What to do if you’re in a situation you don’t like

Life has its challenges, and more often than not you probably find yourself wondering what you should do when faced with one of them. You will find yourself in situations you don’t like, and believe it or not, you will ALWAYS have a choice about what to do about it.

When working out what to do, you first need to determine if you have control over the situation.

For example, if your partner left you for somebody else, you have no control over that. Your partner made their choice and although you may have been part of the reason why they left, you can’t change the past. You have no control over this situtation, but you DO have choices:

1. You can curl up in the fetal position and rock uncontrollably under the dining table, vowing to NEVER love anybody ever again.
2. You can accept your ex partner’s decision, learn from the experience, and get out there and enjoy life with the hope that you’ll meet someone MUCH better!

Other situations you may not have control over are:

• Your job becomes redundant – your choice here is to get upset about it and start worrying about your finances (this won’t help anybody), or you can look at this as an opportunity to find another job and possibly improve your financial situation.
• Someone close to you has died – you can choose to be miserable for months and months (or even years) afterwards, or you can choose to focus on the good times you had with this person. If they died from a disease such as cancer (as an example), then as a tribute to this person, you could get involved with raising money for cancer research, or join a support group and help others through the grieving process when a loved one dies.

On the other hand, what if you’re in a situation you CAN control?

So for example, you’re in a bad relationship. Your partner treats you badly, possibly verbally (or even physically) abuses you, and you hate that you’re in this situation.

In this situation you DO have control over the situation (believe it or not!), and you have three choices:

1. Do nothing – and your situation will remain the same (or possibly get worse)
2. Choose to stay, but also seek counselling (and/or other help) with or without your partner so that the negatives of your relationship can be turned around.
3. You can leave. This choice is the hardest to make because it creates the biggest change.

Other situations you have control over could be:

• You hate your hair – you can keep hating your hair, or you can go to the hairdresser to get a new style
• You are overweight – you can choose to keep eating bad foods and not exercising, or you can choose to eat healthy, start exercising and even hire a personal trainer.

So as you can see, there are choices to be made in any situation. Even choosing to do nothing is a choice.

The next time you find yourself talking negatively about your situation, stop and think about what you can control, and what your choices could be. Then act on them!

The only way to improve your life is to change for the better what you can control, and respond differently to what you can’t control.

It sounds simple because it is!