How to Adapt to What Life Throws Your Way

The question this week I’d like to explore and you to answer for yourself as well is:

How can you adapt to the external events that life throws at you?

LEARN FROM THOSE WHO CAME BEFORE YOU:

Will Smith said that one of the keys to life is reading. (The other is running, btw.) The reason he said this is because there have been billions and billions of human beings on the planet before us, and that there probably isn’t a problem that you can have that another human being hasn’t ALREADY had, solved, and wrote about it in a book.

I used to get very anxious in social situations, and started taking medication for it. I didn’t like doing that, for reasons I won’t get into here, but I just knew I wanted off the meds. I thought to myself, people have done this before. This has been done before by people just like me, so I started looking into how the eff did they do it?

I started learning so much about psychology, myself, the brain, my nervous system, and even more about myself in this process. The more I researched, the more confident I became. I was using the techniques that people like me used. I was doing what they had done, and solving problems in my own life learning from how others solved the same exact problems.

Now, not every technique worked, but just being willing to learn and in a SOLUTION-focused mindset changed everything. Because I really started to see what was working, what wasn’t working, and adjusted accordingly.

FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN CONTROL (YOURSELF):

We cannot help what happens to us. Life circumstances, hardships, trauma, sadness, loss, and pain. But you can choose what you do next. You can choose if you let that moment define you. Your perspective is 100% in your control. There is an option to see a moment as a failure or as an opportunity for growth.

There will be times you do everything right, and everything still goes wrong. What do you do when that happens? Do you complain? Do you wallow in self-pity? Do you remember your worth despite the things that go wrong?

If you’re waiting for things to be ideal, you’ll be waiting forever. Understand where you are, and learn how you can adapt to the circumstances and life’s crazy twists and turns, so that you can get where you want to go. Like driving, when you make a wrong turn on your GPS, simply RECALCULATE, and make the necessary turns and adjustments needed to get back on the path where you want to go.

Take accountability for the direction you are headed, after all, you’re the driver of your own life. If an obstacle gets in your way, make a turn or two (or 28) to find a way past it.

HAVE COMPASSION & PATIENCE WITH YOURSELF:

This one is kind of a new one for me. The one constant that a lot of us hear, I know I did, was that hard work pays off. Don’t half-ass it. Self discipline, hustle harder, go the extra mile, and on and on.

About 80% of our automatic thoughts, whether one is conscious of it or not, are negative. It’s like we’re already programmed to beat our own selves up sometimes. You should hold yourself accountable, but not to your own detriment.

This means having compassion and patience with yourself when you fuck up. Because you will fuck up, at something, at some point in your life. No one gets through life with zero mistakes, so be kind and learn from them versus wallowing in self-pity when they occur.

A wise man adapts himself to circumstances, as water shapes itself to the vessel that contains it. — Chinese Proverb

We can’t help what life throws our way, but as long as we wake up another day… we can always choose the manner in which we respond to it.