Learn How to be Happy, Even When Facing Real-Life Obstacles
Going through a rough patch in your life and wondering how to be happy?
Here
are some tips on how to be happy, enthusiastic, hopeful, and passionate about
life.
By Jacqueline Walker
Often the blow from these disappointments can leave us feeling stressed, depressed, or downright oppressed; yet life and its activities continue.
We can’t wish our troubles away, and we can’t erase them.
However, we can stay positive, believing that better days lie ahead.
Don’t sit still or hideaway.
Get mad for a minute, but don’t stay mad, and don’t sit still and allow trials and tribulations to get the best of you.
Instead, we must move on and take steps to remove every threat against us; and we must do so with an uplifted spirit.
Motivational speaker, Nick Vujicic sums it up very well,
“Life may not be going well for you now, but as long as you are here, as long as you press forward, anything is possible. Hold on to hope.”
Acceptance is the first step
We must first acknowledge that we live in an imperfect world and problems are inevitable. That thought may seem daunting, but it’s reality.
So, the first step in living and being happy even when facing obstacles is realizing that we will hit bumps along the roads we will travel, and we can’t always predict when they will happen.
If we keep this mindset, we won’t feel entirely blindsided when we hit a barrier.
Keeping this perspective helps us to stay positive and remain joyful even through tough times because we realize the situation is temporary.
“Hope is important because it can make the present moment less difficult to bear. If we believe that tomorrow will be better, we can bear a hardship today,”—Thich Nhat Hanh
While we accept problems are a part of reality and will occur, we must never allow them to encompass all our time and thoughts.
Putting too much focus on our challenges can break our spirit, crush our hearts, strip our energy, and steal our happiness.
Much of our happiness is up to us. So, here are a few tips to consider when we hit that rough patch and need some help to stay enthusiastic, hopeful, and passionate about life.
How to be happy even when facing obstacles
1. We must be deliberate in finding activities and events to put these issues out of our minds from time to time
To remain happy through trials, we must develop the personal discipline to accept the situation at hand but never allow ourselves to get engrossed.
We can’t ignore it, and we can’t pretend it isn’t happening.
However, it should not be prevalent in our minds and thoughts day and night.
We must be able to deduce what is in our control and work to correct it.
Whatever is not in our control, we must methodically set aside—worrying and pondering about it day and night will not change it.
Overthinking and obsessing about the situation will not resolve it. So, we must do what we can and make up our minds to be happy.
Thinking about it over and over usually increases our doubt and reduces our happiness.
“I think and think and think, I‘ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it,”—Jonathan Safran Foer.
It is up to each one of us to seize our happiness.
We must demand happiness—make it a requirement and not a “nice to have.” We can’t just say we want to be happy. In order to be happy, we must live out our words and do the things that bring us joy. That will pour happiness into our hearts and put a smile on our faces.
2. Never play the blame game is a vital answer to being happy
Even if someone had a hand in putting up the obstacles we are facing, we should try to limit the effort we put into being angry with them.
It’s fine to blow off steam, but let it go as quickly as possible.
Allowing blame and anger to fester will rob you of the ability to think clearly to work through the problem, and get ahead.
The “blame game” and the anger that comes with it will make you feel sad, not glad.
“Holding on to anger, resentment, and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache, and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.” – Joan Lunden.
Putting this focus on others can cause overreaction making the obstacle seem more important than it is and delaying our effort to knock it out of our path.
To keep our hope alive, we must keep our spirits lifted, our hearts cheerful, and our minds optimistic.
We can give our power away, or we can hold tight to it and use it to guide our path to find a solution to our problem.
The power is within us. When we give in to blame and anger, we concede control to others. When we rise above, we take control.
We should hold on to our power—smile and enjoy life.
3. We must practice patience if want to be happy.
Troubles come, and troubles go—more often than not, better times are just ahead.
“Be happy, and a reason will come along,”—Anonymous.
We must wait patiently through the storm so that when it is all over and our path is clear, we have not spent all our vigor and emotions. We have the resources we need to move on.
Maintaining patience requires that we exercise serenity—keep our composure.
When we stay calm, we can better assess our surroundings and the state of events. We can make the best decision to settle the concerns at hand.
We must accept the reality of the situation. Learn to keep our wits to analyze what we need and how to go about it.
When we lose patience, take things personally, or don’t think clearly, we lose focus, and we lose our conviction.
Remaining tranquil will help us keep our spirits lifted, promoting confidence and giving us the drive to persevere.
4. Our happiness is up to us
We can’t depend on others to say or do what we need to be happy.
Also, as our experience grows, we realize that life is a mix of good and evil, sad times and happy times, favor and tribulation.
There will be times when everything that can go wrong will go wrong.
Then there will be times when it seems like we can do no wrong. Everything turns out just the way we expect.
So, we must be prepared to smile, laugh, forge ahead, and stay upbeat no matter the situation.
When clouds hover over our life, we must keep believing. Keep working because we know the clouds will eventually pass and the sun will shine.
We need to celebrate our triumphs when we find ourselves in good times.
When we go through a difficult period, we need to reflect on our past wins, remember the times we dealt with challenging circumstances and prevailed, and celebrate those victories.
Even in troubling times, we can control our happiness. Practicing patience, taking responsibility, and recognizing that blaming others will not change the situation will help you be happy.
Instead, we need to be intentional and take command of our happiness.
“We must accept finite, disappointment, but we never lose infinite hope.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.