7 Tips to Get Through Difficult Times

Useful advice is a valuable gift, especially during difficult times. Who hasn’t been through a time when it felt like there was no way out? In situations like these, it’s inevitable that we stop taking care of ourselves and become weighed down by pessimism. During these difficult moments, some good advice can make a huge difference.

No matter how bright and intelligent you are, there will always be a point where you don’t know which way to go. To shed a bit of light on these dark moments, here are 7 tips that might help you:

1. Accept difficult times, don’t resist them

We tend to think that if things don’t happen the way we wanted them to, everything is going wrong. It’s hard to accept reality the way it is and reconcile it with our expectations. But this only ends up causing suffering.

Difficult times occur because it has to be that way. The way out isn’t to try to escape them, but to accept them. Through bad times, you can learn new things, both from without and within. They’re unbeatable opportunities for growth. The more you resist accepting your difficulties, the farther you’ll be from solving them.

2. Don’t feel or act like a victim

The temptation to victimize yourself is always there, right around the corner. It’s a very human attitude, but very detrimental at the same time. What will it do to pity yourself, if in the end all you’re doing is postponing the moment when you take back responsibility over what happens in your life?

Everybody has some share of responsibility over everything that happens to them. No problem falls from the sky just because. You did something, or didn’t do something, to arrive at this situation. Victimizing yourself is a way to increase your feeling of helplessness, to propagate the idea that you can’t do anything to stop bad things from happening.

3. Look inside yourself

When your life is full of problems, it’s normal to turn your gaze outward. You try to act on your environment, hoping or trying to change it and thus be released from your difficulties. But this attitude is hardly productive, mainly because reality is composed of many different forces that are out of your control.

During difficult times, you should generally look inside yourself. It’s you who should change, because sooner or later, this will be reflected in a change in your external circumstances.

4. Be thankful to the universe and to life

This is a wonderful tip to overcome any moment of sadness or depression. Simply close your eyes, breathe deeply, and say “thank you.” Trust in the profound wisdom of life.  If you’re going through a difficult time, it’s because you need it.

This little ritual has an almost magical effect. Just by saying “thank you” aloud, you’ll immediately put yourself in a different emotional state. It doesn’t matter if at first this gratitude doesn’t come from the heart. You’ll see over time that it will become full of meaning.

5. Remember that everything changes

Remember these wise words that can be applied to any situation: “this too shall pass.” Everything in the universe is dynamic, constantly changing. When you go through a difficult situation, or an extremely happy one, you always think it will last forever. But it doesn’t.

Sometimes you just have to wait a while and let things get back on track. If you think about something else and dedicate yourself to other activities, the solutions and answers will start to emerge. Other times, you should take action and then let your actions reap their own fruits. Just trust in them.

6. Find a new perspective

In the face of difficulty, you can adopt various perspectives. You can see it as a catastrophe, comparable only to a tsunami. You can view it as an obstacle that you have to avoid, as a wall that you have to break down, or as proof of how hard life is.

But you can also choose to see in this difficulty a challenge for growth, an opportunity to learn more about yourself or to develop your patience. You are the creator of your own thoughts and way of seeing the world. It depends on you how face a problem, or a multitude of them.

7. Accept that anything is possible

During difficult times, pessimism seems to be warmly welcomed. You even start to think that keeping hope alive will only be a source of more disappointment. It’s important to think about the difference between hoping for the best and creating an illusion. One will open you up to the possibility that things can occur in your favor. The other will feed an unfounded, obsessive fantasy.

Never forget that there are miracles in each day, or that you are capable of overcoming all kinds of adversity. You carry within you the possibility of creating the unexpected. Sometimes, these great difficulties in life are what lead you to rise above yourself and show you that you can keep growing at any age.