Life can get pretty stressful sometimes, and there’s no shame in getting overwhelmed. Whether you’re in your teens or in your 50s, everyone deals with stress, and it affects them differently. Chronic stress has a negative impact on every aspect of your life.

To avoid letting the pressure drown you, you need to find a healthy and safe way to relieve the stress. To help you learn how to relax and let off some steam, here’s a list of tips and tricks. Follow this guide to relieve some stress and maintain a healthy mind and body.

Acknowledge Your Feelings

If you’re feeling stressed, the best thing you can do for yourself is to acknowledge what you’re feeling. Struggling mentally and physically with stress happens to everyone, and there’s nothing to be ashamed about. Denying your feelings and emotions when you are struggling is the worst thing you can do. If you feel the pressure getting to you, stop and acknowledge it to yourself. Being honest with yourself about your thoughts and feelings is the first step to getting better and getting help.

Talk To A Professional

Chronic stress can quickly grow into a full-blown mental disorder if left unkempt. You need to talk about your problems and feelings to help you cope and help you find the right path. Talking to your friends and family is a good start, but talking to a qualified professional can take you further. Through personalized treatments, those at this Orange County mental health facility aim to help with stress and other disorders. Talking to a professional can get you a diagnosis, proper guidance, and help when you need it the most.

Create A Schedule And Keep To It

Many people find keeping up with obligations as well as getting tasks done stressful. If you benefit from having some order in your life, you need to set up a schedule and stick to it. Having a fixed schedule or a written list of things to do can help you stay on top of things and relieve the stress. To avoid letting your schedule control you and stress you out further, don’t overload it with things. Start small and basic and add to your schedule as you progress. Remember to use your schedule as a guideline and to take it easy on yourself if you slip up sometimes, you’re only human!

Take Proper Breaks

One way to remedy chronic or constant stress is to rest up and take a break. Breaks come in different shapes and sizes depending on the person and situation. If you’re really stressed, you need to take some time out of your schedule to focus on relaxing and recharging your batteries. Schedule a relaxing holiday, disconnect from social media, and take a break. If you can’t afford a longer break, make the most of using smaller micro-breaks to recharge. It takes some trial and error to find what works for you, but it’s important to try.

Focus On The Next Best Step

When you’re stressed, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and freeze. If you have too many things on your to-do list and you feel like you’re running out of time, don’t give up! Take a deep breath, look at your options, cut your losses, and focus on making the next best step. If you can’t do it all, take a minute to prioritize and work on what needs to be done and forget about what’s less important. This applies to school assignments, work, projects, or anything that can stress you out. Doing a smaller amount of what you can is always better than nothing!

Practice Self-Care

Last but not least, the most important part of stress management is learning how to care for yourself. Self-care is an essential part of keeping your mental and physical state happy and healthy. You need to find good self-care coping mechanisms to help you combat stress when it arises. When you can, set aside time to do things that make you happy and are good for you, to relieve some of that stress. Read a book, go for a walk, vent in a journal, or light some candles. Self-care is essential for helping you fight back against stress.

So there you have it! Dealing with stress can be tough, but the best way to start is by acknowledging your feelings and struggle. Talk to and seek out a professional for advice and guidance to help you deal with stress. Create a schedule and stick to it to give yourself some structure, but remember to go easy on yourself.

Remember to take proper breaks and to focus on what’s really important. Last but not least, use self-care as a tool to help you unwind, fight off, and relieve the stress. Keep these tips in mind and remember to take things one day at a time!

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Do you have knots in your stomach? Do you feel the sinking of your heart? Do you get negative thoughts in your mind frequently? Do you get suicidal tendencies? Then you are under depression.  Depression is a major challenge globally leading to deaths and suicides. People are unable to cope with it and express it with others when they are under depression. Even eminent celebrities have depression leading to suicides.

Depression is a state of mind. It is a momentary mental disorder. It involves negative self-talk thus draining energy and enthusiasm. There is a difference between sadness and depression. Sadness is for a short period while depression is for a long period. Sadness is a momentary feeling while depression is a negative feeling which is recurrent and beyond human control. Hence, depression can be defined as an extension of sadness. It is an unchecked stage of sadness where people recurrently think about their unpleasant past or experiences. Here are some symptoms of depression: feeling worthlessness and helplessness; doubting abilities, decreased energy levels, loss of interest in work, feeling irritation and isolation; eating disorders, and sleeping disorders to name a few. 

Causes of depression

Depression is adversely affecting millions of people globally. Most people don’t disclose for fear of losing their social status or being ostracized by society. They hesitate to unveil as people might be excessively sympathetic to them which is not appreciated by them. As a result, they suffer from depression silently.  

There are innumerable causes of depression. Here are some of them. Volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) are some of the major causes. Most people are comfortable with certainty. Hence, they remain in their comfort zone which doesn’t lead to human growth. When people are ambitious to grow, they encounter lots of challenges. They find it difficult to manage to lead to depression. 

Rapid growth in technologies is another reason responsible for depression. People have become slaves to technology. They don’t use it judiciously. When people compare with extraordinary achievers, they get into depression for their inability to grow. They hardly realize how much the extraordinary achievers have endured to come up to such a level.  It is also due to genetic reasons where the person gets depressed due to family history.

“You say you’re ‘depressed’ – all I see is resilience. You are allowed to feel messed up and inside out. It doesn’t mean you’re defective – it just means you’re human.” ― David Mitchell

How to overcome depression?

There is nothing wrong with depression but failing to identify and take appropriate timely measures is wrong. Depression is a state of mind where people are confused with negative or unpleasant thoughts. If they take remedial action timely by converting their negative thoughts into positive thoughts they will be able to overcome depression. Here are some ways to overcome depression:  

• Be confident and optimistic. Faith is the force of life. Hence, have faith in yourself. 
• Don’t be oversensitive to problems because problems are part of life. 
• Don’t feel shy to express your depression with others. Talk to friends and relatives to express your inner emotions and feelings.  
• Don’t get into a vicious circle. Instead, associate with positive people. A person is judged by the way he or she makes friends and wears clothes. Hence, choose healthy friends and wear comfortable clothes to create positive vibes. 
• Do things that make you upbeat and energetic. 
• Set your goals and focus on them religiously. Break them into long-term and short-term goals. And break short-term goals further into daily goals and work on them regularly. It helps you stay focused on your goals thus avoiding depression. 
• Spend some time with nature. 
• Pursue creative hobbies. 
• Prefer physical interaction to virtual interaction.   
• Participate in social activities and group activities. Contribute through nonprofits to serve society during your leisure time. It gives you immense satisfaction and meaning to your life. 
• Do meditation regularly to control your emotions and thoughts. Meditation controls your emotions and stabilizes your mind. 
• Avoid alcohol and caffeine. 
• Do breathing exercises every day. When you inhale and exhale deeply more oxygen goes to your mind thus relieving your tension and anxiety.
• Exposé yourself to sunlight every day for some time. It gives you vitamin D and strengthens your bones.  
• Give adequate rest to your mind by sleeping. 
• Use technology judiciously. These days technology is essential to update and upgrade yourself. But don’t get addicted to technology. Make it as your servant but don’t become a servant to it. 
• Don’t worry about failures as they are the stepping stones to your next success. And don’t worry about the results as long as you have contributed your best. 
• Don’t compare with other achievers. For some people, success comes early and for some people, success comes late. Success is sure to come when you work hard and put your efforts relentlessly. You are a unique person and a God’s gift to this world. Hence, don’t compare with others. 
• Develop a positive attitude toward facing challenges. Accept the fact that many things are beyond human control. Hence, there is no point in being overly concerned about the factors that cannot be controlled. Accept the fact that everything takes its own time to resolve. Only when the time comes, certain problems can be resolved. Until then, focus on your productive and creative activities. 
• Develop the attitude of gratitude. Thank the people who helped you and laid the ladder for your success. 
• Have a big heart to forgive others. Revenge ruins your life while forgiveness elevates your moods in life and makes you taller in the world. 
• Avoid workaholism and wed spiritualism. 
• Ensure work-life balance.  
• Follow the philosophy of health first, education second, and wealth third. 
• Consult a professional mental health practitioner, if you think that it is difficult for you to handle, and if you get suicidal tendencies frequently. 

A strong family connection is a key to the success of great people. Family stands by you during your trials and tribulations by giving you emotional support. Technology cannot replace the power of family relations. Technology gives you temporary excitement but your family gives you permanent peace and happiness. Additionally, an empty mind is like a devil’s workshop. Hence, engage your mind productively on your passionate tasks. It helps you overcome depression and gives you productive results. 

Depressed people need a shoulder to cry on. If you come across someone who is depressed, spend some time with them. Lend your ears. Use humor carefully. 

Health first, education second, and wealth third

People often give wrong priorities leading to several challenges. They must learn to balance their personal, professional, and social life to provide meaning to their lives. In my personal life, I emphasize health first, education second, and wealth third. Only when you are healthy you will be able to acquire education. When you have both health and education, you can acquire wealth easily. 

Life is full of highs and lows. Every fall has a rise and every rise has a fall. Understand this fact and lead a balanced life. Don’t get dejected by failures and don’t get overjoyed by successes. Handle depression with a cool, calm, and composed mind. To summarize, depression is a curable temporary mental disorder. You can overcome it easily by identifying and taking appropriate timely remedial measures. To conclude, improve your attitude toward your life to overcome depression to lead a happy and pleasant life.  

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One of the biggest myths people obsess over is that they are supposed to achieve certain milestones by a particular age.

There are benefits to comparing yourself to your peers – for someone excelling in a field you want to progress in, they can be an inspiration, driving you further forward than you didn’t think possible without your example.

But on the flipside when you’re on social media being exposed to images of wonder kids, displaying the talent of someone who has spent decades mastering their craft, it’s understandable this may make you feel insignificant.

It doesn’t need to be someone in the online world – it could just be something simple like seeing a friend who has a good job, own their home, and in a solid relationship.

When you compare to yourself – struggling to start your career, living with parents and long-term single, you start feeling behind.

When you get these feelings remember:

Life is about following your own path

When you say you’re behind, it’s worth remembering this is a false statement.  ‘Being behind’ implies there is an official measure where we are supposed to be and what we are meant to achieve by a particular age.  This doesn’t exist and has been created from a combination of societal pressures of what is normal, and our own tough standards of where we think we are ‘supposed’ to be.

You feel behind because your friends are starting a family, storming their career, and setting up a home, but there is no rule saying you are meant to have these things.

They say life isn’t a sprint it’s a marathon, both seem inaccurate as this suggests your life is a competition with others, really, it’s more like a series of personal bests – you set your own path.

When you live like this, you’ll never feel like you are being left behind, because you’re on your own.  Your achievements are what you choose to put your energy into.  As Earl Nightingale said, “Success is the Progressive Realization of a Worthy Ideal.”

Societal expectations

Feeling behind hits young people just entering adulthood hard.  This is because they’ve gone through the education system, which is all about reaching and exceeding milestones.

With this conditioning it’s not surprising they still have this comparison mindset with their peers, forgetting they’re adults, free to make their own decisions, and not following a framework to be considered a success.

There are unwritten rules, imagined pressures deemed by the culture you’ve been brought up in.  For example in western society you may feel a stigma if you’ve not lost your virginity by your late teens.

In reality, a lot of these things can wait until you are ready – keep this in mind when facing these pressures.

“Stay in your lane. Comparison kills creativity and joy.” – Brene B

You don’t have to have it all figured out yet (or ever)

This type of advice doesn’t just apply to twenty somethings, there are plenty of people in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s, older who look at their life and think because of their experience they should be further ahead.

When you reach an older age you feel pressure to be more mature and have life ‘figured out’, and this creates the feeling of being behind.  This is something else imagined, there is no defined requirement that we must understand our purpose – part of the fun in life is figuring this out.

It’s something of a cliché in self-improvement literature to read about people like JK Rowling and Colonel Sanders finding success ‘late in their careers’.  These examples are supposed to inspire hope that the good thing will still happen to you, but really their success is irrelevant as you don’t ever have to figure it out.

Life is about ups and downs

When you see someone that makes you feel behind, you’re not seeing the full picture especially on social media.  There life may not be a good as you think, failing to see their flaws or unhappiness which they choose to hide from public viewing.

This is not meant to be advice suggesting you look forward to their inevitable failure to make you feel better, but a reminder that this can happen to anyone – there are moments progression maybe be halted or even decline by the unexpected such as losing that great job, or a marriage ending.

Keep this in mind – everything is fleeting so keep working at it, enjoy your moments and be grateful for what you do have!

How do you stop this measurement?

There are things to recognise to avoid feeling behind, starting with realising life isn’t a competition, where you are ‘ahead’ or ‘behind’ the crowd.

Constant comparison with what others have is damaging your wellbeing.  If you have a friend who seems to have it all, be pleased for their success, and focus on your own progress rather than viewing them as a yardstick for your own shortcomings.

There is no definitive rules about what you are supposed to do with your life and when you’re supposed to do it – set your goals and invent your own definition of success.

So next time you think about life as being something you are behind in, stop yourself and realise that’s not correct as this world is not meant to be a big measurement of required ‘must have’ milestones.

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Today I’d like to share the most helpful and uplifting quotes on feeling lost.

Timeless thoughts that will help you to stay strong through tough times and to find your way back to yourself and to your path and journey in life.

But before we get to that here’s two things that have helped me to remember when I’ve felt lost:

You are not alone in this.

If you feel lost then that doesn’t mean you’re alone in that. We all feel that way sometimes. It’s just a natural part of life and the human experience.

It’s temporary. 

Yes, it may sometimes feel like that feeling of being lost is something you’ll be stuck in for the rest of your life. 

But in my experience that feeling will be replaced with an idea of what to do or maybe a step forward that you find you can take. If you keep your focus on figuring things out and on trying to move forward. 

I have found that journaling about my thoughts and feelings of feeling lost, talking to someone close to me about my challenge to get some helpful input and to read about what others have done when they’ve been lost have been very helpful when I’ve felt lost.

And if you want more help when you’re facing a challenge in life have a look at this post filled with quotes on how to handle toxic and difficult people and this one that that is focused on the power of grit.

Feeling Lost Quotes to Help You to Understand and Find Yourself

“It is worth remembering that the time of greatest gain in terms of wisdom and inner strength is often that of greatest difficulty.”’
Dalai Lama

“When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
Henry Ford

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
Marcus Aurelius

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”
Alan Alda

“Storms make trees take deeper roots.”
Dolly Parton

“To get lost is to learn the way.”
African proverb

“The one who falls and gets up is stronger than the one who never tried. Do not fear failure but rather fear not trying.”
Roy T. Bennett

“We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated.”
Maya Angelou

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds there are many more hills to climb.”
Nelson Mandela

“It is those who get lost, who find the new ways.”
Nils Kjaer

“The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision.”’
Maimonides

“Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.”
Henry David Thoreau

“If you feel lost, disappointed, hesitant, or weak, return to yourself, to who you are, here and now and when you get there, you will discover yourself, like a lotus flower in full bloom, even in a muddy pond, beautiful and strong.”
Masaru Emoto

“If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.”
Nora Robert

“If you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.”
Gordon Eadie

“One of the truest tests of integrity is its blunt refusal to be compromised.”
Chinua Achebe

“Good decisions come from experience. Experience comes from making bad decisions.”
Mark Twain

“Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.”
Carl Jung

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”
Anaïs Nin

“Always remember that your present situation is not your final destination. The best is yet to come.”
Zig Ziglar

“Fear is only as deep as the mind allows.”
Japenese Proverb

“Dream, struggle, create, prevail. Be daring. Be brave. Be loving. Be compassionate. Be strong. Be brilliant. Be beautiful.”’
Caterina Fake

“Never regret anything you have done with a sincere affection; nothing is lost that is born of the heart.”
Basil Rathbone

“The soul which has no fixed purpose in life is lost; to be everywhere, is to be nowhere.”
Michel de Montaigne

“Feeling lost, crazy and desperate belongs to a good life as much as optimism, certainty and reason.”
Alain De Botton

“Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.”
Douglas Coupland

“The best things in life are often the ones hardest to get. Yet they are also the ones that are the easiest to find, usually right in front of your face.”
Mark Donaldson

“Don’t be distracted by criticism. Remember the only taste of success some people have is when they take a bite out of you.”
Zig Ziglar

“The intangible represents the real power of the universe. It is the seed of the tangible.”
Bruce Lee

“Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass. It’s about learning how to dance in the rain.”
Vivian Greene

“Be patient with all that is unresolved within your heart, and try to love the questions.”
Rainer Maria Rilke

“Sometimes good things fall apart so better things could fall together.”
Marilyn Monroe

“Basically, I was so worried about what everyone else was thinking, I forgot about what I was thinking.”
Lisa M. Cronkhit

“Not all who wander are lost.”
J.R.R. Tolkien

“Your intellect may be confused, but your emotions will never lie to you.”
John Gay

“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“Love is an untamed force. When we try to control it, it destroys us. When we try to imprison it, it enslaves us. When we try to understand it, it leaves us feeling lost and confused.”
Paulo Coelho

“In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.”
Dante Alighieri

“Stand still. The trees ahead and bush beside you are not lost.”
Albert Einstein

“Just because someone stumbles and loses their path, doesn’t mean they’re lost forever.”
Charles Xavier (X-Men)

“To be lost is as legitimate a part of your process as being found.”
Alex Ebert

“I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up all alone. It’s not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone.”
Robin Williams

“One swallow does not make a summer, neither does one fine day; similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy.”
Aristotle

“When you finally accept that it’s OK not to have answers and it’s OK not to be perfect, you realize that feeling confused is a normal part of what it is to be a human being.”
Winona Ryder

“When you feel things deeply and you think about things a lot and you think about how you feel, you learn a lot about yourself.”
Fiona Apple

“Just keep going like crazy and look back when it’s over. Otherwise, you just get confused.”
Cliff Burton

“No matter how much light I carry within me, there will always be times of feeling lost, being confused, seeking direction. It is the way of the human heart.”
Joyce Rupp

“Sorrow looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“There is no such thing as a hopeless situation. Every single circumstance of your life can change.”
Ritu Ghatourey

“You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, ‘I’m proud of what I am and who I am.’ “
Mariah Carey

“Nothing outside yourself can cause any trouble. You yourself make the waves in your mind. If you leave your mind as it is, it will become calm. This mind is called big mind.”
Shunryu Suzuki

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.”
Plato

“Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.”
Henry Rollins

“Be thankful for all things in life. Even for the bad things. Sometimes the worst situations in life turn out to be the best things that ever happened to us.”
John Wilson

“The only limit is the one you set yourself.”
Felix Baumgartner

“Give thanks for what you are today and go on fighting for what part of you will be gone tomorrow.”
William Shakespeare

“Nothing is more beautiful than a smile that has struggled through tears.”
Demi Lovato

“When I feel confused or depressed, I remember back to junior high and I silently repeat, ‘This, too, shall pass.’”
Josh Groban

“We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”
Joseph Campbell

“Feeling lost? Good! Now you get to walk new paths that lead to much better places.”
Robin S. Sharma

“The only thing in the world you can change is yourself and that makes all the difference in the world.”
Cher

“Just remember – when you think all is lost, the future remains.”
Robert H. Goddard

Feeling Lost Quotes That Will Help You to Find Your Path and Move Forward

“Feeling lost? Take a dream and convert it into small goals, then start taking the steps to hit those goals.”
Dave Ramsey

“The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything but they make the most of everything.”
Sam Cawthorn

“Stop acting so small, you are the universe in ecstatic motion.”
Rumi

If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
Maya Angelou

“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
George Bernard Shaw

“One step in the right direction is better than a hundred years of thinking about it.”
T. Harv Eker

“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.”
Steve Jobs

“You don’t lose if you get knocked down; you lose if you stay down.”
Muhammad Ali

“Life is ten percent what you experience and ninety percent how you respond to it.”
Dorothy M. Neddermeyer

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.”
Neil Gaiman

“Small minds are concerned with the extraordinary, great minds with the ordinary.”
Blaise Pascal

“The fears we don’t face become our limits.”
Amy Elizabeth

“You cannot defeat darkness by running from it, nor can you conquer your inner demons by hiding them from the world. In order to defeat the darkness, you must bring it into the light.”
Seth Adam Smith

“Your teacher can open the door, but you must enter by yourself.”
Chinese proverb

“When enthusiasm runs in the front door, worry runs out the back door.”
Napoleon Hill

“If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.”
Vincent Van Gogh

“We generate fears when we sit. We overcome them by action.”
Dr. Henry Link

“Be who you needed when you were younger.”
Unknown

“When I feel lost and can’t make a decision, I just stop and get quiet. I take a time-out.”
Kim Cattrall

“Even when bad things happen you have to try to use those bad things in a positive manner and really just take the positive out of it.”
Natalie du Toit

“Do you know who you are? Don’t ask. Act. Action will delineate and define you.”
Thomas Jefferson

“It’s better to have tried and failed than to live life wondering what would’ve happened if I had tried.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

“You got to go down a lot of wrong roads to find the right one.”
Bob Parsons

“Tough times never last, but tough people do.”
Robert H. Schuller

“Things are not always right because they are hard, but if they are right one must not mind if they are also hard.”
Winston Churchill

“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
Ernest Hemingway

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.”
Lao Tzu

“Sorrow looks back. Worry looks around. Faith looks up.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The next chapter of my life is always more interesting than the last one.”
Michael Lipsey

“Feeling sorry for yourself, and your present condition, is not only a waste of energy but the worst habit you could possibly have.”
Dale Carnegie

“A long life may not be good enough, but a good life is long enough.”
Benjamin Franklin

“To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man’s life.”
T.S. Eliot

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When you fail, make a mistake or things simply don’t go as well as you had hoped then how do you feel?

Do you feel sorry for yourself? Well, that’s natural in some situations and too an extent.

But do you get stuck in that mental state too often and for far too long?

If that’s the case then this guide is for you.

Because in it I’d like to share 10 steps that have helped me to stop feeling sorry for myself.

Simple habits and techniques that have helped me to reduce and overcome this issue in my life and to stop spending so much time and energy on it.

Now, let’s get started.

1. Breathe.

First, calm your mind and body down a bit to think more level-headedly and clearly.

This simplest way to do that?

Just sit down. Close your eyes.

And then breathe through your nose and with your belly.

Focus only on the air going in and out. Nothing else.

Do that for 1-2 minutes (I like to set a timer on my smart phone so I don’t try to finish early).

This will center you and make you feel more focused again.

2. Zoom out into the world (and then tap into gratitude).

Ask yourself: does anyone on this planet have it worse than me right now?

This question helps me to see things from a wider perspective.

I often follow it up with asking myself:

What are 3 things I can be grateful for but often take for granted?

Well, I can be thankful for many such things.

Thing like:

• Fresh water.
• Three steady meals a day.
• A roof over my head.

Just these first two steps is often enough for me stop feeling sorry for myself and not get stuck in self-pity.

If not, then I move on to…

3. Zoom out in your own life.

Ask yourself this about the situation that has caused you to feel sorry for yourself:

Will this matter in 5 years? Or even 5 weeks from now?

The answer is most usually for me that it actually won’t.

But I’m sometimes a bit hasty to make a mountain out of a molehill.

4. Find one opportunity or lesson in the situation you’re in.

This can help you to see what happened to you in more optimistic and constructive light.

That doesn’t mean that it’s all of a sudden a great situation that you’ve found yourself in.

But it’s in my experience important to do not only to add a dash of optimism.

But also because the toughest situations that I’ve felt the worst about have helped me in the long run.

They have taught me one or several very important lessons that have been game-changers or at least been quite valuable things to keep in mind.

5. Set a time-limit for yourself.

One thing I do from time to time when I’m in a negative emotional state like feeling sorry for myself or seeing things through a negative lens is to be OK with that.

To embrace it.

But with a deadline and for just a little while.

Because we have to process what has happened. Take in all the emotions, thoughts or shock that a situation caused.

Pushing that aside right away can lead to those thoughts and feelings popping up later in unexpected situations and ways.

So take for example 10 minutes to just feel sorry for yourself. But then, as those minutes are up, move on into a more constructive headspace and focus forward once again.

6. Get out of your own head by helping someone else out.

To avoid getting stuck in a downward spiral of self-pity focus outward. On someone else. Focus on giving one or more people in your life value.

This will get you outside of your own head and you’ll feel good for helping out in some way.

And then feel even better as you see the other person’s face light up thanks to what you did.

A couple of good ways to give value and to help out are:

Helping out practically.

Maybe someone needs help moving. Or setting up things for his party this weekend. Or with finding information for a decision that he’s making.

Listening.

Just be there fully and listen to someone as she vents about a situation in her life.

And if she asks then offer some advice or a discussion about what can be done to improve upon the situation she is in.

Be kind to someone in your everyday life.

Be kind to a stranger by holding up the door, letting him or her into your lane while driving or helping out with directions if he seems lost in your city.

7. Look into your possible future.

Ask yourself: what will the consequences be if I keep this up?

How will my life look in 1 year if I too often fall back into feeling sorry for myself for too long? And in 5 years?

How will it affect my relationships?

How will affect my chances of reaching my goals and dreams?

Write down your answers and use them as a motivation to move forward once again the next time you feel that you’re starting to get lost in those negative thoughts.

8. Create a reminder and keep it close by.

I used one that said “no victim thinking for 30 days” on my smart phone. It popped up every morning with the help of the free Google Keep app.

Another good way to use a reminder is to write your message to yourself down on a piece of paper and put it in your bedside table. Then it’ll be one of the first things you see each day.

A couple of suggestions for what to write could be:

• It’s OK to feel sorry for yourself for 10 minutes. But then move forward and into action again.
• What are 3 things I can be grateful for in my life but I too often take for granted?

9. Draw up a small plan (and take just one step to move forward with it).

One of the best ways to move on from a mental state where you don’t feel like you have much personal power to change your situation is to take one small step.

And to create a small plan – or the start of one – for how you can improve or move away from the situation that have made you feel sorry for yourself.

So just sit down with a pen and a piece of paper. And brainstorm for 3-5 minutes to find one or a few small steps forward.

Then get the ball rolling right away.

Take just one of those small or tiny steps forward to put your plan into action. This will make you, in my experience, feel empowered and better about yourself and your life.

10. Ask yourself: how can I prevent getting stuck in the same trap in the future?

Finally, after you feel more empowered and constructive and have gotten the ball rolling with your plan take a couple of minutes and ask yourself the question above.

Think about what you can do differently the next time something goes wrong or when you start feeling sorry for yourself for too long.

A couple of the things that have helped me the most with this are:

• Reading through the note with the future consequences written on it.
• Reminding myself to talk to someone about it as soon as possible to be able to vent and figure things out for myself. And if I need it then to also have a constructive discussion with this person about what I can do to improve upon the situation I’m in. Or sometimes I simply let this person help me to ground myself again and to not make a mountain out of a molehill.
• Reminding myself that just a start of a plan and taking one small step forward to get going with it can change how I feel and my mental state in a big way.

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