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Coping in Tough Times

Personal success is about more than taking advantage of opportunities.  One of the most powerful personal attributes is resilience – the ability to take the knocks that fate lands on you, and then get back on your feet and keep going.

Mistakes; I’ve made a few

Photo credit Nicobobinus

Of course, it is okay to make mistakes and, if you aren’t making any then you are either playing it too safe to really succeed, or you are supernaturally lucky.  The first key to coping in tough times is to be able to evaluate risks and  to take a few, knowing that one or two failures are not a sign of inevitable doom.

If, on the other hand, a pattern of failures seems to dominate your career, then maybe it is time to evaluate your decision making process.  Probably, either your criteria are wrong, or you are not fully evaluating all of the evidence before you take your risks.

The Grass is always Greener

Few people worry about how well they are doing until they suspect that their peers are doing better.  When things are easy, it is no problem to set ourselves goals and evaluate progress against them, but as things start going bad, we often feel tempted to glance over the fence to see how the folk next door are doing.  Unless you can deliberately learn from their experience, this is a destructive strategy.  If they are doing better than you, you’ll resent it: if worse, you’ll be tempted to complacency.

Continue to set yourself goals and monitor your progress against your own standards.

The Universe doesn’t hate you

In fact, it’s pretty indiscriminate.  So do not feel that adversity is your fault, or that you are fated to have bad luck.  Instead, believe in your ability to control aspects of your future, and focus on those aspects.  Let the things you cannot control happen.

There’s no point in staying angry

Oliver Burkeman in Saturday’s Guardian reported on research which shows that forgiveness really does help us, by making us less likely to suffer from high blood pressure, clinical depression and other health problems.  So don’t get angry, don’t stay angry and let go of past injustices and misfortunes.

Personal Success is a Set of Skills

There are a pocketful of Pocketbooks to help you achieve success, starting with The Personal Success Pocketbook, in which you will learn that Abraham Lincoln suffered twelve major failures before being elected President – that’s resilience.  Of course, we could argue that perhaps he’d have lived a longer life if he’d taken heed!

More Management Pocketbooks you might enjoy

The Impact & Presence Pocketbook

The Networking Pocketbook

The Career Transition Pocketbook

The Positive Mental Attitude Pocketbook

The Self Managed Development Pocketbook

The Energy and Wellbeing Pocketbook

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