Amy Morin

To survive during any trials, you need to be able to control your thoughts, feelings and actions. Here are four simple tips to help you.

1. Accept reality

Acceptance does not mean consent. You just need to recognize that this or that event is a fait accompli. Resisting and repeating that this should not have happened, you are just wasting time and effort. By accepting what is happening, you will take the first step in order to find a way out of the situation.

Imagine a traffic jam. One person will think: “How unfair! And why does this always happen to me? He will begin to get angry, nervous and swear with other drivers.

The mentally resilient person will simply remind himself, “There are millions of cars on the roads every day, and naturally there will be traffic jams from time to time.” This attitude will help keep you calm. Such a person will turn on and wait for the movement to recover.

To accept reality, we need to understand what we can control and what we can't. In situations that you have no control over, try to control yourself.

2. Stop feeling sorry for yourself

Acceptance of reality will help streamline thoughts and feelings. This is the key to productive behavior. How we behave when faced with a problem determines how quickly we find a solution to it. Even if our problem cannot be solved (for example,), we still choose how to react to what happened every time.

Do not indulge in self-pity. It will not allow you to move on and completely deprive you of the strength of the spirit. Ask yourself, “What can I do right now to help myself in some way?” You may have to overcome your fear or do something unpleasant. The main thing is to act.

3. Control sad thoughts

The mind can be both our best ally and our worst enemy. If you allow negative thoughts to take over, you simply won't be able to do anything.

Thoughts like “I can never do this” or “I can’t take a minute longer” will prevent you from achieving your goals. So try to notice when your thoughts become too pessimistic.

If you feel like you are panicking, think about what you would say if your friend were in this situation. Surely you would encourage him and assure him that everything will work out for him.

4. Train mental resilience in advance

A crisis situation is not the right time to start developing psychological resilience. This must be done in advance.

You won't wait until you need to lift something heavy to start pumping muscles, will you? It is unlikely that it will help you if you take it five minutes before moving the sofa. But by building up strength gradually, you will be able to lift more weight.

The same can be said about psychological stability. So that you have enough fortitude to overcome life's difficulties, train it every day.

In life you have to face a lot of different problems. It's an endless chain of ups and downs. It seems that in most cases the problem can be dealt with, but not everyone quickly gets back on their feet after a serious failure. Sometimes it hurts too much. But it's incredibly important to keep moving forward. Here are five helpful tips that will help you get through the traumatic experience more easily and teach you to look to the future with confidence.

Remember the hard times in life

It may seem like a bad idea, but everything is not so simple - the thought of failure evokes sadness, but at the same time it helps to understand that any difficulty can be overcome. You were able to move on with your life. It usually seems that the problem broke life forever, so remembering similar disasters is very important. You become stronger with each new experience. Allow yourself to draw strength from your past, this is your priceless baggage.

Write or tell how you feel

Get away from the situation

It can be difficult to make rational decisions when you are in the middle of a problem. Of course, you shouldn’t run away from difficulties either, but you don’t need to plunge into a difficult situation with your head - this way you lose the ability to normally weigh all the arguments and sensibly assess your situation. This happens more often than you would like to admit. Try to abstract in every difficult situation, think about everything that happens calmly. Take a break. If you have tense relatives or colleagues around you, spend some time alone with yourself. Sometimes all it takes to solve a problem is just a little breather and a break for reflection.

Remind yourself that you are not alone

It's so easy to withdraw into yourself and feel completely alone, but remembering that someone who absolutely loves you is nearby is much more difficult. Sometimes such a person is not around in real life, but you can find support online. Whoever you are, there are people who care, who are ready to listen and support. Sometimes strangers can understand you better than you can. They also had similar problems, they understand your emotions. Maybe someone else is in the same situation as you right now. Just find this person.

Accept the situation and become stronger

No matter how difficult it may be, you should accept the situation and come to terms with what happened - the past cannot be changed anyway. It doesn't matter who is to blame for what happened. Just accept what happened and move on. Now you have a new experience that will help you deal with the same problem next time. You will be stronger and will not repeat your mistake. Life goes on, time never stands still, the main decision you can make is the decision to move on. Don't look back, everything has already happened. Just consider that now your character has become stronger, and be proud of yourself. You have experienced a difficult moment, but it does not define you or your whole life. Take a life lesson out of it and don't dwell on that memory again. A whole new life awaits you ahead of you, not related to this problem.

Marina Nikitina

It is difficult to find a person who does not know what the difficulties of life are. But there are millions of people in the world who do not know how to overcome these difficulties. They lie to themselves, denying the existence of difficulties, give up, stopping all attempts to solve problems or understand them. What does this lead to? Nothing positive. A person falls into a prolonged depression or gets nervous, mental illness.

If you are a strong-willed person, accustomed to face the truth, then this information will not be useful to you. If you do not have the courage to solve problems, work on yourself from today, because you have already taken a small step in this direction - you have decided to learn how to overcome difficulties.

Problem Diagnosis

To fight the enemy you need to know him by sight. Therefore, we first determine the presence of difficulties and see which category they belong to. Life difficulties:

Serious problems from the outside (loss of the most expensive property, a house burned down, a large amount of money was stolen, the death of a loved one, an incurable disease).
Difficulties of medium difficulty (kicked out of work, wife, you got sick, no means of subsistence).
Difficulties in self-identification, psychological problems (feelings of inferiority or worthlessness, depression, panic).
Domestic difficulties (tired of cleaning, cooking, quarreling with her husband because of his carelessness, plumbing is out of order, not enough money, the phone crashed, difficulties in family life).

The problems described in the first two paragraphs are not necessarily the most difficult. The third type of problems - psychological - can be of any complexity. It is difficult to analyze the subtle world called “psyche”, therefore, in order to deal with this kind of problems, one must try. Everyday difficulties from the last category are only at first glance inferior in complexity to the previous ones, they drag you into a pool of sadness, fear, sluggish destructive hatred for yourself and the rest of the world. Therefore, any of the problems is serious, especially for the one who has it.

Making a willful decision to fight

Giving a clear name is a must, because vague complaints like “I feel bad, my soul hurts, it’s hard, but I don’t know why” and it’s impossible to “cure”.

After realizing the problem, you already have a formulation. It is not always easy to take even this step, but you should not think about it, do it in order, so to speak, in small steps. Thus, you will go through the whole long, albeit difficult, path. Don't forget: "Great things start small."

After looking into the eyes of your difficulty, the problem will already decrease in size. Now it will not pulsate in your exhausted brain every day or seem like a black bottomless abyss. No, after the bold step of identifying the problem, you have already seen your enemy and know his size. It turns out that this is not a bottomless abyss, although it is very deep in some particularly serious cases.

How often does it happen that a person knows a problem that has been bugging him for a long time, but does not want to fight, he is disappointed in life, does not believe in himself and walks like a psychological corpse - Homo Sapiens lives, eats, breathes, but interest in anything has disappeared , life is disgusting only by the fact of its existence. What is there to advise?

Strange as it may sound, but if it seems to you that the end of the person you previously saw in the mirror has come, it’s good because there is nothing to lose in such a situation. It remains only to decide to fight, to solve problems.

You ask, what to do if it is completely incomprehensible in which direction to move? Do you need to do something, even if you are not sure of the correct path? Of course yes. Here is an example. Imagine that you have a small wooden box in front of you. It is filled with balls of the same size, but of different colors: first a handful of black balls are poured, and the same number of white ones are on top. The box is closed.

Now we draw parallels: one of the black balls is you. The ball lies at the bottom of the box, there are black balls around, there is also a large layer of balls on top and the situation seems completely hopeless, since there is no way to get up and there are no known ways to solve the problem.

Now imagine that you take the box in your hands and start shaking it. Yes, at first glance you are doing actions at random. You do not know what is happening inside, you know one thing - when you shake the box, at least something happens inside. And now let's reveal the cards: in the process of such shaking, the balls in the box begin to mix. It happens randomly, but everyone has heard the theory of probability.

So, according to this theory, the balls in the box will eventually return to their original position with almost zero probability. So to do at least something is, with decadent moods. And there, you see, during the shaking you will understand in which direction you need to tilt the box and your ball will be pushed up by other balls.

Difficulties in a person's life

Imagine life without hardship. It seemed like it could be better. You will be surprised, but it is the presence of difficulties that shows us how good life can be, gives us food for thought, makes us, like the balls from the example above, move. If the difficulties in a person's life disappear, then there will be nothing to compare other events with, no one will even imagine what difficulties are, nor what joyful events are. They will not be, because everything will be painfully the same.

To maintain vitality, to maintain self-control, you must always remember what was written on the ring of King Solomon. It said, "This too shall pass." When he had, he looked at this inscription and calmed down, because there was an installation that everything would pass. But he was in no hurry to rejoice, so as not to be upset later, because even in this case he looked at the inscription and was convinced that this too would pass, that everything in the world was passing and passing.

Ways to overcome the difficulties of life

Overcoming the difficulties of life is organized in many different ways. The first way: repeat the example of King Solomon. You can really engrave the ring in a jewelry store and always wear it on your finger. Another way to look at this wise expression is to make a beautiful sign that will hang in a conspicuous place in your home.

Let in your head not a picture of a sad development of events for you, but this useful phrase. In the meantime, you will begin to take any action, at least to divert attention, then you will understand what to do to directly solve the problem.

Don't be afraid to think about your enemy - about the problem that poisons your existence. It is better to muster up the courage and analyze whether the grief is as great as his tortured brain represents. Analyze it. Ask yourself: “Yes, I have a problem. And what follows from this? What are the consequences of an unresolved problem?” You need to represent honestly: choose not only negative consequences, but also a positive outcome of events. After all, you must clearly understand that there are always several options for the outcome, and excluding the positive ones, you do not leave yourself a chance to change something.

Remember that you need to be sure to break the repetitive cycle of negative thinking. This is difficult because thought patterns (the paths that thought takes through the neurons of the brain) are already well-worn paths: the more they are walked on, the bigger they become. It is already difficult to think differently, but you do it. All events in life follow your thoughts. That is, first you give an assessment of the event in your head, coloring it in some color, and only then look at everything else through the prism of your assessment. Throw away at least for a while black colors from your palette of thoughts. Any event for the universe has no emotional color, neither good nor bad. So for one person the event will be bad, and for the other it will be good. Only people evaluate events, only you decide whether you will learn a lesson from what is happening or it will crush you with your own permission.

If your problem came from outside, for example, a loved one died or you were left homeless, then the positive thinking techniques described above will come to your aid. In the case when the problem concerns your psyche and worldview, the “pattern break” technique will help. The mechanism of the passage of thoughts (nerve impulses) through the neurons of the brain has already been described above. It is much easier for a lazy brain to let its thoughts go along already known paths - patterns of behavior. Will have to make an effort of will to "blaze" a new path.

In fact, this way looks like this. Experiment with any thought (it is not necessary to immediately reflect on the problem that bothers you). For this exercise, any statement that you have no doubt about, that is already firmly stuck in the brain, will do. Usually it is from such thoughts and behavioral reactions that a pattern is formed.

Next, try to doubt this statement. This will be difficult to do, because it has been fixed many years ago and it seems that there can be no other opinion. When you try to convince yourself that long-familiar things may be completely different from what they seem, you will feel a kind of resistance. It's like cutting a path through the impenetrable jungle with a machete, sweating, despite the fact that there is a path already cut in the thickets nearby.

If you work on yourself so regularly, you will definitely pave new paths. It cannot be otherwise, this is how you once formed ideas about the world that you are now guided by without subjecting them to analysis. But it is precisely for a conscious life, and not a semi-automatic one, that we are given the opportunity to be aware of ourselves, along with which we need for thoughts and actions.

There is another plus: when you look for new variations (logical connections), new connections are formed among the billions of brain neurons, even if such thoughts seem fantastic at first - it doesn’t matter, the main thing is to cover the brain with a network of connections. Then one day a brilliant idea or an amazing solution to a problem will come to you that you could not have thought of before, because the vast majority of neurons are now connected to any of them, even a distant neuron (although the word “remote” does not fit the description of instantaneous neural connections). ).

“If you cannot change the circumstances, change your attitude towards them” - stick to this rule.

March 23, 2014, 03:41 pm

No matter how our life develops, there are always obstacles on the way to the goal. How to overcome difficulties and not give up?

As they say, difficulties harden us. Thanks to them, we become stronger. Of course, provided that we overcome them.

Difficulties allow us to accumulate all our strength for the realization of our desires and make a leap forward. As psychologists say, it is in a critical situation that a person has such a huge release of energy that he is able to demolish everything in his path, so goals are realized much faster. Why? Very simple:

A person is able to clearly see his goal,
- to know that his goal is what he needs,
- to believe that he will cope with it.

And these components are very important in overcoming obstacles.

When our life flows calmly and smoothly - it's great, but for the time being. As they say, everything is fine, but something is missing. A person needs bursts of emotions, otherwise there is no movement forward. Difficulties are the engine of progress.

Difficulties bring positive into our lives, especially from the awareness of overcoming them. We become more confident in ourselves, and with calm determination we move on.

I offer 10 ways to overcome difficulties.

1. No need to avoid problems and difficulties. They will still be. You just need to treat them as a natural manifestation of life and an opportunity to show your best qualities.

5. Difficulties develop your resourcefulness. And like, there was no way out, but appeared. And if you still show ingenuity, then everything will work out in the best possible way.

6. Remember that you are not the only one having difficulties. Everyone faces this. And if others can overcome it, why not you too?

7. Think positively. As my friend told me: “Natalia, everything is fine with you in any situation: “the knives are not sharpened - the children will not cut themselves, it blows from the window - fresh air in the house.” Of course, you don’t need to wear rose-colored glasses, but you shouldn’t constantly worry about minor problems. There are worse situations in life.

8. Do not dwell on the problem, do not grind it in your head, but try to solve it. And the sooner you start doing this, the better for you.

9. Never set yourself up for failure. Otherwise, why start something that will obviously end soon? As you set, so be it. Thoughts are material, whatever one may say.

10. And yet, if you have difficulties and you cope with them, then new opportunities, new chances await you ahead. Try not to miss them!

I wish you good luck in overcoming difficulties. May it always accompany you!

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I don’t know what they did to us in our childhood, and how we all got it that one of the important “chips” of education in the post-Soviet space was considered to be overcoming. Overcoming is put next to adaptation, stress resistance, motivation and will. Although overcoming is rather a path to the development of motivation, will and stress tolerance.

In explanatory dictionaries, "overcome" is interpreted as "win", "overpower", "achieve", "overcome". That is, we are talking about some kind of obstacle, often hidden in ourselves, overcoming which we achieve our goals, which means we become one step higher in our ongoing self-development.

Obstacles can be personal comfort, laziness, lack of motivation, anxiety and fear, doubt, physical or intellectual difficulty of the task. Coping with these obstacles, we become stronger, more flexible, more persistent, more adaptive. Or, on the contrary, a strong, flexible, motivated person will easily overcome any obstacle? I am interested in how much the element of overcoming should be present in the life of a child? What qualities does he lay down and how to model such situations in life? And in general, what is considered overcoming?

I am often approached by parents whose children have completely lost their motivation to study at school (training, music lessons, and so on). When we begin to analyze the situation, it turns out, as an option, that the child is at the mercy of an exorbitant load for his age, that purely physiologically he is not able to achieve success within the limits in which he was placed. Moreover, in the view of parents, the child must overcome this situation, cope, survive. For example, through joint efforts, a child entered a prestigious gymnasium, they don’t leave such schools - just feet first, you need to survive at any cost.

The second option - the child is forced to constantly interact with a person (teacher, coach), who causes fear in him or expresses irritation, rejection towards the child. Naturally, the motivation for learning here also tends to zero. Again, parents perceive this as a reason for the child to overcome their inner discomfort and adapt to the current situation.

The third option is that the child does not have the ability for the type of activity that he is forced to engage in for tempering his character, or he has pronounced learning difficulties. Whether it's a school or a sports section, he is put in a situation of chronic failure. And again, we, irrepressible parents, remember about overcoming: come on, try, you can, you can handle it. Unfortunately, the success story does not work out, and motivation again tends to the abyss.

And what, asks the parent, to take him away? Create comfortable greenhouse conditions for him? But life will not be merciful, and he simply will not survive in the face of fierce competition! It’s good that while dad and mom are nearby, what will happen then? No, it's better to study now

But one of the signs of successful adaptation is the ability of a person to get out of a traumatic, meaningless or simply uncomfortable situation without explaining the reasons. Hasn't the creative transformation of reality, the search for one's own path, the understanding of oneself and one's capabilities and limitations given birth to a million amazing discoveries? How often we, accustomed to overcome the insurmountable, to endure what is not necessary to endure, to humble ourselves where it makes no sense, live in captivity of rigid attitudes that it is so "necessary", "we must", "and who is now easy." But life can really be easy. And the most interesting thing is that you don’t have to pay for it, as supporters of the theory of overcoming difficulties think. Finding your place in life means overcoming the attitudes that your parents and school laid in you in childhood, convincing you that you will never become, for example, a scientist or a singer or just a successful person, because you are not ... that you never learned to do.

Well, what then is the role of overcoming in the development of personality? Is it all empty? Of course not. Only by overcoming ourselves every day, we feel a taste for expanding our capabilities, a taste for growth and development, we develop a sense of strength, excitement, confidence, and nurture motivation. Here it is important to clearly understand what overcoming is for the child and how to make it work in a positive way.

Overcoming must be with a plus sign

This means that the child does not have to overcome conditions of chronic stress, where the reward for him will be ... yes, there will be no reward. Behind the effort should always be joy, positive reinforcement, recognition, attention from parents and, as a result, the growth of self-esteem and the development of motivation: the desire to repeat this pleasant experience - the link "effort - joy" in the future. Examples of how this works are numerous in the literature. As a child, I was very shy to speak in front of the class, but when I first read my essay in front of everyone, the teacher and the children liked it so much that since then this fading in front of the audience has become the sweetest feeling, and for the sake of it I want to overcome myself more and more. In this story there was a limitation - my fear, overcoming - going out in public and positive reinforcement - recognition. As a result, my motivation to write texts received a nutrient medium. And this is how it works in all areas. When you offer a child to overcome something, think about what awaits him beyond the pass?

Overcoming should be within the power of the child

These adults sometimes amaze with fortitude and triumph of will, literally jumping above their heads. However, apparently, these adults had a powerful experience of believing in themselves in childhood. Apparently, there was a mother and father nearby, who did not doubt them for a second. And the child... his personality is only growing and getting stronger, his motives are fragile. When we set a super task for him, we are guaranteed to bury his motivation in the ground. No, this does not mean that the child should only perform easy tasks. But the complex that he needs to overcome must be feasible at least in theory. Example: many child gymnasts overcome pain during split stretching. A wise coach will never stretch children immediately in the first months of training. The wisest one sometimes waits a year or more, he waits until the child is imbued with the beauty of this sport, begins to identify himself with other athletes, wants to be the same as them. That's when he starts pulling the kids. Firstly, stretching becomes meaningful for the child, he sees the goal and rejoices that he is getting closer to it. Secondly, the pain from stretching is tolerable, it can be endured. And gradually the children begin to reach out on their own, through pain, at home - here it is, motivation in action. A narrow-minded coach begins to pull the children right away, in the first days, the children yell and cry, the parents mumble about overcoming, the coach pulls painfully and rudely. As a result, it is unlikely that such children who have run away from sports will, in principle, want to endure even the slightest physical discomfort in the future.

Overcoming should be short term

The child must see what his work leads to, what effect he was able to achieve. The younger the child, the closer should be the goal and the joy of achieving it. Agree, the topic that you need to plow for five years in a strong gymnasium in order to then enter a prestigious university will not work. Here it is wiser to look for more transparent and tangible goals, for example, participation in olympiads, protection of one's own projects, recognition of a teacher.

Summing up, dear parents, I am still convinced that being in a hostile team is not overcoming.

To endure the humiliation and rudeness of a teacher is not overcoming. Being in chronic fear is not overcoming, sleeping little and eating poorly is not overcoming. Experiencing a constant sense of failure is not overcoming

It's all about how to kill the motivation for learning and self-development for many years to come, guaranteed. But I am tormented by the question, why is it still so scary for many parents to take a child out of uncomfortable conditions for him? Why do they believe that the only way to raise a resilient, motivated and strong child is to make him very bad?