“When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time.” ~ Saint Francis de Sales

We all struggle with change, stress and difficulties in life. Things happen unexpectedly every day in both job situations and personal lives. Yet, what matters most is how a person reacts to change.

How to Manage Stress and Overcome Difficulties

Some people seem to be better than others at dealing with all the unexpected things that happen. They seem to have the knowledge, experience, and mental power to face anything.

Here are 6 steps you can take to help improve your ability to handle anything that happens to you:

1. Change your thoughts. 

Any situation can be looked at from a positive or negative perspective. One person may feel threatened by what someone says, while another person seems unaffected. One person may be devastated by a job loss, while another sees it as a chance to do something new. It all depends on your attitude. Every situation you find yourself in can be perceived in a bad way or good way. This means what you decide what it means to you.

One way of learning to handle stress and overcome difficulties is to avoid negative thinking about any situation or any person. Gravitate toward the positive. This means you make a decision to keep positive thoughts in your mind and let go of any negative ideas. Look at the bright side. Use affirmations to remind yourself to keep thinking positive. This will help you overcome your difficulties and build up your inner power. Mental discipline is something that everyone is capable of, but it must be practiced.

2. Turn away from fear and conflict. 

We all make choices every day that either relates to fear or to love. Often our fears are something that causes us to create or become involved in a conflict, so to avoid conflict, you must do the opposite. You must let go of the fears in your mind and stay away from conflict. This can be done by choosing a path of love, instead of fear, and keeping your focus on peace, instead of conflict.

Just knowing that you truly desire peace will help you focus on better things.  If you follow your fears, you will undoubtedly find yourself mixed up in conflict, but if you choose to look at everything with love, your whole perspective will change and you will manifest more good in your life.

3. Learn to live in alignment with your purpose. 

We all search for ways to live better and happier lives. Finding your purpose is important. It is a very personal and individual thing and requires some soul searching.  People practice mindfulness so they can be in touch with their feelings, live in the present moment, and find happiness in life.

Being mindful of your life’s purpose comes from self-awareness and ultimately leads you on a path of inner peace.

Becoming associated with a type of spiritual practice or religion can help you feel that your life has a purpose and you are connected to others.  Those who define their life purpose as being loving and helpful toward others are more likely to avoid conflict and have reduced amount of fear, and less stress in their daily lives.

We all are searching for calmness in a world that can often seem chaotic. Some of the most popular ways to reduce daily stress with relaxation and calmness are through practices like massage, meditation and yoga, or visiting spiritual practitioners.  Many people create areas of their home for relaxation and meditation. Spending quiet time is a way to increase your self-awareness, improve your ability to focus on your goals and something that can help your mental clarity.

4. Identify your strengths.

We all have natural talents that we are born with. Everyone is good at something. There are many talented athletes, musicians, and actors, and brilliant professors, scientists, leaders, and achievers in every profession. Inner strength is about knowing yourself and your abilities. Take time to think about and analyze what your natural strengths and talents are. Maybe you are good at communicating and building social relationships. Or, you could be very knowledgeable about computers and better at working independently. Perhaps you have rare musical talent or artistic abilities.

Just recognizing your own personal strengths will help you to explore your abilities and discover what you are passionate about.  Many people believe in “doing what you are good at”, in order to be happy at what you do. The sooner in life you can recognize your own talents, the more successful you are probably going to be at developing them and making your dreams become reality.

5. Claim your personal power. 

Some people have problems that last for years because they believe that they are helpless to solve them. But, it is their helplessness that actually prevents them from moving past the problem and finding the solution.

When you consider your own abilities, you should never concentrate on what obstacles there may be. The truth is, you can decide to do almost anything and if you truly desire it and are willing to work hard for it, you will probably make it happen. Most people have the inner power that they are unaware of. Claiming your inner power is about being bold when you need to, having the courage to take chances, and doing things you have never done before.

6. Do what you can with where you are.

In any situation in life, you are faced with several choices about what you can do. Concentrate on doing what you can with where you are. When your life purpose is to love, you will find opportunities every day in your career or personal life where you can relate to others with love instead of fear, and find peace instead of conflict.

When looking at your goals, be brave about taking steps that you feel need to be taken. Don’t let opportunities pass you by. You can always do something to change a situation, so it is important to know what you can do. Every goal that you make requires effort. Be passionate about your dreams and don’t let anything stop you from making them come true. When you are faced with obstacles that seem to keep you from achieving something, don’t give up. Keep trying for the goals you want to reach.

Being willing to do something when it needs to be done will make you a leader. A leader steps forward face their fears and overcome them. If you want to build up your inner power, turn away from fear and conflict, choose love and peace, know your purpose, recognize your strengths, claim your power and do what you can.

Remembering to do these 6 things every day, will make you a stronger, more focused person and no matter what happens in your life, you will be capable of handling it with calmness and purpose while looking for the good that can come out of it.

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