Life is a challenging journey for everyone. The world’s population is growing denser every day, stressing resources such as land for living and agriculture, food and energy, and many more. Good jobs, personal safety, and peace are exceedingly hard to obtain and maintain. Demands for productivity in the workplace are continually rising as more companies find themselves competing in the global market, placing greater stress on workers and management alike. The rising cost of living in our consumer society leaves many in a perpetual state of struggle.
This constant stress takes a toll on quality of life. Depression, substance abuse, broken relationships, and violence are some of the manifestations of that toll. People who find themselves struggling on different fronts in their life must choose their battles to win some. Other fronts are temporarily abandoned and perhaps lost.
What can you do about this? The forces at play here are global and there is no stopping them, just as much as it is avoiding them. An escape into self-destructive behavior (bad thoughts, alcohol/substance abuse, etc.) will provide only temporary relief, but will eventually cause loss of control and the worsening of the situation.
Avoiding the temptation of escapism keeps you with your natural strengths intact. With that, you can now sit down and prepare to tackle and fix those problems.
- Take an inventory of your problems and prioritize them by listing the ones most crucial to your physical/professional/emotional survival at the top. To make your list precise, pay attention to how you feel about a certain item vs. how realistic that threat is.
- Problems that have a wider effect on your life are to be listed first.
- Less critical problems will be listed lower. You may find it well to occasionally solve a non-urgent problem to give yourself a sense of accomplishment that in turn will allow you to better tackle the more difficult problems on your list.
When your list is complete, inspect each item and think of ways to correct it.
- Is it something you can work on and solve by yourself in a reasonable amount of time? Remember that time is limited and other problems are pressing from behind.
- If you need help with solving a problem, who can you turn to? Skills training, medical or mental health support, life coaching, or help from a friend or relative could expedite your solution and save you time and agony.
Place your list in a prominent place and access it regularly. Update the items as needed and add new ones when you identify them. This will be hard at first, but become easier and even encouraging as you continue to make progress.