Five quotes to remember when everything is going wrong

Business life is rarely smooth and some days/weeks/months can be more hectic than others, with many balls to juggle and many challenges to face. Occasionally, those balls come crashing down around you, and when they do, former Flying Solo editor, Kelly Exeter, has some quotable quotes you should keep in mind to help you through.

Sometimes business life comes at you fast. One minute, everything is great and feels under control. The next, it can feel like things are coming at you from all directions. In my experience, issues never happen one at a time – if they did, we’d be able to dispatch them with aplomb! Rather, they seem to happen in clusters, stretching resilience right to breaking point.

When I find myself in one of these ‘cluster’ situations, I tend to find comfort in at least one, if not all of the following sayings.

Five quotes to keep in mind when things are going wrong

1. The universe doesn’t owe you anything

I remember a moment about six or seven years into my business-owning journey, when I felt really aggrieved. I’d worked hard for so long, and I was a good person – surely I was owed a sweeter ride from the universe than I was getting in my business at the time?

I’m not sure when or how I changed my thinking around this. But I do know that coming to the understanding that ‘the universe doesn’t owe you anything’ was a game-changer for me. It meant that every time I was in one of those clusters of ‘everything bad happening at once’, I wasn’t spending pointless time feeling victimised and sorry for myself because ‘the universe wasn’t looking after me’. I was simply getting on with getting on.

2. Just keep swimming

On the note of getting on with getting on, the approach of Dory the fish from Finding Nemo is one we can all draw on when times are tough.

It’s easy to let challenging times paralyse us into inaction. And sometimes, it is ok to just stop, and catch our breath for a second when faced with adversity. But at some stage, we do need to get moving again. And channelling Dory’s very simple but effective ‘just keep swimming’ mantra, is a good reminder that doing something, anything, can usually take us to a resolution faster than doing nothing.

3. You can always cope with the now

This one is from Ekhart Tolle’s teachings in his book, The Power of Now. When times are tough, it can be so easy to think, ‘I’m just not going to get through this’. That’s when Tolle’s reminder that we all have a 100 per cent success rate for coping with the now is helpful.

This hard moment we’re in right now, it might totally suck, but we can deal. There is huge power in knowing that.

4. Be like water

Martial arts legend Bruce Lee brought this concept to the world. What does it mean to ‘be like water’? Water has the ability to adapt and adjust to its surroundings. Water can find its way both around hard things and through hard things.

When we choose to be like water, we too become more adaptable. We don’t see barriers (challenges) as things that are insurmountable – rather they are things that can be worked around, or worked through, given enough time.

5. You have to laugh, because if you don’t, you’ll cry!

I think we’ve all been in that position where the sheer number of challenges life is throwing at us at the same time is so ridiculous, we find ourselves thinking, ‘I have to laugh, because if I don’t, I will cry.’

Now, I have nothing against a good, honest cry. But I do find that in moments of complete cluster-induced overwhelm, taking a minute to reflect on the sheer ridiculousness of a situation and just laughing at it is a great antidote. I also find it tends to provide the energy I need to ‘just keep swimming’.

This article was first published on Flying Solo, read the original here.

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