everyday resilience

3 minute silent read time

Today’s issue: You might remember you’re resilient without motivational quotes and she doesn’t make you feel sad in this one (for once-maybe?).

You ever feel like you are so overwhelmed, you’re one minor inconvenience from falling apart?

I recently got scammed out of a job and have one to week move out because I thought it was real and no idea what I’m doing. Not exactly, ideal.

Honestly think it’s hilarious. But before you think I’m a basket case, hear me out.

It got me thinking, how do you react to setbacks? Picture your highlight reel of this years biggest problems.

Here’s mine:

• car fire and insurance doesn’t cover it

• potential hearing loss and need of hearing aide

• Stalled cognitive recovery

Now did you mentally compare yourself and minimize yours some? If you said yes, then the rest of this newsletter is for you.

First, your invisible scale where you compare your problems and then say, ‘well it’s not as bad as XYZ’ is bullshit. Life is not a suffering Olympics and there is no way to compares completely different lives and circumstances.

And second, you just told yourself ‘my problem isn’t that bad.’ — let’s keep that idea.

Let’s do a quick reality check with your latest ‘end of the world’ problem.

• What problems have you solved today?

If you say ’nothing,’ imagine I slapped you. Yes I encouraged violence but also that’s bullshit.The interesting thing is we solve problems every single day, it’s just not as severe. If you have kids, what did you feed them or answer 100 seemingly easy questions, but struggled to have an answer for? If you are at the beginning of a business, how did you recover from your latest mental breakdown?

• Do you have the power to solve your current problem?

This isn’t me asking if you know the answer, because a lot of the time we don’t if it’s brand new and we’re figuring it out. This is about do you have control or a way to get control over the issue.

• Do you have one possible solution you can test?

In other words, do you have a hazy idea you can work on or did your creativity take a vacation and you need to phone a friend or Google search?

See? We solve problems all the time. Every. Single. Day.

Now yes that is a oversimplified concept and I’m not (trying) to say solving your problems is easy. Honestly I wish I had unsolicited answers to your problems, but I don’t.

But how big is the problem in your head right now?

Because the truth is, at the end of the day you have two options:

• whine and accept your circumstance

• get to work

There’s also have a fake psychotic break and lose your shit and pre-plan your death. But life isn’t a movie and there’s no pop song, comic relief character, or scene where your problem just magically solves itself.

That’s it.

But I want to leave you with a lil story (out of place).

There was a set designer who was contemplating suicide to give his family money because his house was about to be hit foreclosure and didn’t want them to be homeless. Most of the money he was making was going to understanding his sons health issues. Outside of his financial situation he was winning in every other arena from work and family that loved him. But he couldn’t see past his setback. Fast forward I had him tell me why he thought he couldn’t solve his current problems, list off his wins in other areas, and ask how he could apply the skills he learned from his wins to his problem — because lets be honest I knew nothing about his woe. After we got past the ‘it’s not the same thing’ he started to see ideas and started to believe he could find a solution fueled by evidence he could win. Last I checked, he bought land and is currently building his forever home in upstate New York.

I like sharing this story because it feels like people think ’success’ stories are reserved for a select few. But forget that we have evidence of ability that we discount because it’s not ‘incredible’ or we have made our problem so much bigger.

But the truth is we are battle tested in all kinds of ways all of the time.

Guess what I’m trying to say (if I failed) is We all have the resilience to overcome setbacks, even if they seem overwhelming.

(PS if you are still struggling, send me a message and we talk about it together. People tell me I help mentally.)

P.S.S. No extras this week. Ironically optimistic and working on something.