No one escapes difficult times in their lives. And it can be hard to stay hopeful.
But, we all have to go through them.
And right now, is especially hard for so many people – what, with the pandemic, and so many people losing their jobs…
On the news, I see images of people waiting for hours and hours to get food from the food banks.
And even for those of us who didn’t lose our jobs or might be doing okay financially, times are still tough.
Maybe we’re dealing with homeschooling kids while still trying to hold our jobs.
Or we have additional responsibilities taking care of our parents during this hard time.
And of all of us who are struggling, nobody deserves this.
It’s a horrible situation, and something we just have to get through.
But whether we like it or not, our life challenges teach us the most.
The ability to stay hopeful during those tough times though is a skill, and one that is well worth developing.
Here are some ideas about how to go about staying hopeful in your life.
1 – Accept the challenge for what it is
If you’ve been hit with an unexpected difficulty that’s left you negative, the worst thing you can do is try to ignore that it’s there.
By acknowledging the problem, you can deal with it head on and find a solution.
Start by asking yourself if the issue is something you can change.
If so, then it’s time to make a game plan.
If not? Then learn how to live with the new status quo, rather than wasting time and energy fighting it.
2 – Ask yourself what you can learn from this experience
By seeking out the lessons to be learned, you can calmly face the problem.
Discover what you can about the situation, learn and then move on.
3 – Revisit the past
You’ve been through tough times before.
In fact, you might have survived something even worse before in your life.
Think back to them to remind yourself that challenges don’t last forever.
Hope springs up from the knowledge that you’ve gotten through problems before, and now you know you can get through this one.
4 – Record the experience
Blogging, journaling, or recording what’s going on helps you to process the experience and find creative solutions.
When we get things out of our head, we’re able to deal with problems logically rather than emotionally.
And then you have a record you can look back on which becomes a powerful experience of your progress, which offers hope.
I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but there will come a day that you’ll be happy you recorded it and can share it with your grandchildren – about how we all survived this. 🙂
5 – Laugh
Even if you don’t feel like it initially, the act of laughing changes moods.
Hopelessness doesn’t stand a chance against a good belly laugh.
The fun thing about laughter is, once you start, it’s hard to stop.
You can even fake it till you make it with laughter.
Do you remember, as a child, playing that game where everybody laid on the floor with their heads on each other’s stomachs?
And then we all started laughing?
At first we were faking it, right!?
But remember how it got out of hand, and before you knew it, we were all laughing uncontrollably?
Seriously, laughter will lighten your mood and help you see solutions that weren’t there before.
6 – Choose Happiness
Much of our life can be performing “shoulds” if we let it.
In this case, ask yourself if doing the ‘right thing’ means doing the thing that’s best for you?
As long as it won’t hurt others, make the choice that will create happiness in your life.
7 – Build a support group.
Trying to manage tough times alone is a sure recipe for fostering hopelessness.
Gather people around you who make you feel hopeful just by being with them.
By spending time with positive people, their hopefulness will quickly become your own.
Remember, it’s a choice.
You can’t control everything, but you can control some things.
We’ve all heard that success is only 10% of what happens to us and 90% of how we deal with it.
The antidote to despair and anxiety is action.
Choose to focus on the things that you can change for the better, no matter how small.
Work with what you have one step at a time.
By making a choice to hope, you put yourself in control of how you react to your circumstances and how you’ll handle what comes next.
Although it’s not so easy to stay hopeful when going through bad things, always know that you can draw upon hope to see things in a new way.
And remember, people survive and thrive in all sorts of scenarios.
They always have.
Take inspiration in that, knowing that this too shall pass.
Now I’d love to hear from you.
How are you doing through these tough times?
What kinds of things help you to stay hopeful?
Please share your thoughts in the comments below.
I would love to hear your stories.
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