Episode 31 - Part 4 : Life - surviving and struggling to survive

Letters to my kids: A suicide survivor's lessons and advice for life

Episode 31 - Part 4 : Life - surviving and struggling to survive

Music: “Just A Blip” by Andy G. Cohen From the Free Music Archive Released under a Creative Commons Attribution International License

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-empowerment-diary/201408/why-do-some-people-survive-and-others-struggle

https://open.buffer.com/survive-thrive/

- Stay In the Present The more you obsess about what happened, going over every detail and reliving it over and over in your mind, the more your fear of that same thing happening again is going to hold you back. Every time you feel your mind slipping into the past, replaying what happened (or didn’t happen), bring it back to the here and now.

“We can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us. We always have this choice.” – Pema Chodron

- Instead of Trying to “Bounce Back,” Just Move Through Have you ever experienced a setback, just to have someone say, “It’s okay; you’ll bounce back!”? You can’t “bounce back” to a previous point in time; all you can do is move through where you are and progress forward. This means letting go of the desire to get things back to “the way they were” and, instead, figuring out how to deal with where are so you can move forward in a new (better) way.

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” – Calvin Coolidge

- Know What You Want When you face a stumbling block in your career, something that prevents you from moving ahead, it’s the perfect time to ask yourself what you really want.

- Think actions Versus Goals Goals are great in that they can move you forward…especially after experiencing a setback. This way of thinking does have its faults as people who set goal after goal “…exist in a state of continuous presuccess failure at best, and permanent failure at worst if things never work out.”

- Get In Touch with Your passion

In other words, if you’re facing a setback, roadblock, or defeat that threatens to dampen your career-related enthusiasm, don’t let it. Instead, get in touch with your “inner freak” and use your passion to help you push through.

- Move Beyond the Negativity We already talked about the fact that feeling negative when you’re faced with a setback is completely “normal.” However, moving beyond this type of negativity is absolutely critical if you want to ultimately succeed. Acknowledging your negative thoughts is actually the first step to this process.

“If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges.” -Pat Riley

- Practice Gratitude

When you’re faced with an obstacle, something that stands between where you are now and where you want to be, having gratitude in your heart and being truly thankful for what you do have puts you in a better spot mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses." - Alphonse Karr

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”- Bruce Lee

- Wharton professor and best-selling author, Adam Grant, shares that, in life, failure comes in two ways: your actions and your inactions. Furthermore, “…when people reflect on their biggest regrets, they wish they could redo the inactions, not the actions.”

- When life knocks you down, get back up. And when it knocks you down again, get back up again. That’s how you overcome setbacks, defeats, and roadblocks. By taking one action at a time

"We shall draw from the heart of suffering itself the means of inspiration and survival. " -Winston Churchill