How to Ride Life’s Ups and Downs

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How to Ride Life’s Ups and Downs

Life isn’t about the number of ups and downs that you experience, but how you deal with them. You can let success go to your head and become complacent. Or you can remain grounded and check your ego at the door. You can get angry, feel sorry for yourself, and cast blame during tough times. Or you can stay calm, remain true to your values, and look for a trace of blue in the dark skies ahead.

7 Ways to Ride Life’s Ups and Downs

The way that you respond to situations says a lot about you and will ultimately determine your success and happiness. Here are seven ways to ride life’s ups and downs.

Be in control. Some things are beyond your control. Then again, you do have control over how you respond to each situation.

Manage your expectations. Every day won’t be bright and sunny. If life were a bed of roses, you’d still need to avoid the thorns.

Don’t overreact. Don’t believe everything you think. When things go well, don’t assume good times will last forever. When things go wrong, don’t think the world is coming to an end. Like most things, the truth lies somewhere in-between.

Keep things in perspective. Don’t take things to extremes. It’s never helpful to be overconfident or to punish yourself for disappointments. If you build a lifestyle based on the good old times lasting forever, you may be in for a rude awakening. What’s more, if you beat yourself up over one failed effort, you can turn one unfortunate situation into lasting damage to your self-confidence.

Cut yourself some slack. Don’t take losses personally. Separate the incident from your self-worth. Mistakes don’t make you a failure, but beating yourself up makes you feel like one.

Live and learn. Do you view failure as a slap in the face or as an opportunity to learn? The difference between a stepping-stone and a stumbling block is the way in which you approach it.

Be patient. Nothing lasts forever. When you’re in the throes of a bad patch, a minute can feel like a lifetime. It helps to remember that this too shall pass — it takes a rain shower to create a rainbow.

You have a choice. You can let yourself be knocked around during the roller-coaster ride we call life or you can accept the highs and lows in stride. The choice that you make will not only affect your mental health and success rate, but it’ll also determine your happiness. The difference between a winner and an also-ran isn’t always that the loser fell on hard times; it’s how the loser faced the adversity. Win or lose, it’s up to you. Enjoy the ride.

LISTEN UP … Listen to Your Conscience. That’s Why You Have One is now available as an audiobook. Check it out on Amazon, Audible, or iTunes.

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