“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” – Victor Frankl

Life can throw things at us that catch us off guard, sometimes even multiple things at once.  And this can leave us feeling afraid, frustrated, confused, angry and sometimes even helpless.

And trust me I have been there before, its not a nice place to be in. But I am here to tell you that it’s not impossible to get through and a lot of the time isn’t as bad as you think it is. So today I am going to be sharing with you 10 ways you can get through the difficult times in your life.

1. Accept it

Remember no amount of worry, complaining or beating yourself up is going to change the obstacle before you. So you may as well accept it. “What you resist persists”. Just like in nature if you apply friction to anything it creates heat. So if you try to resist and push against your obstacle through worry or wishing it didn’t happen it is only going to make things worse. This isn’t to say that you can’t take a minute to think to yourself “well this sucks!” and even vent about it.

Just don’t stay in that mindset for too long because it will prevent you from moving forward.

2. Change your perspective

You see we choose the way we look at things. So it is important we ask ourselves if our perspective is truly giving us perspective or is it what is actually causing the problem. While we can’t change the obstacles themselves we do have control over how an obstacle appears to us.

You see problems in our lives are usually never as bad as we think or rather they are precisely as bad as we think. Or as the late Wayne Dyer once said:

 “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. 

3. Take Action

When things come up in our lives, most of us simply pretend it doesn’t exist. Some people go out and party, others treat themselves, sleep in or worst of all wait, as if the problem will somehow unproblem itself.  But we know deep down that isn’t truly going to make it any better. Instead we have to act. As Robert Frost once said:

“The only way out is through”.

You see a lot of the time most of us know what our problems  are and may even know what to do about them.

But we fear taking action because we don’t want to have to go through that intial feeling of actually doing something about our problem or we feel that it will be too much work to do anything about it.

Both are false conceptions, you’ve got to start to go anywhere. And once you actually start you will find that it naturally builds momentum.

4. Find the Opportunities in the Obstacles

We have already spoken on the importance of changing our perception towards an obstacle but this takes it a step further. It means seeing through our seemingly negative situation and finding it’s positive.  By changing our perception of our problem we can learn to see an opportunity or advantage in every problem. Transforming our problem into an education, a skill set, a fortune or a way to help others.

We all presented with obstacles in our lives from time to time, often times when we least expect them. But what matters most is not necessarily what our obstacles are but how we see them and how we react to them. Where one person sees crisis, another sees opportunity.

Seen properly everything that happens to us can be used as a way to move us forward. This means flipping the obstacles that life throws at us by improving not only in spite of them, but because of them. You see more often than not beneath the seemingly negative packaging of the problems in our lives, is something of real value. A gift of great benefit. We just have to know how to find it.

5. Live in the Present Moment

Sometimes the best way to see through a problem and to see it more clearly is actually to allow your mind to relax. Some of the best methods for this include:

• Running
• Walking in nature i.e along a beach or in a park
• Meditation

Each of these methods helps take us out of our thinking minds and instead bring our attention to what is happening in the present moment, namely our surroundings, our body or our breathe. And by doing this you will find that you mind will naturally start to feel more calm and you will most likely see things with a fresh and much clearer perspective.

6.    Tackle One Problem at a Time

In this way you simply do what you need to do right now. Complete it. And then move onto the next thing.  Don’t think about the end instead focus on the process. This means making it from one task to the next. One day at a time.

Once you do this you will find that even the hardest things become manageable.  Under its influence we needn’t panic. Because what once was a mammoth task is now just a series of component parts.

7. Find Your Why

 “He who knows the why of his existence will be able to bear almost any how”.  Victor Frankl.

What does this mean? It means making your dreams bigger than your problems. Why? Because when we have goals or something larger than ourselves to reach for everything we do from that point on becomes in the service of that dream, put simply it becomes purposeful. When we know what we are setting out too do, any obstacles that arise will just naturally seem smaller and more manageable.

Another way of getting through your problem or situation is to find a way that you can use it too benefit others. For instance you could use your situation and all that you learn from it to benefit, teach or inspire others  in the future who might one day find themselves in the same position as you.

8. Find the Good in your situation

No matter what your situation is or how bad it may seem there is ALWAYS some good in it. No matter how bad a situation may be in. You can always find something to laugh about or be cheerful about.

Remember we don’t have a choice over what happens to us but we do have a choice over how we feel about it. So why choose anything other than feeling good?

9. This Too Shall Pass

Remember all things come to pass and this situation you are now in. It will passRemember that all things come to pass.. And one day you will look back on it and you may even be grateful for it happening. Because it led you down a better path or helped you to become the person you were destined to be.

Remember that in spite of what we may be going through, none of us knows what the future holds for us. As the famous psychologist and holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl said

“Health, family happiness, professional abilities, fortune a position in society. All these were things that could still be achieved. Whatever we had gone through could still be used as an asset to us in the future”.

10. Gratitude

Now gratitude is probably one of the most important ways, if not THE most important way of getting through problems in our lives. You see when we have problems come up in our lives we often allow ourselves to get trapped in a negative mindset, which makes us forget that we still have so much good in our lives.

No matter how bad things may seem we ALWAYS have things in our lives to be grateful for.

One of the best ways to practice gratitude (and something I do every night) is to get yourself a gratitude journal.  By taking time to write down the things you are grateful at the end of every day you are effectively changing your perception to focus on what you have instead of what you don’t. Which will instantly make you happier.

Well there you have it there are 10 ways that you can get through the difficult times in your life. Hopefully this article (and video) has been able to help you in some way.

Is a content creator on Youtube. He believes there are three words that all of us should aim to live by “Learn, Grow and Inspire”. He is also a Tai Chi and Qigong instructor. His passions include self development, health, nutritition, entrepreneurship and technology. You can visit Isaac’s Youtube channel here.

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