Life is no picnic!
That’s for sure.
So, what to do when something sucks? What is the best way you can react to get the best result possible?
From my own experiences and my work as a life coach, I’ve come up with this 6-step technique.
Let me show you how you too, can make things suck a bit less!
Why does it suck sometimes?
Let’s face it, it’s just annoying that sometimes things suck in life!
You feel like you didn’t ask for this!
You feel tons of negative emotions that you just would rather not feel!
Let me tell you that I totally feel this way sometimes…
And then, I’m reminding myself that things that are sucking and me feeling negative emotions are just part of the human being’s experience.
It’s legitimate, not that it’s making it less painful!
But it makes me feel better to think sometimes that “it is what it is”.
Life is 50% positive emotions and 50% negative emotions
Also, I like to mention Brooke Castillo idea that we are feeling 50% of the time positive emotions and 50% of the time negative emotions and it is what it is.
We rather embrace this idea!
Because at the end of the day, emotion is simply a vibration in our body.
Most of us, we don’t even know what an emotion feels like! And there’s no one to blame, we didn’t learn it at school!
So, this is great news! Because it’s showing you that you can have control of your life, that you don’t need to be at the mercy of your emotions.
The truth is, you know that 50% of the time, you will feel negative emotions, and 50% of the time, you will feel positive emotions.
Positive emotions are very pleasant to feel, obviously!
What about when something sucks and we might feel negative ones?
Let’s discover this right now! 🙂
What to do when something sucks?
I like it when things are very organized, clear, and practical.
So, let me show you the 6 steps of “what to do when something sucks” so from now on, you know what to do when this happens!
Step #1. Write down & express the thoughts you’re having.
Most of the time, we are lost and confused because we don’t even know what’s going on!
So, the first thing to do is to write down all the thoughts that are going through your head for 5′ without judgments or trying to find a solution right away.
You can also do what I’m teaching in the post How To Feel Better and go for a walk and appear like you’re on the phone when actually, you’re just expressing all the thoughts that are going through your mind (check the post for more details on how to do it properly).
Both of them feel great!
You absolutely need to do them without judgments or criticizing, as I’m always telling you: Be your own friend.
Talk to yourself like you would talk to a dear friend, ALWAYS, and do not EVER beat yourself up, be your fan number 1! 🙂
Also, having all the thoughts out there can help in having a more objective way to look at the situation, I find it very relieving and useful at the same time.
Step #2. Ask yourself: How are you feeling?
I truly believe that we don’t take enough time to actually FEEL.
How do you even feel?!
Again, do not blame yourself because you just never learned it!
The best way is to imagine describing it to a little martian. Again (yes I believe she’s amazing!), it’s Brooke Castillo who says that you need to describe it to someone who has no idea what emotion is.
So, you’ll be more explicit and more objective.
First, take a deep breath to let you enter this observer/watcher mode.
It’s a different “you” because it’s the one that is going to discover and understand this emotion without any judgment.
Then, ask yourself:
- Where is the feeling in your body?
- How can you describe it? What is the intensity?
- Can you name the feeling? Can you label it?
Expressing for example “I feel sad” or “I feel overwhelmed” is super powerful because you feel more in control of what’s going on.
So, the very important question is: How are you feeling?
Have a look at this list of feelings and get more familiar with the different feelings that we may experience quite often! 🙂
Step #3. Feel the feeling.
It sounds very simple but it isn’t that easy!
You really need to switch to a positive of an observer/watcher.
Allow the emotion. Completely feel it. Understand that it has a positive intention and that it’s going to pass!
Let go of the need to control the emotion.
I remember reading that you have 4 ways to deal with an emotion:
Reacting to it (expressing the anger for example!), resisting it (ignoring what’s going it), and distracting from it (doing something else so you don’t have to deal with it).
Just be willing to be there with the emotion. It’s proof that you’re a human being and that you’re living life to its fullest.
Not too many species have the chance to feel a certain way and to be able to UNDERSTAND and WATCH it! 🙂
Step #4. How do you want to feel instead?
I believe that our thoughts create our feelings.
So, the feelings you are experiencing start from a thought you had.
There’s nothing wrong with this! It’s actually great news because it simply means that if you decide that the thought you’re having isn’t serving you, you can think of something else instead!
But before finding the right thought, you need to decide what do you want to feel instead.
Have a look at the list of positive feelings we experience and realize what you want to feel instead.
Step #5. What thoughts do you want to have?
The first thing to do is always to accept the annoyingness of the situation.
I don’t believe in cheering ourselves up right away!
There are things that are just annoying at first and it’s better to acknowledge that it just sucks and then, you can think of what to do.
So, after realizing that you want to feel a different way, think of thoughts that you would really believe would create this other emotion that you want to feel instead.
Step #6. Think of what you have control of and be action-oriented.
There are things that you can control and things that are just out of your control.
You know that I love that image:
In the situation you are facing right now, ask yourself:
- What do you have control of?
- What is actually outside of your control?
Considering the answers to both of these questions, what can you do about the situation?
What do you want instead?
I think that it’s important to acknowledge the problems but it’s also essential to go beyond the problems and to focus on the solutions, on what do we want or what do we want instead.
I like to say that the best here is to be “action-oriented”.
Now that we arrived at the last step of this technique, let me give you an example to make it clearer!
The example of losing our job…
It’s no picnic at all, let’s face it! Even if it could definitely be something good for the future (when you always wanted to go but never decided to leave…).
This is how you proceed in that situation, considering my 6-step technique:
Step #1. Write down & express the thoughts you’re having.
- It could be for example:
- “This sucks!”
- “Losing my job isn’t something I’m comfortable with”
- “I don’t want to look for another job”
- “I really liked my colleagues”
As you can see, it’s really about expressing what’s going on inside of my head without judgment.
Step #2. Ask yourself: How are you feeling?
After looking at the list of feelings, I may reply:
“I’m feeling worried and stressed out” or “I’m feeling hopeless and helpless”.
Step #3. Feel the feeling.
This is about becoming the watcher and the observer of what’s going on and of the feelings inside of my body.
I may say:
“The feelings of stressed and worried inside of my body are located in my stomach, it looks like pulses and it’s quite intense for a while and then it’s going a bit away”. It’s making me agitated and my hands are shaking.”
Just by describing it like this, by putting words into the way I’m feeling, I already feel a bit better!
I feel like I have more control over what’s going on.
I’m then letting go of the need of control the emotion. This too shall pass, as they say! 🙂
Just by feeling it, I’m kind of setting myself free! 🙂
Step #4. How do you want to feel instead?
After acknowledging that it sucks and the way that what happened (losing my job) makes me feel, I’m ready to figure out what I want to feel instead.
I take a few minutes to think of what I want to feel instead.
I realize that I want to feel “empowered” in this situation.
I want to feel like this situation may be the start of something better than the situation I was in before.
Step #5. What thoughts do you want to have?
To feel empowered and this is quite personal since I need to have thoughts that I truly believe in to make them create the feeling of “empowered”, I would say that I need to think that…
- “Sometimes losing a job is the best thing that can happen”
- “The world is full of opportunities”
- “What would I tell a friend?”
Just by saying these sentences, I already feel the power that they have! It’s amazing how powerful thinking something can make us feel!
Step #6. Think of what you have control of and be action-oriented.
I realize that I don’t have control over losing my job.
It is what it is. It sucks at first and now I see it more as an opportunity to finally bring some change inside of my life.
I can control what I will do from now with the experience I gained and the time I’ll have.
The actions that I want to take will be:
- Taking a day to completely relax from the situation and accept totally that it sucks at first. (I don’t want to be comforted, I just want to express my feelings!)
- Taking the time to really sit and think of what I truly want to do next in my professional life with questions such as: What do I really dream of doing? If anything could be possible?
- Thinking of 3-4 ways to really take the next action such as: Asking a person that I know about any job opening in his firm, reorganizing my CV, updating my profile on LinkedIn…
I will make a lit of the actions that I’m going to take and the thoughts that I need to have.
It’s not always going to be easy, but for sure it will suck less than what I thought it would! 🙂
Get some surprising perspective in 5′
When we’re facing a problem or a difficult situation, it’s hard to look at it objectively.
That’s normal! It’s all happening in our head and this is why we need to do something to get some distance, to get some perspective over that problem or that difficult situation.
It’s a 5′ idea that I’m doing I would say, at least once a week.
What you need is paper and 2 pens!
And no, I’m already answering your question, do not try to do it while driving, running or queuing at the super, or using your phone.
You need to write it by hand, this will make the whole difference.
Simply, start by asking yourself: What is the problem? And why is it a problem?
Write down all of your thoughts about that with one of the pens.
This part won’t take you more than 3′ and it can be just 5-6 sentences.
For example, a friend said something about you that you did not like.
You’ll maybe write:
What is the problem?
Mary doesn’t know me. She said something stupid. She annoyed me.
And why is it a problem? I don’t want her to think that. That’s not me, she’s not right.
Then, take the other pen and re-read what you wrote and observe those thoughts with compassion and curiosity, question what you wrote, try to be as objective as possible:
What is the problem?
Mary doesn’t know me. Doesn’t she? At all? Or this is what my brain told me at that moment? Is it always true?
She said something stupid. And why is it such a problem that she said something stupid? Stupid says who? Don’t we all say stupid stuff sometimes? (And who decides what is stupid and what is not?)
She annoyed me. This is how I felt at that moment. I felt annoyed. I can just allow that emotion. I know that this emotion came from my thoughts. I’m taking all of my power back.
And why is it a problem?
I don’t want her to think that. Why don’t I? Why is it a problem if she thinks that? What do I think about that? Is there some truth in what she said? Why do I need her to be convinced of the opposite?
That’s not me, she’s not right. Is there some truth in what she said? Can I understand her point of view? Can we disagree on that and still be friends? What do I make it mean about myself? What do I think about myself?
When you first write down your thoughts about that situation with one color and then comment on them from a place of compassion and curiosity with another color, you can clearly see that what you’re feeling is created from the thoughts that you have.
It gives you all of your power back!
Nobody can make you feel a certain way, you feel this way because of the thoughts you have about what’s happening in the world.
This is AMAZING news! It means that when you take distance like this, you take back control over your life!
You don’t feel at the mercy of what people are saying or what they are doing, you understand that they are just circumstances and you can bring some compassion and curiosity to what you’re feeling.
This 5′ idea can truly change your life.
It gives you a brand new perspective on things that you may have considered yourself as a victim until now.
But from now on, you take full control back over your life!
You understand why you’re feeling this way and you question every thought you have.
SO. POWERFUL. Right? 🙂
Is life hard or easy?
This is a great question! 🙂
Again, it all depends on the thoughts you’re having…
I feel that I could find so many reasons to see how hard life is. But these thoughts aren’t helping me in getting the results that I want, so I’m choosing my thoughts.
So, I guess that life is hard sometimes, things will definitely suck!
But we can make them suck a bit less with my 6-step technique! 🙂
And on the other side, there are things that are great in life and that make life easy! I’m creating more of the fun moments and embracing them as much as I can!
And when it gets hard, I’m trying to never, ever beat myself up.
It’s okay to feel negative emotions. They are just a vibration in our bodies!
They are proof that we are living the real human being experience…!
How can I be happier?
I truly believe that being more self-confident can help us in having more control over our life.
And when you are more confident and have more control, you feel happier!
Even if you can feel happy right here right now depending on the thoughts you’re having! 🙂
The only way to help you with all of this journey is to listen to my podcast:
The Get Confident, Get Happy Podcast.
To sum up!
As you can see, things will suck in life and problems are forever.
But you can a different way to react to it! 🙂
This 6-step technique definitely works!
Try it out and let me know how it changes your life! 🙂
