How To Thrive When The Going Gets Tough

This time is the perfect time to talk about possibilities.

Yes, I know that goes against everything your fight and flight response is telling you is vital right now. Just give me a few minutes. It could change how the next few months, and even years, turn out for you. For all of us.

We all have a natural tendency to go into survival mode when things get rough. Trying to survive, however, is based on fear, and anything based on fear only creates more fear. Fear in turn creates confusion instead of the clarity that is required to change things.

As crazy as this may sound, what if something else entirely was possible? What would be possible if we chose to go beyond trying to survive and actually find a way to thrive?

Here are my top four tips on how to thrive, even when the going gets tough.

1. Don’t buy into the panic.

What if I told you that 98% of the thoughts, feelings, and emotions that you experience are not yours? We are all connected to each other. We are all aware of each other. We are like a radio tower on the top of a skyscraper picking up on every signal within miles.

So the next time you start to feel panic, stop and ask, “Is this mine?”

If things lighten up in your world when you ask, that panic is not yours. You are simply perceiving the people in the world. And when you know the alarm is not yours, you don’t have to be at the effect of it. You get to choose.

2. Choose your perspective

What you decide is so, becomes so. Another way of saying this is that your perspective, your point of view, creates your reality.

Here is the key: Your reality does not create your point of view.

If you start to spiral down into thinking the worst, remember this. Remember that your point of view creates your reality and that you choose your perspective of everything.

Choose something different. Change your mind. Look at things from another view. Change the perspective of your experience.

Ask, “What is right about this that I am not getting?”

Another easy way to change your point of view is to say, “Interesting point of view—I have that point of view.” Say it a few times.

What occurs is that the perspective, the conclusion of what is going on, that you’ve been holding on to becomes simply interesting rather than real and true. And then, when it is just interesting, you can let it go.

 3. If this wasn’t a problem, what would the possibilities be?

When we focus on what is wrong, we blind ourselves from seeing possibilities and solutions. When our point of view is that the world is full of problems, all we will find is what supports that perspective equals problems.

Questions are the key to changing this!

When your mind is running the same dialogue over and over, you will be stuck in worry. By asking a question, you disrupt that pattern.

Here are two questions that work well in tumultuous times:

“If this wasn’t a problem, what would the possibilities be?”

“What actually IS possible here that I have never considered?”

One more thing: When you ask these questions, don’t look for an answer. It’s not about finding the solution. It is about disrupting the mind chatter that stops you from seeing possibilities.

4. Laugh

Laughter heals the planet. Laughter is a pattern interrupt. Laughter gives you a different perspective. Laughter is one of the greatest gifts you can give to yourself, others, and the world.

Give yourself the gift not to be significant about anything. Let the drama go. Embrace the chaos.

To thrive when the going gets tough, don’t buy the fear of other people’s perspectives as real or your own.

Ask questions and trust that you will know what to do and what to choose.

Because you do.

Now more than ever, the world is asking for you to show up as unique and different as you really are.

The future requires you to thrive, not just survive.