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We’ll all go through hard times, and sometimes things get so severe that they completely drain our inspiration and motivation. Bad things happen to everyone, but we have to remember that if we can’t seem to face and solve our problems right now, that doesn’t mean that we won’t be able to get through them eventually.
When faced with so many problems and losses, sometimes it’s better to just take a step back, rest for a little bit, and try to put your problems into perspective. Things may get bad, but you need to strengthen your faith in your ability to get through it.
Here’s a few lessons to remember when you are facing hard times.
Three Tips to Survive Hard Times
1. Burned out? It could be a temporary “brownout”
Nothing saps motivation more than facing several serious problems all at once. Maybe you have an expensive legal battle coming up, maybe you’ve lost your job or your business is failing because of the pandemic and your income is down, or maybe the love of your life left you for someone else (or maybe you’re facing all of those at the same time).
When going through tough times, you may feel the urge to just shut yourself in a corner because you’re feeling overwhelmed.
It happens. It’s normal to feel sad or depressed, so don’t feel guilty about it. Take a break when you need to.
You CAN indeed continue working despite it all, but don’t feel bad about taking a break either. Slow down, take a step back, and look at everything from a bigger or higher perspective. The world is not over yet.
The bad times are temporary. While you can try to power through it and solve things the way you want, you may also find other, bigger and better doors opening up for you. Whatever the case, you’ll likely grow into a better and stronger person as you learn from the experience.
2.“Don’t cut the trees during winter” – Avoid hasty decisions
In his book Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!, Robert H. Schuller told a story about how he and his dad once needed firewood for their home to stay warm for the winter. Robert’s dad found a dead tree that season and checked how dry the twigs and branches were to make sure it was dead. Once he saw how brittle the wood was, he sawed it down to provide firewood for his family.
When Spring came, however, new shoots sprouted on the tree’s stump. Robert’s father thought for sure that it was already dead, and he deeply regretted cutting that tree down. That was one lesson Robert’s dad taught him: “Never cut a tree down in the wintertime.”
Never make big, drastic, irreversible decisions during bad times. The bad times are very likely just temporary and things might turn around soon enough.
One disclaimer though: Don’t be afraid to make tough decisions if it’s really necessary. Sometimes you have to sacrifice important things in order to keep going. If you regret a certain decision, just remember that you’re always doing the best you could at the moment with the limited knowledge that you have. It’s better to make a decision than to sit around and wait for things to get worse.
3. Persistence wins
Facing your own personal problems is hard enough, but can you imagine adding an entire country’s worth of problems to the things you need to think about? Here’s a lesson from the 30th president of the United States, Calvin Coolidge, about the value of persistence:
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.
The slogan ‘Press On!’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
— Calvin Coolidge
Bad times do happen, but if you’ve lived on this Earth long enough, you’d have probably been through several of them already. You’ve probably been through a whole bunch of tough times when all hope seemed lost, but here you are, several years later (reading this humble article I wrote) having survived it.
If you got through those, then you can get through this one too!
We’ll end here for now and I hope you learned a few good lessons from this article. I’ll leave you with one final quote and I pray that it gives you the last bit of hope and courage you need in order to succeed.
The time above all others when it is most important for a man to hold fast to his faith and courage is when the way is so dark that he cannot see ahead.
— Source Unknown
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