Handle Negative Situations
Everyone encounters negative situations, whether at home, work, in the community, or at school. How we deal with these situations is what determines whether we grow and become stronger, or are beaten by them.
Contents
Steps
- Figure out how to react. Before doing anything, give yourself a moment to calm down. When you're in a negative situation, you can get stressed out very easily and do the wrong thing. Take a moment, take a few deep breaths, relax, and think clearly. If you respond when you're still emotional, chances are you'll only make things worse. Once you've collected yourself, your emotions, and your thoughts, you'll be able to deal with the situation much better. Life will always present you with bad situations, but it's up to you how you're going to react to them.
- Don't keep your emotions bottled up. In order for you to move on from this negative situation, you'll need to be able to let go. It's very hard to do this when you keep your emotions bottled up inside of you. Talk to someone about it; a friend, family member, etc. Vent about your feelings in a journal or blog, or even a loose leaf paper that you shred afterwards. Cry, scream, or punch a pillow if you need to. Doing this will release the tension inside of you and help you start to move on.
- Look at it like an obstacle that you need to overcome. Life will throw many obstacles at you, and there's no use crumpling at the sight of them. If you work hard, you can overcome those obstacles and move on with your life.
- Admit your mistakes. Sometimes something you've done has gotten you in a negative situation. If this is so, instead of keeping everything cooped up inside of you, admit that you've made a mistake. Apologize and move on.
- Stay positive! The best way to deal with negative situations is to stay positive! It's not as easy as it sounds, but it can be done. Don't allow yourself to become jaded by something bad that's happened. Stay positive, don't jump to conclusions, and keep an open mind. Eliminate negative thoughts; dwelling on the bad won't make a difference. Every cloud has a silver lining, so find a bit of positivity in every bad situation.
- Learn to laugh at yourself. Don't be so serious! Have a sense of humor and learn to laugh at yourself and your situation. Embarrassing moments happen, and there's nothing you can do, so why not just laugh about it? Laughter is the best medicine, after all.
- Step back from the situation and decide if there is a possibility of a good outcome. Not all bad situations are permanently bad. Instead of focusing on the problem, focus on the solution. Did you lose your job?
- You can respond by becoming despondent and give up, draw unemployment compensation, and spend your savings or,
- Look at options like improving your skills by attending school or other training opportunities
- Choose not to be affected by it. Know that you always have a choice. Even though you can't control what happens to you, you can always control how it affects you. For example, you can't control the person who is bullying you, but you can control the way you feel about it. Realize that the bully is wrong about you and that you shouldn't listen to what they say, or take it to heart. Let's say that your sibling is making fun of you. You have a choice of what to do in this situation:
- Think positively, and take their comments as incentive to change and improve yourself.
- Fight back, and deepen the rift or even cause lasting ill will.
- Take something negative and use it to improve yourself. When someone says something negative, look into their message and see if there's something helpful in there. If someone insulted your hairstyle, why not try getting a new one? This is a great opportunity for change, and you might find that you love your new style even more than your old one.
- If the message is 100% negative, just ignore it.
- Learn from it. Instead of getting angry, sad, or upset, learn from what has happened. Was it something inside of your control? How can you learn from your mistake and avoid repeating it later in life? Was it something out of your control? You shouldn't be so upset if there was nothing you could have done to stop the negative thing from happening. Que sera, sera, after all. Instead of viewing this situation as a horrible thing, think about it as a learning opportunity.
- Don't try to please everyone. Nobody can please everyone. Instead of focusing on making other people happy, focus on making yourself happy. This will improve your life vastly. Don't waste your time around negative people that you're always trying to impress. Spend time with positive people who love you and accept you for who you are.
- Keep yourself motivated. Listen to a motivational speaker or program. Find quotes that inspire you and place them in places that you go to often to help keep you happy throughout the day.
Tips
- It's okay to ask for help.
- Realize that it's all about perception. What seems like the end of the world now might not seem so bad down the road. What seems like a big deal to you might be nothing compared to what other people are going through.
- Remember that you are not alone. Bad things happen to everyone.
- Never give up! Be resourceful and don't quit until the problem has been resolved.
- The 3C's of life →choices, chances, and changes. You must make a choice to make a chance or your life will never change.
Warnings
- Don't let the situation change you for the worse. Don't let it damage your self-esteem or make you jaded and resentful.
