We can have all the best habits, daily practices that the world's successful people swear by, and all the wonderful aromatherapy-based products, but let's face it. Some days can bring you to your knees.
A chronic illness
Anxiety or panic attack
A costly mistake relating to work
Death of a loved one
A totally unexpected undesirable outcome
How then do we keep on going?
Resilience is often required after the worst of days, but it is not so easy to find. It's something you have to dig deep down inside of you, for that inner strength to rise up, get on your feet, and believe that eventually, everything will work out, and you will be okay.
After a 20-year career as an employee, an entrepreneur and now a small business owner, I have experienced the gamut of emotions in a wide variety of circumstances and situations at work settings and in my personal life. One powerful technique that helped me cope with the aftermath of something undesirable, is to manage how I react or respond to what had transpired.
Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. - Charles Swindoll
What makes managing your own reaction or response profoundly powerful is that the outcome is a choice. Your choice. You can imbue it with a sense of positivity, recovery, and helpful perspective, or you can allow yourself to wallow in self-pity and self-destruction and spiral downward.
Here's simple exercise as to how you can influence the way you react:
Did the situation just ruined your life to the point of no return, or can it make you stronger and grow into a better person?
Did the situation just caused irreparable damage, or was it a setback you can recover from?
Did the situation just caused you to lose everything, or was it an expensive lesson for you to learn the hard way?
When you force yourself to choose between two choices at opposite ends of the spectrum, you will instinctively want to lean to the positive end.
You should also learn to acknowledge that not everything will go well all the time. Not everything is within your control. What is within your control is how you manage your moods, how you think, and how you respond.
No one said work (or life as we know it) was easy, but it does not have to feel so punishing either when things do not go as planned. When we master the way we react to people and problems, we master how we guide and live our life.
Elma is an Organizational Specialist by day and a Mood Scientist by heart. Visit her website.
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