Have you ever had a setback in life or a failure that really knocked you backward? They happen to all of us. We're humans; we're not robots. We do make mistakes. So when it happens, how do you recover?
Here are 6 ways that have helped me get back up, pull my crap together and move on with life. I'd like to share them with you today.
#1: Redirect Your Frustrations into Solutions
Number one is redirecting your frustration or stress, whatever you're feeling, into a solution.
When you're down, you're normally pretty frustrated, pissed off or unhappy with the world. Instead of using that to be more unhappy, channel this negative energy into positive energy or desire for change or a solution. When setbacks happened in my life, I would channel that into finding a solution, whether that was going on YouTube and watching videos like this, reading books, or going to workshops.
For example, I previously had relationship issues with my wife. We'd been married for 13 years and we ran into some hard times. But instead of me throwing in the towel, I tried harder to find videos that I knew would help me, went to therapy, talked through our issues and worked on improving our marriage versus just giving up.
Whether you're feeling, anger, frustration, stress or anxiety, channel that into a solution.
#2 Be Honest With Yourself
It's important to be honest with yourself. I know this may sound stupidly simple, but a lot of times, when we have a setback, we want to blame something else. So until you admit there's a problem, you're not going to be open minded to the solution that could help you solve it. So start by being honest with yourself. It's not fun, but take a little bit time to self reflect.
#3 Learn From Your Mistakes
Always learn from mistakes. I don't recommend sitting there and dwelling on it and being frustrated or depressed or unhappy for the rest of your life, but be honest with yourself, and then learn from it. Mark those lessons. Make sure you don't forget it. During the recession, when everything hit the fan with real estate, a lot of people took that opportunity to learn from it. The same goes with any setback that you have.
#4 Forgive Yourself
Another part of healing is forgiving yourself. Again, you're a human. You're not a robot, and you're going to make mistakes. So instead of being hard on yourself and beating yourself up or being unfair to yourself, forgive yourself, love yourself, and just let it go.
#5 Practice Self Soothing
Soothing is easy to do incorrectly. We can eat too much or we can drink too much alcohol. We could do all sorts of negative things that are not going to help us and that are going to make our situation worse. Instead of that, I highly recommend you do something positive. Get out in nature. Whether that's taking a walk, going on a hike, going to the beach, or going out on a lake, if you can get out in nature, disconnect from the devices, and get some alone time, you'll reset your brain, and you will really help yourself.
#6 Rest and Sleep
Finally, make sure to get plenty of sleep and rest when things aren't great. I don't know what the study is, but I've heard it many times before that when you are facing challenging times or you're going through a stressful situation, sleeping and taking care of yourself in positive ways is going to help you overcome it. It's going to reset your body.
I started tracking my sleep three to four years ago with an app called a sleep tracker, and it would track my sleep cycles. I was usually sleeping between five and a half to six and a half hours per night. When I started tracking that, I bumped it up to seven and a half hours and did some research on it, and my anxiety and stress level dropped immensely. Nowadays, when I sleep less than seven hours at night, or I have a really restless night, my anxiety and stress goes up. I'm more irritable during work. I'm more irritable with my wife. So take care of yourself.
