When Life Gets In The Way (Part 4)

1. Everyone has their own challenges… everyone has their own journey. – It is meaningless to compare one with the other.  We all need our own time to travel our own distance.  It’s perfectly OK to be different.  Today, the only person you should try to be better than, is the person you were yesterday.
2. You really are pretty amazing. – Even when life gets rough, you need to be willing to bet on yourself.  It’s the one investment in the world you can control better than anything else.  YOU are worth it!  (Read Choose Yourself!)
3. Being kind to yourself is the best medicine. – Your self-worth has nothing to do with your craft, your calling or your success, and everything to do with how you treat yourself.  Always be kind.
4. Being kind to everyone around you is imperative too. – Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are endless.  Be kind whenever possible.  And realize that it is always possible.  What goes around comes around.  You know this.
5. Letting others in when you’re in a dark place helps. – No, they won’t always be able to pull you out of the dark place you’re in, but the light that spills in when they enter will at least show you which way the door is.
6. Gratitude improves every situation. – Even in the most peaceful surroundings, the ungrateful heart finds trouble.  Even in the most troublesome surroundings, the grateful heart finds peace.  Remember this.  There is always, always, always something to be thankful for.  Life is better when you’re smiling.  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.  Ask yourself: What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you were grateful for today?
7. Rough times help you appreciate the good times. – If everything was always smooth and perfect, you’d get too used to that, you know?  You have to have a little bit of chaos and disorder in your life now and then.  Otherwise you will never really enjoy it when things go right.
8. All the small victories are worth celebrating. – Sometimes we forget to pause and appreciate all our little victories.  Remind yourself: It’s the small things done well that make a big life.
9. It’s OK to give up on things that aren’t getting better. – Move forward with no second-guessing, no guilt trips, no hesitation.  Your purpose is to let go and then recreate yourself anew in each moment.  There’s a big difference between giving up and knowing when you have had enough.  Sometimes we have to move on to move forward.  (Angel and I discuss this in detail in the “Adversity” chapter of 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently.)
10. You are not trapped; you just need to re-learn a few things. – We all have doubts that make us feel trapped at times.  If you doubt your ability to make a life-altering decision, to take on a new chapter in your life, or to fend for yourself after years of being overly-fostered, consider this:  Surely if a bird with healthy wings is locked in a cage long enough, she will doubt her own ability to fly.  You still have your wings, but your muscles are weak.  Train them and stretch them slowly.  Give yourself space.  You’ll be flying again soon.
11. Great things take time. – By all means, find ways to be more efficient in your work.  But make no mistake that it takes diligent effort through good times and bad to build something worthwhile.  There are certainly some success stories out there about people who excelled rather quickly, but you will often find they had put in years of related work long before anyone was paying attention to their seemingly rapid success.  In other words, their current state of achievement is simply all those years of work coming together flawlessly in the present.  So start every morning ready to run farther than you did yesterday and fight harder than you ever have before.  It won’t be easy, but it will be worth it in the end.

12. Afterthoughts

One of life’s greatest gifts is the fact that life is difficult.  Because in dealing with life’s difficulties, we build invaluable strength.  This strength enables us to successfully fulfill our deepest, most meaningful purposes.  It is precisely because life is difficult that we are able to make it great.  It is because life is difficult that we are able to rise above the difficulties.  We are able to make a difference and we are able to truly matter.
So keep this in mind:
When times are tough, you must be tougher.  Don’t pray for an easy life; pray for the strength to endure a tough one that leads to greatness.