Category: Goals

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Goals Life Transitions

How Can I Make It Through a Rough Transitional Period?

Doesn’t the Stress of Change Ever Cease?

Humans are constantly evolving physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, behaviorally and spiritually and our self-identity changes over time as well. We never stop growing, developing and transforming. Therefore, our self-confidence, self-esteem and self-concept are also constantly in flux. Few people feel like they are exactly the same as they were a year or more ago.

Is Transition an Even and Predictable Process?

No, evolution does not progress smoothly or predictably. And some people struggle more than others to grow. Some develop and unfold in small increments. Others change in remarkable ways. Some are stuck and others regress and go backward. So, a human life is in a “start-stop” evolutionary progression.

Some people initiate their own growth while others passively wait for it to happen naturally. Or, they avoid and resist change altogether. Most significant growth is challenging and accompanied by some type of struggle or pain. Infants and small children grow the most and they struggle a lot to develop. From 5 to 12 we often struggle less. Then from 13 to 26 the struggle is heightened and confronts us again. All of this is referred to as developmental maturation or differentiation.

Do Adults Go Through Changes?

Adult humans grow and develop through transitional periods of change. There may be quieter periods when little seems to be shifting. Then of course, there are tragedies, losses, illnesses, accidents and unexpected events and changes that catch us by surprise, set us back or stop us in our tracks. Sometimes events are such powerful or traumatic experiences that they send us backwards into psychological turmoil.

At times, these transitional experiences can be very disorienting, painful and frightening. We fear getting stuck forever in the process. Transitions are hard and everyone experiences them. Some are harder than others. Whether it’s adolescent turmoil, young adult emancipation, loss of a loved one, divorce, illness, aging or career change, all of us confront transitions.

What Can I Do If a Transition Seems to Overwhelm Me?

If you get stuck or feel overwhelmed, seek psychological assistance to get through a transitional period successfully. Don’t give up or surrender to despair. There is a new and richer life after an unexpected event if you work through the transition to the other side.

Often, life transitions don’t feel good and you may not know where you’re headed. But nevertheless, muster up your courage and get support and guidance to face your dilemma, overcome it and conquer it. You’ll be glad you did and you’ll be able to give more to others after your maturing and meaningful passage.

You can do it and you can succeed. You are resilient and can adapt and change.

If you need support and guidance while plowing through a difficult life transition, give me a call – 805-448-5053. I can keep you moving forward to the other side.

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Goals Problem-Solving

How Can I Become More Resilient?

Life Is a Series of Problems to Jump Over.

As I have said before, life is often experienced as a series of problems to manage. Some barriers and goals are easy, some are harder and some are impossible. And, they are relentlessly confronting you and they leave you little rest.

Life presents you with a sequence of hurdles to jump over. Some are high. Some are low. As you know, you successfully clear most of the hurdles in your path. But you cannot jump over a few obstacles because they are too high. And at times you may miss your jump and crash into a few hurdles. This is life.

What Is Resiliency?

For a gratifying life, you must rise up after you fall and find a way to get over the difficult hurdles. This is resilience. You should not give up easily and accept defeat.

As you know from your own personal experience, always succeeding is impossible. Some barriers cannot be surmounted and you will fail at times. Plus, you will always need to practice repeatedly in order to improve your abilities.

Often, when faced with challenges, picking yourself up and bouncing back up is more important than succeeding the first time. Putting in effort to overcome obstacles will build your inner strength. Your ability to rebound and keep trying when faced with a difficult situations is crucial in making progress and feeling fulfilled in life. The more hurdles you struggle with and jump over, the hardier you become.

How Do I Become More Resilient?

At times you may glide over issues easily and don’t even notice or recognize your success in dealing with an obstacle. At other times, you are quite aware of how hard you tried and are robbed of success. In other situations, you get discouraged because you seem to make so little progress. And then of course, there are times when you give up in defeat or you must face the fact that overcoming a particular goal is impossible and you need to accept that reality. Some obstacles and goals just aren’t surmountable. You cannot expect to succeed all the time.

Sometimes you will have difficulty in evaluating where you stand with a challenge. At those times, you must ask yourself to objectively review your situation and ask yourself critical questions such as, “Is this too much for me? Should I continue plunging forward? Is it worth the expenditure of time, effort and money? Can I realistically achieve this goal?” You need to have a positive attitude when you take on obstacles that are in your way and you must also be realistic.

Sometimes you will need to change your goals and modify your strategies or methods to achieve your goals. Being flexible is a valuable inner strength. With impossible barriers, it is wiser to let go and cease a senseless struggle. Then you can learn from your experience, set a new goal and take on another new challenge. Without struggling with problems and challenges, you will not grow or progress, you will lose momentum and get stuck or move backward in your life. Giving up or refusing to take on new challenges can set in motion a type of “slow death”.

Become a Hardy Hurdler.

When problems rise, try to jump over them. Don’t just stop or go around the hurdles in your way. I encourage you to pick your objectives wisely and then put in the effort to achieve them. This is resilience, one of the most vital personal inner characteristics for all of us.

I want all people to become more resilient and to rebound when they are down. And I believe that you can pull your life together and move onward toward personal fulfillment. I am not a dreamer. Becoming more resilient is very possible for you and others.

I’m a backpacker and many times I have worked hard to reach the top of a ridge. From there I can see other mountain ranges far in the distance ahead of me, a whole succession of ridge line silhouettes rising from lower to higher. In order to get to the farthest mountain top, I need to hike up each hill or mountain and then down the other side into the valleys below.  This can go on repeatedly until I reach my destination. Up and down. Up and down.  And it ain’t easy. Because I cannot fly, there is no other way to get there except to keep hiking.

If your problems seem insurmountable, give me a call – 805-448-5053. Perhaps I can guide you over and through some rough terrain.

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Business Coaching Goals Problem-Solving

What about Procrastination and “Unfinished Business”?

What about Procrastination?

How can you reach your personal, career or relationship goals if you avoid solving and eliminating natural and inevitable problems that arise? Putting things off until “tomorrow” only works if you focus on them tomorrow. But if you keep putting them off continually, the difficulties will never be resolved. Placing issues and problems in some type of mental waste basket and forgetting about them seldom works out well. Confronting difficulties will bring more success, relief and self-confidence.

Some people allow a number of significant problems to mount up over time. They avoid and procrastinate in solving them. They put these obstacles off into some type of make-believe future. Some people believe and hope that issues will magically go away and disappear without attending to them. There may be many of these problems stored away in some type of imaginary safe container that seals  off and prevents them from being remembered. But they never go silent. They persistently nag at us.

Procrastination and “Unfinished Business”.

Procrastination is a very big problem in the USA and for most people it is a big frustration that plagues them. I refer to this as “unfinished business”. These are barriers and difficult issues that you are not dealing but still feel annoyed by, like incomplete projects, broken promises, unresolved issues, past abuses, slights, put downs, failures, betrayals, misunderstandings,  or losses and violations by others.

The Impact of “Faulty Prioritizing”.

Your passivity may be unintentional and you may want to deal with the issue yet you keep avoiding decisive action and putting it off. Procrastination is form of “faulty prioritizing”. You may prioritize or identify a difficulty to be taken care of yet you come up with excuses to avoid or delay taking action. This is often followed by feelings of guilt and self-criticism. Procrastination damages your self-esteem and self-concept. If you keep it up long enough and procrastinate on a number of important issues, then it is easy to painfully label yourself as a “failure”.

Old lingering issues weigh you down and unconsciously create depression, anxiety, resentment, guilt, shame and seething anger. These problems may be out of mind, but they persist, disturb you inwardly and drain your energy. Some of this unfinished business can linger in you for 10, 20, 30 or more years.

Keep Progressing Forward.

Once a problem is solved, from your original list of prioritized problems, select a new difficulty to solve. Go at it with the same method outlined above. Be sure to choose new obstacles that you will probably be successful at achieving. Over time, you will develop the ability and desire to solve your largest problems.

If you don’t develop good problem-solving skills, then you may get emotionally overwhelmed and stuck. You may feel buried by a large or overwhelming number of issues to attend to and resolve. You must stop the procrastination and become more courageous and action oriented. To be dominated by anxiety, because you fear that you may fail, hurt omeone’s feelings or get injured or take further losses, can become paralyzing and self-defeating.

Keep Working at It.

Periodically, you will confront an issue or a series of issues that stop you dead in your tracks. But most of the time, you slowly work your way out of one problem and move onward toward the next issue in line. To get better and better at problem-solving takes repetitive practice and courage. It is a learned skill. And to improve, you constantly have to keep working at it.

Obviously, some problems are easier to manage and deal with than others. Some are daunting while others are minor routines. A few of the tougher problems will d

Problem-Solving Can Wear You Out.     

This continual process of facing problems, new and old, is stressful and tiresome. Sometimes you will block these persistent demands out of your awareness in order to relax and take a breather. But that strategy won’t work very well for very long. These issues will persist and disturb you mentally. Don’t allow yourself to become too discouraged. At times, take a break in order to reduce your stress and become more clear-headed.

What If I Get Stuck and Can’t Solve My Problems?

Unresolved problems can mount up and bury you psychologically. They usually persist in biting at your ankles, day in and day out, constantly bugging you until you face and deal with them. In fact, some big problems that you refuse to attend to end up wreaking long-term havoc in your life. Even money, distractions and drugs can’t make all of these difficulties vanish. And, new issues always arise and replace solved problems. We don’t live in a problem-free world.

If you are feeling overwhelmed then give me a call – 805-448-5053. I can help you overcome your stress and procrastination.

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Business Coaching Goals Problem-Solving

How Can I Solve My Problems?

 In a previous blog article entitled “Do I Really Believe that Life Is a Series of Problems?”, I said that life constantly presents us with problems to solve. Here I will give you tips on how to go about solving difficulties that you face.

How to Solve Personal Problems

This post will give you a detailed method to use to go about solving your own personal problems. Check it out and then put it to the test!

The goal in solving your personal problems is to chip away at one issue at a time, to successfully work through each problem in an unending sequential series. You must prioritize the issues that you intend to confront and then leverage your focus and problem-solving skills to overcome the different types of challenging obstacles and difficulties you choose to deal with.

6 Steps to Solve Your Problems:

  1. Write down a list of problems to deal with.
  2. Prioritize the problems from biggest to smallest.
  3. Assign each problem a number from highest to lowest priority.
  4. Assign some type of attractive reward to give to yourself after solving each problem.
  5. Make a new prioritized “working” list to start following and working on.
  6. After solving one issue, replace it with a new problem from your prioritized list.

Why Create Rewards for Myself?

Rewards are motivating and keep you working toward the desired goal. They give you something to look forward to. Rewards, or positive reinforcers, soothe the pain of your risk-taking and  hard labors. Match the size of the reward to the size of the problems. If you are working toward solving a big problem, then award yourself a big reward after successfully completing the task. Even if a problem is small, be sure to grant yourself something small when you succeed.

You should always congratulate and reward yourself after achieving something. You probably don’t praise yourself enough but you do deserve to give yourself more positive feedback when you accomplish something that took time, energy, money and/or courage. Give yourself recognition and esteem. Make sure the rewards match the problems to be solved. Avoid over-rewarding and under-rewarding.

Write down these rewards on your list of problems to be solved. Make the rewards visible so that you can refer to them in the future after you have worked to accomplish something. Then when you solve the problem refer to the list and follow through with making the reward to yourself.

How Do I Select Which Problems to Work On?

After making your new prioritized strategic “working list” to start your problem-solving adventure, select those issues to start with that you feel assured that you will successfully solve. Don’t start by tackling your most difficult or highly prioritized issues. The goal is to successively move forward, one success after another. Set yourself up for success because success breeds more success.

Don’t start with the most difficult or pressing problems. You want to move forward and gradually build your problem-solving skills, courage and confidence. Start with easier or moderately easy difficulties. Start with minor issues first to gain self-confidence in your problem-solving skills. This will take decision-making, commitment and persistence.

Be sure to protect yourself from failure when starting this process. Move slowly and keep your expectations as realistic as possible. By successfully moving through one problem after another, based on a chosen list, you are becoming smarter and stronger, hardier and wiser. Plus, you will eliminate problems and feel good about it!

Keep Progressing by Solving Problems One at a Time.

Once a problem is solved, from your original list of prioritized problems, select a new problem to solve. Go at the list with the same method outlined above. Be sure to choose new issues that you will probably be successful at achieving. Over time, you will develop the ability and desire to solve your largest problems.

Reach out now! As a psychologist and business coach, I am in the problem-solving business. Call for more information: 805-448-5053.

If you’d like to be notified when I post a new article, simply click the “Subscribe” link at the bottom of the page. Thanks!

 

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About Revel Goals Problem-Solving

Do I Really Believe that Life Is a Series of Problems?

Professional female hurdler during trainingYesserie. I sure do and I lay it all out below. This is how I experience my life. And this is what other people reveal to me about their personal experience.

Life Presents Us with a Series of Endless Hurdles to Jump Over.

No matter how hard you try, you can’t escape this reality. It’s like a truth or a law of human life and this is our relentless predicament here on earth. We are constantly challenged with problems.

We struggle to feed and clothe ourselves, to protect ourselves, to belong, to find love, and to actualize our potential. Only seldom are we fully relaxed and free of difficulties and concerns that face us. We cannot sustain a blessed condition of being or a blissful meditative state of mind for very long. Problems just keep rising.

barbed wireYou experience this daily, don’t you? Some days are better and some are worse. At times we deal with these obstacles very well and we solve them. We clear the path for new issues to arise.

At other times, we hesitate, get overwhelmed and botch it up, thereby creating more problems. Therefore, having good problem-solving skills is very helpful as we meander and maneuver through life.

Problems Are Not All Bad or Negative.

They help us to grow and develop, to expand our horizons. Many problems and concerns are positive challenges. Sometimes they are growth experiences in disguise, opportunities to discover new things. Some demands that we face may actually be gateways to new arenas that we may never have experienced before. Challenges help us develop and mature.

So, don’t dread problems and hope for a passive and boring life because it will never happen. And if it did, then that would be like a slow death.

I want my posts to help you strive for your dreams, overcome obstacles, realize new truths, love more and accept yourself. Take your life on with a new and bold commitment!

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