.

This notion encouraged me to hang on when things appeared grim for many months and to keep going when my social skills and dating life was just plain poor.

That encouraged me to keep trying when things appeared like they would never pick up for my own modest web company.

Why? Because I have discovered it to be true.

When things looked to be at the lowest point something always occurred. Frequently because being at that low place prompted me to adjust something in how I conducted things.

But maybe also because life appears to have some sort of balance if I simply keep going. If I keep taking action instead of giving up and doing nothing then something wonderful always occurs.

Watching this repeat itself year after year boosted my conviction in taking action and to stay going even on hard days or weeks.

And it offers some comfort even when things appear fairly grim.