What to Do When Nothing Goes Right

He had started to realize that it wasn’t going to happen for him.

He was in his fifties. 

He was suffering from a disease that had led to muscle weakness and fatigue. 

Hepatitis B had already finished his liver by 75 percent. 

His new venture had collapsed. He had to mortgage his home to pay loans. 

After decades of unparalleled success, his fortune had changed and he became bankrupt.

That was Amitabh Bachchan before he began his second innings in Bollywood and bounced back to a stage all of us are aware of. Today, he has an international following and is worth more than ₹ 3,000 Crores ($400 million).

We all get bad days. It is one thing to have a bad experience, but occasionally life takes us through entire stretches of time when nothing goes right.

Like a row of dominoes, one thing after another comes crashing down.

Overcoming difficult situations certainly takes time, but it also requires grit, self-awareness, and recognizing the moment when to take a break.

That’s what this post is about – finding out ways to pause, recover and get going again.

First thing first, tell your heart this happens to everyone. Accept it, even if you don’t see others going through it right now. You don’t know what their past has been or can say anything about what they are going through just by looking at their faces.

When factors leading to a tough situation are out of your control, you may feel completely singled out, like a victim. Don’t fall in that zone. It drains too much energy, making you grumpy and sometimes hopeless.

Trust me when I say – each of us stumbles. Those success stories that you read on social media are only a crux of all the struggles a person has faced in two lines. Everyone falls. Even the world champions. But the grace, the real struggle is getting back up, faster, stronger, and unshakable.

That’s what Amitabh Bachchan did.

But easy for someone like him to bounce back, right? After all, many rich, influential people know him.

The truth is that for someone like him, the failures are more difficult to overcome. Because of the mammoth amount of visibility he gets, his every downfall is also magnified 10 times. Not to count the shame, trolling and fall from grace. If someone like me fails, only my family would know; but if a celebrity fails, the whole world is there to scrutinize, give unsolicited advice and make snide remarks.

Setbacks allow us to put a little perspective in order and reignite passion to succeed. Here are a few strategies to help you stay positive and get back on track, no matter what happens.

Be ready, adapt to change

When things don’t go according to the plan, change the way to plan.

As we set meaningful goals, we tend to push ourselves full throttle. When nothing goes right, it can disrupt our momentum and throw us off course. This feels extremely discouraging, especially when you’ve already worked so hard toward your goal. One of the ways to destress is to use positive affirmations. On the days your hard work isn’t paying off, be ready to adapt to newer ways.

1 Step Plan to Kill Arrogance

As you know from my two previous posts, Being Humble and Time, Spirituality and Happiness, I’ve been an avid encourager of practical spirituality.

Usually during the middle of week, I feel the urge of sharing my experiences. Today, in honor of the “Tolerant/Intolerant” debate, I’m going to share the best self improvement tip in my arsenal. This may not be the most valuable advice on killing your arrogance you ever had. Heck, you might not even remember it after an hour, but I’ll still share. Are you ready?

Accept others’ mistakes.

That’s it. Whether it’s once or even 10 times – accept the people as they are and move on. Day by day, build this habit. Keep a journal of your feelings, challenge yourself in new situations. Seems pretty simple, but it’s something all of us struggle with at one time or another. Improving oneself is important, and many posts on this blog and others can be helpful – but you can’t progress unless you try. I know that’s not what you want to hear, and I truly wish there was an easy way, but I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is. Nothing is easy, especially not being tolerant in relationships.

I also know you want to improve – otherwise you wouldn’t be here, would you? Maybe you are thinking about making yourself a better human being, and once you’ve read everything, you’ll become a stunningly amazing individual. May be you’ve tried to shed arrogance but it attacks you at your weakest moment, and disheartenly you backed out. But not anymore.  

Just do it. Become more receptive to others’ ideas, their nature and their way of handling daily crisis.

Accepting others the way they are is hard. Only people who have never worked on themselves will tell you otherwise. You’re not alone in feeling that way. More than one of great saints has likened acceptance of others as living the awful parts of life,  wounding yourself, bashing your head against the actual feelings. But you still need to do it. For now, don’t worry too much about how may hurt you again, or you might not be taken seriously, or any of that serious stuff. For now, just worry about taking a step into practical spirituality and divorcing the arrogance.

Maybe you are already aware about your feelings and know the ways to overcome them, and you really just want to know how to control your frustration, irritation, anger, or a different method of finding your peace. That’s great. Please see the tag cloud to the left. I’ll be back soon with another practical spirituality article. This week, however, I need to work on a few writing projects.
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I Am That Woman

I walk

I talk

I feel

I heal

I possess a heart that you may tear apart

But it's my spirit that I inherit

I am the woman

With the "man"

I make

I create

I love

I cannot hate

I am the woman with undying strength

Who will go to any length

To bring things together

Whatever may be the weather

I am the woman

That woman…

Living through Adversities

Very often we come across people who are so used to take shortcuts in life that they get frustrated if there is any delay in any of their works. Traffic jams, office deadlines, fights with friends/family, financial crunch, loosing job, broken vehicles, and arguments – just few examples I can think right now that people call as their rough time.

Problems are a nothing but few days of tough time and while time passes, they also do. Theoretically I know many people who have heard it, know it and advice it. However when it comes to checking yourself, how many of you would give yourself 100% marks in your crisis management techniques. Not 80, not 90 but 100 %.

Check yourself if you get discouraged/upset when you face any such situation that you had not anticipated. If you can’t find the answer, ask your friend/family to remind you instances where you lost your cool. But remember – take their answer as a constructive feedback, do not argue back to justify your actions, instead admit your mistake and take responsibility.

So start your day on a positive note. Think of adversities as nothing but a tide of strong winds. It will tear away everything from you except the qualities that cannot be torn, so that you can see yourselves as you really are.