Psychological Motivational Strategies to Cope and Succeed in Challenging and Complex Situations
By Dr Kumaran Rajaram
“Fill your mind with positive thoughts and surround yourself with positive vibes that uplift you, progressively you will see the pathway ahead of you unfolds in much clearer manner with a purpose, goal and eventually fulfillment.”
– Dr Kumaran Rajaram
Introduction
The journey of life, be it in one’s personal or career phases could involve varying numerous ups and downs. But it’s vital to effectively deal with and overcome the challenges involved during these tough phases. The ability of doing so enables one to ride through the adversity and to be back again as the same if not stronger. Majority of times, the outlook and the ability to be aware of how to deal with such situations are vital as it is basically a spiral process of what consequentially happens after the first action. Hence, here are a few simple yet powerful strategies that could be adopted to achieve that.
1. Focus
A focused mind helps one to stay grounded, ensuring there is adequate clarity, hence enabling to attain the goals one aspires to achieve. This is so especially when unnecessary emotional interventions come into play. The ability to declutter and remain clear towards what is to be addressed is the key mantra. To facilitate this, a short 30-minutes meditation in a quiet environment helps to rejuvenate and give one a refreshing experience to propel ahead. The strategy is to be able to re-prioritize continuously so that adequate energy and efforts could be put into the goal that needs to be achieved.
Being focused also means to remain crystal clear of the task(s) at hand and placing the correct amount of efforts and energy towards it. The process to achieve this requires strict discipline, for example in terms of time management, prioritizing the tasks at hand, decluttering unnecessary and unwanted issues that may interfere in executing these tasks.
2. Emotional Resilience
The ability to meditate and utilize our emotions effectively is vital to deal with stressful phases in our personal career journey. This requires us to regulate our emotions rationally and not internalizing irrelevant aspects, rather to have the ability to segregate them as deemed appropriate. To help achieve resilience in the emotional aspects, one must practise calmness and the ability to perform reflective activity through one’s thoughts, behaviors and actions.
The challenge mostly will be the approach to deal with the emotions that is usually embedded within the situations. To do that, the first is to identify and acknowledge the emotions that you are feeling, which enables you to remove the power away from that emotion which is causing it. Next, try breathing relaxation and self-soothing techniques. Thereafter, remove the negative thoughts and replace them with positive imagery. Look for a trusted person to talk and share, which certainly helps to relax and rejuvenate.
3. Compassion
When one practises compassion, it enables the person to show and exercise positive behavior, thoughts and actions like kindness and love towards another fellow human being. The very start of this breaks many complex entangled negative emotions that may exist amongst people. Being empathetic enables one to feel and resonate with others’ situations which could be the first step to extend compassion and act in a more reasonable and accommodative manner. Most times, the unseen and unspoken complexities embedded within a situation is appreciated through such acts which eases and even avoids further stressful situations that may possibly emerge.
The first step to cultivate compassion is to practise empathy. When we start putting ourselves in others’ challenging situations and predicament, we start to resonate with why some individuals behave and react the way they do. The next strategy is to adopt the “commonality practice”, that requires to comprehend what every human aspires to experience and the root of what humans crave for fundamentally. If we understood that, we could easily turn the attention to the others’ interests and needs, when we engage them.
Conclusion
The three key primary aspects of being focused, emotionally resilient and to practise compassion are essential fundamental traits to successfully cope with challenging and complex situations. There is a saying that goes “when the going gets tough, the tough gets going”. Everyone is given the power to navigate their life, but the question of how to deal with it and make it work is the more important principle.