Survival Guide: Getting through the week from hell

Completely everything is working against you. Nothing, absolutely nothing is working in your favour  Suddenly seems like all the elements of nature combining and conspiring with the forces that be, have isolated you (the pawn) in the middle of life’s chess board and closing down on you. You know that feeling? I bet you do…the week from hell? I just had one of those.

Lost my car key (have no spare…been meaning to get one especially after I locked the same key inside the car less than a week ago), lost a job I had been anticipating, didn’t get some funding I badly needed, everything took a U-turn in the wrong direction in personal relationships and to make it worse I ended up in bed with the worse bout of malaria I have had in the past 3 years. I couldn’t just catch a break!

Mine was just a week. I have a friend who lost his job shortly after he got married and with the economic and job climate being the way it has been has not been able to get a proper job in 5 years! Add to that the fact that his wife miscarried his first son and fourth child, my Worry-land looks like paradise. How do we get through these days, weeks and years that remind us of just how little we are and how little we actually control.

Sing A Song

Going with Kanye Wests Stronger or Commons Dream would work just fine and worked for me in the past, but better yet…I write my own words now…tell my own story from a victor’s standpoint. For instance, 5 years ago, going through a rough patch I wrote:

About to set the world ablaze just to make it brighter
About to shake my world on a scale that’s off the richer
I’m in love with life so I don’t wanna fight her
Write her a love letter to make my burdens lighter…

 This morning I wrote:

Broke up with Miss Fortune. Told her it was fate
New date with Destiny.. she swore she won’t be late
She’s stood me up before you see.. chillin’ with Bill Gates
But now she says she into me and she can hardly wait…

 Write your own words.

 Breathe

It never rains but pours. When things start falling apart. Stand back. Breathe. Don’t lose your head if you lose everything else. Everything else is replaceable, but you are not. Take a holiday…a day off or something and always remember the following:

 The Sun will rise tomorrow…whether you’re here or not…so decide to be here

You might be irreplaceablebt you are not indespeneable…so stick around

The sky wont fall…no matter how much it feels like it will…it wont.

Count your blessings

It is so easy to feel overwhelmed with what you have lost or what is going wrong that we lose sight of all that is still right with our lives right now. Take a moment and count the things that you have been blessed with family, friendships, health, opportunities and so on. What you focus on will determine your next move. Focusing on misfortunes would leave you bitter and caught in self pity but focusing on the positive would help you propel yourself out of your present misfortunes and unto the path of success.

 Take Stock…objectively.

What went wrong? Why? Is there anything you could have done to avoid it? What? If there isn’t anything you could have done…then move on. Wasting your time on things you cannot change is just that…a waste of time. If there were any mistakes made, then take correction and look at things you need to do to avoid making the same mistakes again.

 Get up and move on

What are you waiting for? Find out what you can do right now to improve things. If plans didn’t work out..start making new ones and start implementing. To succeed in today’s climate, you need to be quick on the uptake and quicker in implementing. If at first you don’t succeed…pick yourself up and try again…NOW!