What To Do When You Hate Your Life?
By Anubhav Srivastava ( Register for his Workshop – Build Super Confidence For Super Success!)
We all go through times when it feels like nothing is working out at all. It is almost as if the universe is out to get us. No matter what good deeds we do or how hard we work, all we seem to get in return for it is a big zero or worse, misfortune.
What should you do if you hate your life or are not happy with the way things are going. Maybe you have just stopped caring at all and would rather wish your life gets over with as quickly as possible. What do you do then?
1) Take responsibility to fix things
There are various things in life that are out of control. We do not have control over when something unexpectedly hits us and shatters us. We do not have control over a sudden tragedy hitting us or things not turning out as we expected. But what we do have control over is how we react to it.
In fact the only thing we have control over is the power of how we choose to act in response to something that happens to us. Suppose you have a tragedy that happens to you. It is good and even healthy to mourn things for a period but after a while you need to realize that life goes and get back to doing the things you were doing previously. While difficult at first, in time you will be able to push through the pain and start living life again. If you decide to cut your self from the world however, you will go into a downward spiral and never be able to recover. Two different conscious choices to the same reaction led to two vastly different results. Which result will you end up with. The answer is whatever choice you choose to make today, no matter how difficult it is. So the first thing to do if you want to stop hating your life is to take responsibility to fix it.
2) Surrender
Can taking responsibility and surrendering coexist? Absolutely! Surrendering simply means letting go of the desire to control every outcome and result WHILST still making healthy choices and actions. Surrendering DOES not mean you no longer have to care about your action. If you no longer care about actions it’s like refusing the steering wheel while driving a car and then still expecting the car to reach the destination without a crash! Surrendering means you accept whatever that happens or will relinquish the control for the outcome while retaining control of the action.
For example suppose someone who you love wants to break things off with you for whatever reason. Sometimes the reason maybe superficial, the other times it maybe genuine. There is no point trying to control the outcome because the outcome is not under your control anyway. All that is in your control are your actions. So in this case, you can keep contacting them once in a while and respecting their space or you can show your love for them regularly without being excessively pushy or you may decide to not contact them at all, depending on the situation. The most important thing is to focus on your life instead of obsessively focusing on the outcome. If they are yours, they will come back to you anyway. If they don’t, life goes on. But you can’t control an outcome so surrender and stop worrying about it.
3) Get a purpose in Life
Your life will always appear directionless if you don’t know where to go. The day you truly start living is when you realize what is it that you are willing to die for. Maybe you are not lucky enough to find something that you love so passionately. That is okay. Not everyone will experience the same intensity towards a life goal and for others it will come with time. But it is important you find meaning in something.
A life without a goal is like living a life the way animals do. Their basic desires are limited to food, sleep and sex and they don’t do much beyond that. The potential of a human life is so much more and without a purpose it appears increasingly meaningless. Now a purpose does not have to be materialistic, or excessively lofty either, anything that makes you happy and gives you a reason to look forward to every new day is great! So get a purpose in life and you will hardly ever have a reason to hate your life
4) Focus on what you have
I have always maintained that root of low self confidence or not liking your life is when people focus excessively on their weaknesses instead of their strengths. When all people do is focus on what they are lacking, all they are going to do is hate their life and be jealous of others’. We all have subconsciously trained ourselves to look for what we lack instead of appreciating what we have. We may be amazingly blessed with great talents, relationships or friends and yet we only focus on the talents we lack, the relationships we lack and the life we lack. Some people cry because they don’t have the boyfriend or girlfriend of their dreams whilst forgetting they have family who love them more than their boyfriends/girlfriends probably ever will.
When you focus on what you have your whole perspective towards life will change. You will realize that life is meant to be a mixed bag. You are not going to always have it all, nor are you going to have nothing. Count your blessings because no matter what you have, it is guaranteed there is someone else in the world that does not have it. So stop hating your life and start loving it.
5) Seek Help
The truth is that some people do have a tendency towards thinking negatively in life. This is either a result of their life experiences or it may very well be a genetic predisposition towards this kind of thinking. Either way, in these cases nobody really gets out of the rut in their life alone. Humans are social animals, they need companionship to get them through times and for them to be able to enjoy life properly.
If there is something that is bothering you then confide to a friend, family member, mentor or someone you trust immensely. Don’t bottle up things thinking not talking about them will solve them. If anything it is only going to make it worse. There are so many cases of people following destructive patterns, just because they thought no one could help them with their problems so they might as well go and destroy their lives further. Don’t do that. As a human, you and your life are a diamond, the best of the best in this world. A remarkable creation of God! But unless you know what a diamond looks like, you are going to consider yourself worthless, until someone else tells you that are one 🙂
So put the diamond within you at work and start living your life! Good luck!
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The writer of this article, Anubhav Srivastava is an author, motivational speaker and the director of Carve Your Destiny, a first of its kind inspirational documentary featuring some of the most famous personalities from diverse fields, who teach the viewers how they too can make all of their dreams come true. The movie itself has been seen on Youtube by over 800,000 people. Anubhav has also been featured in numerous International and India Media outlets such as BBC , The Times of India, Hindustan Times, Rediff.com, Leicester Mercury and many others.
Email Anubhav Srivastava for coaching, consulting or motivational speaking queries at anubhav101@gmail.com. Facebook Profile: http://facebook.com/anubhav981
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