Like anyone, I’ve had my share of ups and downs. The downs always seem especially dire. When you’re in the weeds, it can seem like there’s no way out. Like you’re stuck there for good.

Here are two things I have learned to do during those times. I do not always practice this very well, but it’s what I aspire to do.

I try to both expand and shrink my world.

Expand My World

So often, things seem tough because I have let my world appear to shrink in around me. A colleague is acting abrasively — and I respond as if the only people in the world are me and that person. Money is tight — and I act as if there is nothing in my life to be grateful for anywhere. I lose a potential project — and behave as if there are no other prospects on this, or any, horizon.

In each case, I am artificially limiting the scope of my world to focus attention on a “problem.”

But the reality of my world is so much greater than that. I have a professional life and a personal life and more possible clients on the horizon and things to care about besides money and and and and.

If I can let myself see that the problem area — even if it is an important, big, hairy problem area — is just a limited part of my overall life, suddenly the tough time seems a little manageable. Sure, I lost a potential project — but I have others to work on, or pursue.

Here’s a small way it manifests for me. When I have a speech to give, I tend to get very nervous. My urge is to prepare. To overprepare, in fact. If I am sitting on a panel on Wednesday, for instance, I might clear the decks of everything for Monday and Tuesday. Because I want to focus in on “preparing.” The reality is that I have other things I need to be doing on Monday and Tuesday, and there is only so much preparing you can do anyway.

Shrink My Timeline

On the other side of the coin, when I am having a tough time (especially when it comes to money or my professional life), I can let my mind run ahead of itself. I start to project into the future and think about all the terrible things that are going to happen (which, in reality, or most likely things that may happen).

But, my experience tells me that I have never not been OK, when all is said and done. And, more importantly, in this moment now, I am more than likely OK. I have a place to stay. I have some food. I have enough money to make it through the day. Some people have very extreme problems and this aspect may not apply fully. But, for most people that I know, even ones who have lost everything, there is almost always some way that they were OK in the moment. The trick is not to obsess about the future’s problems, but live life today.

This is not to say I should ignore very real problems, just not let them take over.

Bottom line:

• My world is much larger than my problems, and
• My problems are much smaller when considered in the light of just one moment.

(I learned both of these things from other people and they only began to sink in after some difficult experiences. I can’t take any credit for them.)