In life, stuff happens. People get sick.  The IRS calls. Then, just when you think it can’t get any worse, the dog throws up on your shoes.

And that’s before you’ve left for work. What do you do when you don’t know what to do anymore? Here are ten ways for you to develop your resiliency – your ability to bounce back from the challenges in life.

1. Acceptance

Ugh. People hate it when I talk about acceptance because they equate acceptance with giving up. Actually, acceptance has more to do with giving in than giving up. When life throws you a curveball, your immediate response is usually to resist what is happening. This is a form of denial, which is okay for awhile, but at some point, you need to see the situation for what it is and go with it rather than resist it. The key is to accept life as it is, rather than what it should be.

Acceptance is a big topic that needs its own article, but for now, here are a few more components:

• Being okay with emotions, even when they’re “bad.” This means it’s okay to feel however you want about a situation and not saying to yourself, “I need to keep a stiff upper lip” or “I guess I shouldn’t be angry about this.”
• Realizing that accepting a situation doesn’t necessarily mean that you like it. I think this causes a lot of confusion for people, too. “How am I supposed to like the fact that I’m losing my house to foreclosure?” You don’t, but you do need to accept the reality of the foreclosure so you can develop strategies to address the situation.
• Being able to hold two opposing thoughts or feelings at the same time. This one is kind of tricky, but it has to do with acknowledging opposites like “I love my kid AND right now I can’t stand him because he’s being defiant.” Or, “I’m relieved that my dad died and is now out of pain AND I want him back.”

2. Social support

Even though you might think you need to “tough this out alone,” it really doesn’t help when you’re trying to overcome a problem. Going it alone leads to feeling isolated and immersed in your problem. You have people who love you and want to help, even if it’s just to provide a listening ear. Be okay with sharing your circumstances with at least one close friend or family member.

3. Perspective

I recently asked a woman who had been downsized out of her job how she made it through that difficult time. I was surprised at her answer. “You know, Bobbi,” she said, “I chose to expand rather than contract. I used this as an opportunity to learn new things rather than focus on it only as a negative in my life.”

There are always different angles from which you choose to see a situation. Try a few new ones!

Here are a few more ideas about perspective:

• Stop ruminating. Rumination is going over and over something endlessly; it’s a way you try to fix a problem but it doesn’t get you anywhere. Try to stop obsessive thinking about the problem and realize that you have some good things to fill up your life, too.
• Remember that you have made it through past challenges. This isn’t the first problem you’ve had in your life and, unfortunately, it won’t be the last. It’s really important to realize that you have made it through tough times in the past and you will this time, too.

4. Stay in the moment

This will help you not ruminate about the problem or fret about the future. Grounding techniques can help with this – paying attention to your senses: how does the desk feel under your fingertips? What do you smell in the air right now? What do you hear? Focus on those sensations for a few minutes to stay in the current moment.

5. Problem-solving

Now that you’ve accepted your situation, have some perspective about it, and have your support system around you, it’s time to do something. Use these quick steps to develop a plan (it helps tremendously to do this with other people. You get more ideas and different perspectives.):

• Define the problem. Sometimes what you think is the problem really isn’t. Use your problem-solving group to develop a very specific definition of the problem.
• Has anything worked in the past to solve this problem? If yes, do it again! If no, move to the next step.
• Brainstorm as many different solutions as possible. This means to generate ideas that might even seem silly at first.
• Narrow the list of solutions. Now is the time to toss out those ideas that absolutely won’t work and keep the ones that will.
• Develop an action plan. Use the workable ideas to form action steps.
• Create accountability. Have your support system check in with you to make sure you are following through.

6. See what you can learn

Since life has handed you lemons, this is a good time to not only make the proverbial lemonade, but lemon meringue pie, lemon tarts . . . you get the idea. Like my friend above who chose to expand rather than contract, there are always things to learn about yourself, the world, and others when challenges arise. It’s a tough way to learn them, but sometimes it’s the best way, too.

7. Find the gifts

The sand that irritates the oyster eventually makes a beautiful pearl. You may not see the gifts in your situation right now, but have faith that they are there. I have heard many women with cancer talk about the unexpected gifts they experienced: finding out how many people truly loved them, learning how strong they were, being able to help others also going through cancer.

The gifts are there, just be open to receiving them.

Psychotherapist Bobbi Emel specializes in helping people face life’s significant challenges and regain their resiliency. In addition to seeing clients in her private practice in Los Altos, Ca., Bobbi is a well-regarded speaker and writer. You can find her blog at http://www.TheBounceBlog.com

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Is life slapping you in the face every time you turn around? Don’t stand there and turn the other cheek.

You don’t have to be miserable forever. You can change your life and have an awesome one.

You can have a life in which you smile every morning and feel excitement to start the new day. You can have happiness and fun. No longer fearing what aggravation will wait for you.

Instead of flying off the handle every time something bad happens, you could take it all in stride. Imagine – sighing, picking up the pieces, putting things back in order and move on as if nothing happened. How good does that sound?

If you’re sick of living life as a human punching bag, make some positive changes that will last a lifetime. You could finally be one of those people you hate to be around, the ones that seem to be happy all the time.

How is that they are always like that, anyway? You’re about to find out a few of their secrets.

Attack, Squash and Move On

Bad things happen to everyone. No one is immune to that. The differences between people who are happy and miserable people are that happy ones know what to do when something bad happens.

They attack it, like a vulture on prey. As soon as something look like it’s about to go awry they are on top of it to squash it.

If they aren’t able to stop the crisis from happening, they do everything in their power to control every part of it until it’s resolved.  They take it over and do whatever they have to do to resolve it. Once it’s resolved, they take a deep breath, relax and move on with a smile.

So what does it feel like after an accomplishment like that? Image yourself conquering a crisis with control and strength. Now you know can take on anything life wants to throw your way. You are ready.

Remove the Problem Source

Does life keep slapping you in the face from the same direction? In other words, is there someone or something that’s causing you problems?

Find the origin of your problems to either fix it or eliminate it. If it’s a relationship, you might have to talk to the person about her behavior or make changes to your environment.

The point of this life change is to identify the source of why you are miserable and make a change instead of just living with it. Remember, don’t subject yourself to living like this – make a change.

Change Yourself When You Can’t Change Others

So you can’t always change other people or the world around you, so in this case, you’ll have to change the way you react. The good news is that many times, people will change the way they act when you change the way you react.

Follow these steps to change your reaction to your world:

1. When someone makes you upset, express that the topic of conversation upsets you, offer to change the topic, and if that doesn’t work, end the conversation.
2. Guests with boundary issues should be confronted with an expression of your needs such as, “I need time to get ready for your arrival.” with a follow up request such as, “Will you please call me a day or two ahead of time next time?”
3. Do not feed people who insult you with comebacks or satisfy them with your discontent. Instead, smile and express your self-approval and love by saying nothing or saying, “I am sorry but I disagree with your opinion.”
4. Stop pleasing others and start pleasing yourself. You can’t make everyone happy all of the time. So stop trying because all you’ll do is disappoint yourself in the end. You don’t need that. As long as you make yourself proud, you’ll always be happy.
5. When you feel unhappy with something in your life, make a change to ease that unhappiness. If you feel guilty about something, do what you feel guilty about so you don’t feel guilty anymore. As long as you learn to listen to your inner self, you’ll be giving yourself what you need and making yourself happy.

Your Life Needs a Leader

The reason why it seems as though your life is so out of control is that it doesn’t have a leader. Lead your life starting now.

You’ll start to see how much better it feels to be in control of what happens every day. How much more you can get done. How good it feels not to feel like the world is fighting against you.

It’s time to step out of misery and into happiness. You deserve this after everything you’ve been through.

—

Marcelina Hardy, MSEd is the founder of Achieve Brilliance Life Coaching, empowering professional women to achieve success in business and life. Learn more about how life coaching services can help you succeed on the Achieve Brilliance website.

Photo credit: I Shoot Things

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Many years ago a pop singer named Peggy Lee recorded a song titled, “Is That All There Is?”  She sang about how her life had turned out, ending each verse with the plea: “Is that all there is?”

Unfortunately those words could sum up the lives of millions of people today whose lives have not fulfilled the promise they felt as children.  Our romantic relationship (if we even have one) is okay, but “is that all there is?”   We go to work (if we do) but the excitement about our jobs (if there ever was any) seems to have dimmed.  We get by financially (if we do) but there never seems to be enough.  And life in general is okay (we don’t need a therapist), but life would be so much more fulfilling if only….  Is that all there is?

I’d like to suggest that there is a simple explanation why this feeling is so common and that there is a simple solution also.

Imagine that as a child you formed several beliefs about life, including There’s never enough, Nothing I do is good enough, No matter what I have, it’s never enough, No matter how good things get there always seems to be something missing, I’ll never get what I want, and I’ll never have enough money/love/friends/success.

If you held beliefs like these, how satisfied do you think you would be with life?  … Wouldn’t you be feeling, Is that all there is?

Ultimately all of our thoughts, behaviors, feelings, and perceptions are the result of the beliefs we formed earlier in life.  So if you want to change your experience of life you have to change the beliefs that determine your view of life.  When limiting beliefs are eliminated, new possibilities open up and we quickly discover that there is a lot more we can do and have than we ever thought possible.

Let me give you another example.  Assume you had the beliefs: I’m not loveable. Relationships don’t work.  Men/women can’t be trusted.

With these beliefs, you’d never form a really good, nurturing, long-term romantic relationship, would you?  And you’d be thinking about the absence of such a relationship in your life, wondering: Is that all there is?

Now let’s assume you completely eliminate those beliefs.  Can you see you have just created the possibility of a good, nurturing, long-term relationship that literally didn’t exist before? There is no guarantee you will ever find such a relationship, but the possibility exists now that didn’t exist before.

This is one of the most powerful consequences of eliminating beliefs: You not only change your behavior and feelings, you actually change the reality you live in.  And you realize that there is a lot more to life than you ever thought possible.

The possibilities that exist in your reality are defined by your beliefs. When you say something is impossible it actually becomes impossible for you. If you believe Life is difficult, you will experience things not going the way you wanted them to go as upsetting obstacles rather than exciting challenges.  If you believe I’m not capable or I’m not competent, would you likely try to do something you thought was difficult?  And if you tried, do you think you would succeed with these beliefs?

About 25 years ago I developed the Lefkoe Belief Process (LBP) that has helped over 13,000 clients eliminate many limiting beliefs.  Let me explain how you can use it to eliminate some of your own negative beliefs.

To get a sense of how the LBP works, please try the following mental exercise: Assume your parents were very critical of you most of the time and rarely acknowledged you for your achievements.  No matter what you did, they focused on what you didn’t do and how you should have done better.  If this was the pattern of their interactions with you, there literally would be thousands of them by the time you were six or seven years old.  What would you have concluded about yourself by this time?

If you were typical of most children, you would have concluded that There’s something wrong with me or I’m not good enough. You would have experienced these beliefs as “the truth” about you as a child.  Today, as an adult, even though you might consciously realize the beliefs were silly and illogical, on some deep level you still would experience them as the truth about you.

If you were to recall your childhood, it would seem to you that you could “see” that I’m not good enough. In other words, when you visualized your parents being critical, it would seem as if you also were visualizing I’m not good enough. It’s as if your parent’s behavior inherently meant I’m not good enough. It would be so real to you that you could see your belief in the world that it seems you could say to someone: “If you were there watching my interactions with my parents, you also would see I’m not good enough.”

But if you looked carefully at the events that led to the belief, namely, your parents’ behavior, you would realize that their frequent criticism and lack of acknowledgement could have a number of different meanings, each one as valid as the one you chose. For example:

·            My parents thought that being critical would motivate me to excel.

·            My parents had lousy parenting skills.

·            My parents may have thought I wasn’t good enough, but they were wrong.

·            Maybe I wasn’t good at doing certain things, but that doesn’t mean I, as a person, am not good enough.

·            Maybe my parents were dissatisfied with my behavior, but they didn’t think I wasn’t good enough.

If you now tried to visualize I’m not good enough “out there in the world,” you would realize you couldn’t, because you really never did see it. All you actually saw was your parents’ behavior. And if that behavior could have a number of valid meanings, it has no single inherent meaning.  In other words, the events—as unpleasant as they might have been—had no inherent meaning.  You can’t draw any necessary conclusion about yourself as a human being based on the way your parents treated you as a child.  Therefore, you would be forced to conclude that the only place that meaning has ever existed has been as a belief in your mind.

When you reach this point, the belief has been transformed from “the truth” to “a truth” and is no longer a belief.  If you were to state the words of the belief, they would sound silly and meaningless.

This short exercise explains why it usually is difficult to get rid of beliefs: We think we “saw” the belief inherent in our observations.  It is difficult to talk someone out of something they think they “saw.”  As soon, however, as we realize that we never saw the belief (i.e., the meaning) in the events, that the meaning existed only in our mind, the belief disappears.

Try eliminating a few of the beliefs that make you feel, Is that all there is?, and discover that much more is possible in your life than you ever dreamed.

Morty Lefkoe blogs about how the Lefkoe Belief Process quickly and permanently eliminates the crippling beliefs that cause virtually all our problems.

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We’ve done the binge thing for awhile; now it’s time to do the purge thing. Most of us have a tremendous amount of excess. Too many expenses, too much stuff, too many commitments and responsibilities.  Do you dream of calm over chaos? Do you wish you could hit a button and be transformed to the tranquility of another era? You can create an oasis of peace for yourself and your family, but you’re going to have to relearn what it means to simplify as I bust the top three myths about the subject over the next month.

Myth #1 – Simplifying means having and doing less.

Wrong! Simplifying is not necessarily about less. It can be about more. More time. More enjoyment. More joy. More fulfillment. More of what enriches you.

If you do or have a lot of things that don’t bring you joy or support your long-term plan, then doing or having less of that kind of stuff makes sense. But you can’t eliminate everything. If you throw out, reduce, cut back, and cancel as much as you can, you’ll be left with a void. The purpose of simplifying — at least as I see it — is to chuck what’s not important and add what is.

To understand what should be removed and what should be added, try thinking of activities and things as either assets or liabilities.

Assets

An asset is something that is valuable or that may be worth something. Obvious examples are stocks, bonds, buildings, raw land, gold, etc., but I want you to think of an asset a little more broadly. An asset is anything that:

• Gives
• Increases in value
• Provides something valuable such as money, joy, security, happiness, etc.
• Strengthens and empowers you
• Moves you closer to your goals
• Provides positive stress and healthful excitement
• Relaxes and calms
• Increases health and vitality

Liabilities

Liabilities are obligations, debts, and things that cost more money than they produce or are worth, but again, let’s think more broadly. A liability is anything that:

• Takes from you
• Decreases in value
• Eliminates or reduces something valuable such as money, joy, security, happiness, etc.
• Weakens you
• Moves you farther from your goals
• Provides negative stress
• Creates anxiety or agitates
• Decreases health and vitality

Bottom line? Assets give. Liabilities take.

So how does this help you simplify? Create an inventory of everything in your life — from your friendships, projects, and commitments to your expenses, belongings, and goals. Since this is quite a task, make it easier by starting with just one area. For example, non-work commitments.

List all of your commitments, responsibilities, obligations, or whatever you call them. Take out your calendar and look back a few months and forward a few months to jog your memory. Make a big list. For example, your list may include a homeowner’s association meeting, mowing the lawn, paying bills, volunteering, being a greeter at church, driving the kids to school, planning a birthday party for a friend, etc.

Now, categorize each of these commitments as either an asset (A) or a liability (L). Does the activity or responsibility give or does it take? Does it get you closer to your goals or farther away? Does it create healthful excitement, or does it just stress you out?

The next step is determining if you can eliminate any of the Ls. You’ll never be able to eliminate all your liabilities, but your goal should be to get rid of as many as possible. The power of this exercise is becoming conscious of what gives and what takes, and then making some informed decisions about what A activities you can add and what L activities you can reduce or eliminate.

Again, simplifying is not about doing or having less. You can be running around from one project and commitment to another all day every day and be 100 percent content as long as you have filled your life with assets.

Stay tuned for two more simplifying myths over the next month. If you can’t wait, skip on over to Leo Babauta’s blog, ZenHabits.com — you won’t find a better site on doing more with less.

For a limited time, you can download several free resources (assessment, poster, audio interview, video, and more) at www.other8hours.com and learn more about my new book, The Other 8 Hours: Maximize Your Free Time to Create New Wealth and Purpose.

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