How to Overcome Adversity

Everyone has issues, and everyone faces adversity from time to time. Bills are overwhelming, sickness catches us unaware, or we are treated poorly or unfairly. You may even be exposed to some greater adversity or hardship.

Your future will be determined by how you face adversity. Some problems and difficulties can be easily overcome. Others wound us deeply, and we scarcely know how to rebound.

How can you overcome adversity? What can you do to move beyond your present troubles and get life back to normal?

There may not be one answer to fit every situation, but there are a few generalities that may help us when we face adversity.

How to overcome adversity - Believe in yourself

There is no difficulty that you cannot overcome. The key is to convince yourself of that truth. Rid your mind of negative, self-defeating thoughts and cling to the positive idea that you are incredibly resilient and creative. You can overcome.

What you think and say influences what you become. If you want to be an overcomer you must develop the mindset of an overcomer. You cannot allow yourself to be held back by negative thoughts or trivial matters. Be deliberate in thinking and speaking positively. Freeing yourself of negativity will help build your self-confidence to a level that you are assured you cannot fail.

How to overcome adversity - Be rational

Often, when we face trouble, we get so wound up in the circumstances that we lose our ability to be rational about the situation. In these cases our feelings guide us into a bad place. It is good to follow your feelings, but not when your feelings are based on irrational thoughts or fears.

Sometimes it takes a trusted friend to help evaluate your approach to a problem. Often, a person who is not directly affected by the trouble will be able to disengage from the emotional mayhem that may paralyze you. Once you take a rational look at your adversity it is often easier to see by what means it can be overcome.

How to overcome adversity - Decide what you want to outcome to be

You can be passive and defensive in life, or you can live life on the offensive. Being on the offensive means you take the ball, in this case the adversity, in your hands and decide which direction it will take you. You call the shots. Take a good rational look at where you are in relation to your circumstance, believe in yourself, and then take action to make changes for the better.

This is difficult when adversity is out of your control, but the outcome of any trouble you face is directly determined by how you handle the adversity. Therefore, no matter how impotent you may be to ameliorate your problem, as in the case of an illness, you can determine how you will face it. It is up to you to determine the outcome of the trouble.

How to overcome adversity - Visualize yourself overcoming trouble

Once you believe in yourself, take a rational approach to life's difficulties, and determine what you want the outcome to be begin to picture them in your mind. This isn't simply an esoteric exercise in futility. Set up the parameters for successfully dealing with adversity in order to give yourself a goal. You have to have something you wish to obtain in order to move forward, climb over life's adversities, and move on with life.

Picture where you want to be when this thing is over and begin to move yourself toward that outcome. The speed at which you overcome your obstacle matters much less than the heart and tenacity with which you face your battles, and you will be able to overcome!

Source:

Personal Knowledge and Experience
Pastoral Counseling Experience