Don`t let the little things get you down
Do things people say or do get on your nerves? Do you find yourself fretting over things in your past or worrying about your future? If so, you might need to look at how you can stop the little things in your life getting you down.
‘Every time you get annoyed, you’re at a fork in the road,’ says Richard Carlson, author of the book Don’t Sweat the small Stuff, and it’s All Small Stuff.’ You can choose to beat yourself up to the point to all the evidence as to why you have the right to be annoyed or you can take the fork and decide it’s just not worth thinking negatively’.
We’ve all fallen down at one time or another—not just physically but emotionally. And picking yourself back up again is, unfortunately, easier said than done. It doesn't take any special talent to give up or lie down on the roadside of life and say, "I quit!" In fact, the road to chronic depression and hopelessness often begins with an ordinary day that ends up piled high with simple disappointments. According to Webster, disappoint means "to fail to satisfy the hope, desire, or expectation of." Simply put, when we set ourselves up to hope for something and that hope isn’t met, we get disappointed. We feel let down or betrayed.
Ok, let's face it: None of us are ever going to get to the place in life where we have no more little things getting down on us. We can't expect to be sheltered from every little thing. Disappointment or getting frustrated is a fact of life—one that must be dealt with. If not, discouragement and devastation are never far away. Too often people end up distressed and don't understand why. At first they seemed to be going along just fine, and now they've fallen by the roadside without knowing how or why. Many people don't realize that the problem could have started a long time ago by letting simple things get down on them and that they failed to work through.
Deep hurt doesn't just come from huge disappointments, for instance, when we fail to get the job or promotion we really wanted. Emotional hurt can come from a chain of minor annoyances and frustrations often little things. That's why we must know how to handle the small, daily disappointments and keep them in perspective. Otherwise, they can get out of hand and be blown out of proportion. For instance, imagine starting your day behind schedule…you’re already frustrated. On your way to the office, unexpected traffic delays cause you to be even later. Then, when you finally get to work, you find out that someone on the job has been gossiping about you. You get some coffee to help you calm down and you greet your fellow but they rant at you in anger.
Facing each of those little things separately is just annoying, but when they pile up it becomes almost unbearable. Then, just about that time, you get a report from the doctor that wasn’t what you were hoping and praying for. And to top it all off, your fiancé calls and threatens to break off your engagement even though the wedding invitations have already been mailed! How will you respond? Will you be full of faith, or will you find yourself full of fear and on that road to disappointment and discouragement? All of those minor frustrations and disappointments with the traffic, the office gossip and the spilled coffee have set you up for a major calamity. And when you have to face some really serious problems like sickness or a failed relationship, you find that you aren’t prepared to deal with them. So you fall, plunging headfirst into hopelessness and despair.
What do you do when little things get you down?
Use the following strategies to keep the ‘small stuff’ in perspective:
Make peace with imperfection. Life is not perfect.
Become aware of the snowball effect of your thinking. When you start thinking a case about why it should bother you, that’s the time to take a break. Don’t take all the energy and put it on the problem. Instead, be calm and the solution will appear.
Lower your tolerance for stress. Your current stress level will be exactly equal to your tolerance level. Notice when your mind starts to spin forward to a concern or back to an annoyance and act on it early so that it’s not a problem.
Choose to be kind rather than to be right. How many times a day you find yourself wanting to be right? Yet at what price? It’s destructive and hurtful. Instead let other people be right. The cost is very low. Then watch the dynamics of your relationships and the quality of your life improve.
Be grateful when you’re feeling good and graceful when you’re feeling bad. Don’t return phone calls when you’re feeling low; stall on responding to issues if you know you’ll be defensive. (‘Can I get back to you on that?’) By having compassion for yourself when you’re low, you’ll start feeling better. Remind yourself that if you have a problem it can wait. T will be there later!
Just because someone throws you the ball, it doesn’t mean you have to take it. Many of the things we get frustrated about come from other people’s demands on us. Yet we don’t see our own participation in our problems. We may take on extra obligations than resent them, for instance. But remember, you‘re the one in charge of your life. (‘I’d really like to help you but I can’t at this time.’) Realize that if someone gets mad, it’s their anger, not yours, and therefore their problem.
To help you keep things in perspective, live this day as if it were your last on earth. Tell the people you love that you love them. Then refuse to get bent out of shape over things you don’t have control over. It’s no use complaining that the traffic is bad, for instance-the traffic doesn’t care.
Practice not wishing the moment were different this will help you cope with the issues at hand and the less stressed you’ll be. Don’t look on life as an emergency. Look on it as an adventure. That way you’ll dismiss what’s not important and be able to stop all the little things from getting you down. And isn’t that really the key to a better quality of life?
‘Every time you get annoyed, you’re at a fork in the road,’ says Richard Carlson, author of the book Don’t Sweat the small Stuff, and it’s All Small Stuff.’ You can choose to beat yourself up to the point to all the evidence as to why you have the right to be annoyed or you can take the fork and decide it’s just not worth thinking negatively’.
We’ve all fallen down at one time or another—not just physically but emotionally. And picking yourself back up again is, unfortunately, easier said than done. It doesn't take any special talent to give up or lie down on the roadside of life and say, "I quit!" In fact, the road to chronic depression and hopelessness often begins with an ordinary day that ends up piled high with simple disappointments. According to Webster, disappoint means "to fail to satisfy the hope, desire, or expectation of." Simply put, when we set ourselves up to hope for something and that hope isn’t met, we get disappointed. We feel let down or betrayed.
Ok, let's face it: None of us are ever going to get to the place in life where we have no more little things getting down on us. We can't expect to be sheltered from every little thing. Disappointment or getting frustrated is a fact of life—one that must be dealt with. If not, discouragement and devastation are never far away. Too often people end up distressed and don't understand why. At first they seemed to be going along just fine, and now they've fallen by the roadside without knowing how or why. Many people don't realize that the problem could have started a long time ago by letting simple things get down on them and that they failed to work through.
Deep hurt doesn't just come from huge disappointments, for instance, when we fail to get the job or promotion we really wanted. Emotional hurt can come from a chain of minor annoyances and frustrations often little things. That's why we must know how to handle the small, daily disappointments and keep them in perspective. Otherwise, they can get out of hand and be blown out of proportion. For instance, imagine starting your day behind schedule…you’re already frustrated. On your way to the office, unexpected traffic delays cause you to be even later. Then, when you finally get to work, you find out that someone on the job has been gossiping about you. You get some coffee to help you calm down and you greet your fellow but they rant at you in anger.
Facing each of those little things separately is just annoying, but when they pile up it becomes almost unbearable. Then, just about that time, you get a report from the doctor that wasn’t what you were hoping and praying for. And to top it all off, your fiancé calls and threatens to break off your engagement even though the wedding invitations have already been mailed! How will you respond? Will you be full of faith, or will you find yourself full of fear and on that road to disappointment and discouragement? All of those minor frustrations and disappointments with the traffic, the office gossip and the spilled coffee have set you up for a major calamity. And when you have to face some really serious problems like sickness or a failed relationship, you find that you aren’t prepared to deal with them. So you fall, plunging headfirst into hopelessness and despair.
What do you do when little things get you down?
Use the following strategies to keep the ‘small stuff’ in perspective:
Make peace with imperfection. Life is not perfect.
Become aware of the snowball effect of your thinking. When you start thinking a case about why it should bother you, that’s the time to take a break. Don’t take all the energy and put it on the problem. Instead, be calm and the solution will appear.
Lower your tolerance for stress. Your current stress level will be exactly equal to your tolerance level. Notice when your mind starts to spin forward to a concern or back to an annoyance and act on it early so that it’s not a problem.
Choose to be kind rather than to be right. How many times a day you find yourself wanting to be right? Yet at what price? It’s destructive and hurtful. Instead let other people be right. The cost is very low. Then watch the dynamics of your relationships and the quality of your life improve.
Be grateful when you’re feeling good and graceful when you’re feeling bad. Don’t return phone calls when you’re feeling low; stall on responding to issues if you know you’ll be defensive. (‘Can I get back to you on that?’) By having compassion for yourself when you’re low, you’ll start feeling better. Remind yourself that if you have a problem it can wait. T will be there later!
Just because someone throws you the ball, it doesn’t mean you have to take it. Many of the things we get frustrated about come from other people’s demands on us. Yet we don’t see our own participation in our problems. We may take on extra obligations than resent them, for instance. But remember, you‘re the one in charge of your life. (‘I’d really like to help you but I can’t at this time.’) Realize that if someone gets mad, it’s their anger, not yours, and therefore their problem.
To help you keep things in perspective, live this day as if it were your last on earth. Tell the people you love that you love them. Then refuse to get bent out of shape over things you don’t have control over. It’s no use complaining that the traffic is bad, for instance-the traffic doesn’t care.
Practice not wishing the moment were different this will help you cope with the issues at hand and the less stressed you’ll be. Don’t look on life as an emergency. Look on it as an adventure. That way you’ll dismiss what’s not important and be able to stop all the little things from getting you down. And isn’t that really the key to a better quality of life?