It’s not a great indictment of your character to fail or make mistakes. In fact, everyone does. It is simply impossible for a limited human being, having to learn everything from scratch, to get everything right continually. You’ll make mistakes, and that’s perfectly fine. What’s not fine is continually making mistakes and avoiding all advice or lessons in that direction. That said, if you manage to admit fault, take responsibility, and head towards a solution, you’ll no doubt be on the right track.
Admitting and identifying a life problem is not weakness – it’s strength. But the thing is, admitting and identifying are heavy, significant steps. We can’t consider them to be immediate processes. If you’ve had trouble with this in the past, it’s important to know how to begin, how to get your affairs together, and what help to seek. In this post we will discuss that, some of the issues you may need help with or feel ashamed of, and where you may go from there.
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Perhaps one of the toughest realizations in life is looking back and realizing how your actions may have impacted others. None of us can go through life only ever bringing love and hope to every single encounter, but it’s true that when we fall short of the mark, we address it and understand it. That doesn’t mean you have to thoroughly chastise yourself for it, it just means taking the time to understand where you’ve been – so you know where exactly you’re going.
Consider the consequences, and it helps you wake up to the inaction. For instance, if your business failed, it might be the fact that the market is tough and you had a bad break – especially in the time of Covid-19 and its associated lockdowns. That said, it might also be that certain problems, like taking your customers for granted, also contributed to this problem. That’s a lesson you can learn, and these are everywhere in life.
It’s important to consider the consequences you might face if you don’t take direct action now. Unfortunately, bad problems can become bigger, they only require us to keep our head in the sand and to ignore our forward pursuit. This is often seen in faulty tax reporting. A person may not report their income for some time, leading to charges and penalties they have to pay. If you ignore this for too long, it could inspire a further investigation and even warrant criminal charges.
It might be that as your business is failing and your debt is becoming insurmountable, you need to consider alternative options such as bankruptcy or debt help. If you find yourself in a situation like this, or you’re not sure what to do, call the lawyers at Leinart Law Firm for advice. You can stop a situation from becoming any more complex with direct and decisive action. Ironically enough – this also lifts your mood, almost immediately.
Without organization, you can never improve. Making a list of the issues in your life you need to see to, what the root causes of those could be, and most importantly, what small incremental steps you can follow to begin addressing them will give you the energy you need to move forward.
Let’s say you’re in debt. It’s easy to feel ashamed and unhappy with this state of affairs, and it can sometimes encourage wanton spending instead of actually contributing to the problem. Before long, you might find yourself paying off credit cards with other credit cards, or being late with your priority bills. It might just be that the first step you plan for your list is opening the drawer that houses all of your financial documents.
From there, you can step-by-step note the accounts you hold, why you hold them, how much you owe, how far in the recover process your creditor is, and more. From there, you can call a debt charity to help contact these creditors, and perhaps arrange an affordable payment plan. Sometimes, you may even be able to consolidate this debt. The truth is, simply knowing the scope and extent of the problem is a massive boost to your mental health. Sure, you might have to climb Everest. But now you know exactly how tall Everest is, and what it requires. That’s the power of a life-affirming list.
Of course, every life change has its own timeline. For instance, it might be that your Doctor is strongly recommending that you lose weight because of your blood pressure and obesity. It can be hard to set goals for yourself. However, if you have a timeline of how much you may want to lose each month, and how much by the end of the year, you have something to follow. From there you can calculate how many calories to avoid a day. You can use apps like MyFitnessPal and more to calculate your intake. You can also see where your expenditure is going, encouraging you to forgo that mid-morning snack.
A timeline gives you structure. It will help you keep you on the path. It also helps you prioritize certain actions. In our debt example, one of the most foremost tidbits of advice we suggested was to contact a debt charity. Priority action, influenced by your timely planning, is perhaps the most essential route forward. Only you can understand its potential. We’d recommend that you do.
Attributed to the acclaimed genius Albert Einstein, the famous quote that suggests ‘the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result’ can apply here. If you have terrible habits, our life cannot improve if we hope to keep them. For instance, if you hope to free yourself of drug or alcohol use, it’s best to distance yourself from those who enable you in this behavior, especially if they partake in it themselves.
Sacrifice is needed to grow, in all walks of life. For instance, a young student sacrifices their free time that could be spent partying every night in order to follow a degree and gain a better chance of employment in the future. Measuring your potential sacrifices means understanding what you need to give up, what you could give up, or how you can apply yourself.
If needing to lose weight, cutting out alcohol is a fantastic first step. If consolidating debt and starting to pay it back, it’s important to strictly budget yourself and avoid wanton, luxurious spending. If struggling to cope with your tax records and history, it’s best to immediately contact the professionals with your hand in hand. Little sacrifices or positive directions seem like a burden at first, until you realize just what they give you in return. This is the essential of discipline, and it’s a lesson everyone has to learn in limited capacities.
Ask for help if you can. It really does make a massive, major, incredible difference. In fact, it’s important to consider this as a baseline requirement. It’s hard to unravel a problem we have created on our own, by ourselves. The ironic thing is that asking for help is far from exposing your weakness. It’s exposing your strength.
Furthermore, the truth will out – often no matter what. It’s best to tell the people in your life that you’re struggling rather than having them figure it out on their own. What matters is moving forward and not being ashamed to lean on someone else. Of course, this doesn’t mean that in order to pay off debts you need to borrow from a family member. Asking for help doesn’t mean getting out of a bind scot-free. Instead, it means asking for authentic help, such as asking them to help you go through your accounts or to apply for rehab, or simply to speak to you about an issue you’re facing right now. If you can achieve that, you’ll no doubt feel like you have that support network ready when you need it most. And that’s because you will.
It’s important to document this learning process and to put preventative measures in place for moving on. When in a twelve-step program, for instance, accountability partners and a stringent documentation of the positive steps you have taken can help you not only avoid breaking your forward progress, but better yet, it helps you look back and see how far you’ve come. The next time you feel like breaking your streak or hard work, you can see just how much you’d be throwing away. Anyone with even an inkling of self-preservation will often understand just how valuable that kind of metric can be.
Remember, this can also be fun. Working through an issue that had tangled up your life for so long feels like a breath of fresh air on a cool summer’s morning. You’ll no doubt breathe the same way, soon.
With this advice, we hope you can admit and identify a life problem in the best possible sense.
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