Life is not a bed of roses. There are always ups and downs; challenges and rewards
Staying strong in the midst of hardship requires you to manage your thoughts, feelings, and behavior.
1. Fully accept the reality of what is.
You cannot find peace by avoiding life. Life spins with unexpected changes every hour; so instead of avoiding it, take every change and experience as a challenge for growth. Either it will give you what you want or it will teach you what the next step is.
Finding peace and happiness in life does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, no challenges, and no hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things while remaining calm in your heart. It’s about letting go of the pictures in your head about how things were “supposed to be.”
Letting go of needless expectations is your first step to happiness.
2. Remind yourself that everything in life is temporary.
Every time it rains, it stops raining. Every time you get hurt, you heal. After darkness there is always light – you are reminded of this every morning, but still you often forget, and instead choose to believe that the night will go on forever. It won’t. Nothing lasts.
So if things are good right now, enjoy it. It won’t last forever. If things are bad, don’t worry because it won’t last forever either. Just because life isn’t easy at the moment, doesn’t mean you can’t laugh. Just because something is bothering you, doesn’t mean you can’t smile. Every moment gives you a new beginning and a new ending. You get a second chance, every second. You just have to take it and make the best of it.
3. Push yourself to take another step, and another, no matter what.
The most beautiful smiles are usually the ones that struggled through the tears. Because breakdowns often lead to breakthroughs in the end.
Every mistake, heartbreak and loss contains its own solution, its own subtle lesson on how to improve your performance and outcome next time. Thus, the most reliable way to predict the future is to create it yourself.
The truth is we all lose sometimes. The greater truth is that no single loss ever defines us. Learn from your trials. Grow wiser.
In the end, good things don’t come to those who wait; good things come to those who are patient… while working hard, through good times and bad, for what they want most in life. It’s about courage. It’s about being scared to death and then taking the next step anyway.
4. Use positivity, rather than letting negativity use you.
There may not be an obvious reason to be positive today, but you don’t need a reason. Being positive is a strategy, not a response. The most powerful time to be positive is precisely when everything around you is not so positive.
Happiness in the long run is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them. Raise your awareness to your own inner strength and positivity. You are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life, or you can choose to be positive instead by focusing on the great things that are truly important. So talk about your blessings more than you talk about your problems today.
5. Look for something small to appreciate.
You may not have what you want, and you may be very hurt, but you still have more than enough to appreciate right now. Epicurus once said, “Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.” Meditate on this quote when life seems unfair.
Remember that being positive in a negative situation is not naive; it’s a sign of leadership and strength. You’re doing it right when you have so much to cry and complain about, but you prefer to smile and appreciate your life instead. So don’t pray for the big miracles and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, simple, and yet not-so-small gifts in your life. It may seem strange to feel thankful for those events in your life that appear to be ordinary, yet it’s precisely by being thankful that you can transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
Think about it: What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you were thankful for today?
Think of all the beauty that still remains around you, notice it and smile.
At the end of the day, it’s not happiness that makes us thankful, but thankfulness that makes us happy. Showing appreciation for the good things you have is the most powerful happiness boosting activity there is.
I can tell you from my own life experience that life is a wild ride. I’ve found happiness, lost it, found it, lost it and then I found it once again.
But each time what I found was more incredible than the last.
So remember that everyone suffers in life at some point. Everyone feels lost sometimes. The key is using your experiences to grow, inch by inch. When you apply what you’re learning to your future choices and actions, you move forward not backward. You become stronger and wiser. It’s not easy, but it’s worth it in the end.
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