When you try your best but you don’t succeed, when you get what you want but not what you need, when you feel so tired but you can’t sleep.
These are not my lines, they are the opening lines of the song titled “Fix You” by Cold Play.
However, aren’t these sentences familiar with situations that we face in our lives every now and then?
- A situation where we are stuck and nothing forward appears clear?
- A job that should be done by now is nowhere to be seen?
- An achievement dreamt every single night gets blur?
- A promise that lost it’s relevance?
- A target that got misplaced?
- The faith that got shaken?
What do we look for in such cases?
- Miracle, that tomorrow morning when I’ll get up all the mess will be cleared out.
- A magical wand that came right from above and the moment you’ll spin it over, not only stars will come out of it but all your worries and failures will disappear.
- A god’s messenger (farishta) will show up and selflessly clear your mess and without charging you, leave after fixing the problems.
- A person out of all the people you know will understand the situation piece by piece and lift you up.
Well unfortunately or rather fortunately none of these will happen unless you are on a set of any fictional movie shoot.
Then what’s the solution?
Keep silence for a moment and let it sink down
The first and foremost thing to do when you are surrounded by all kinds of challenges in life is to take a moment to reel in before responding to it. The best thing to do is keep silence, don’t think much at this point just watch how things are unfolding before your eyes. You need to acknowledge the circumstances that you have been put into before taking any curable step.
Give yourself the initial pep talk
The moment you let it sink down, your first instinct cries for help (it’s human nature it’s sure to happen, the first thing we look for is people who can help us out). Tell yourself that you are courageous enough to face it, let the fear of failure pass through yourself.
Patience
Newton’s third law is the first law that we all learnt.
“Every action has equal and opposite reaction.”
For physical actions, Newton should be followed but try to overcome this law when dealing with life challenges.
Reaction should be overshadowed by your power of patience.
Everything will happen at its right time and right moment so stop reacting to all the challenges in spur of the moment.
If patience is worth anything it must endure to the end of time. And a living faith will last in the midst of the blackest storm. -Mahatma Gandhi
Initially it will be suffocating and restlessness will force you to act, act even if you are not prepared enough or even if the cards are not decked in your favor. Hold on to it at this very moment because patience will cure your cuts and heal your wounds caused because of the failure, before you get up and prepare to battle it out.
Also in times of corona, patience is a “must to have tool” to deal with all the uninvited uncertainties knocking at your door.
Give yourself another pep talk
It’s you and only you who will lift you up.
This is not because people surrounding you don’t support or you should not ask for their support, but once everybody around you did their job and made you feel comfortable, it’s always you who knows the best about you, who knew you 20 years back and will know you 20 years front.
Your “self” will guide you through the darkest and most impossible challenges that you will face.
She’ll remind you that you did it previously, you can do it now. She’ll remind you of the speech you prepared for yourself, the smile you dreamt of, the trophy you held in your hand, the medals that rattled around your neck, the sleepless nights you had to make things happen, the celebration you had, the tear that rolled off your face just by remembering the hard work you put in, the adrenaline that rushed from feet to head, the jitters you felt in your stomach; you lived it all, you will live it all again.
Confidence
The power of believing in yourself even when everything stands against you is confidence.
It doesn’t come overnight, it doesn’t go overnight, it needs to be cultivated very precisely based on how you respond to the challenges that you have faced in your life.
You were able to give yourself the previous pep talk because you cultivated this confidence over a period of time and with every challenge it will grow.
1. With every challenge it will stand by your side at the face of adversity.
2. It will help you mute the people’s voice who are creating pressure around you.
3. It will put your mind at ease. The more confidence you cultivate the more comfortable you will get with handling challenges.
4. Confidence can convert the most difficult mountains that are impossible to climb into a beautiful road of learning which will make the journey smooth.
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However, one should always be prepared for the risk associated with failing at task.
Face it, no matter how confident, patient you have been in handling a situation you will fail at times, so get used to practicing failure. It is a taboo until you face it.
J. K. Rowling was rejected 11 times before finally a publication decided to publish Harry Potter.
Therefore, if one has to learn to live in uncertainties with grace and without losing oneself, one has to have patience and confidence to face every challenge that comes along with the uncertainty. And in the end, no matter what the result will be, you’ll always come out of it with something learnt and something to include in your future pep talks.
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Previously published on “Change Becomes You”, a Medium publication.
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Photo credit: iStock