Handling Life's Curveballs

“Everything that happens to you in life is either a lesson or a clue”

- Colin Hiles, The Mid-life Maverick

You’ve finally figured out what you want to do with your professional life. You have a rough plan and are moving forward.

But then, life throws you a curveball:

You (or someone close to you) suddenly has health issues.Someone close to you passes away.You have family problems to contend with.Your relationship runs into a difficult phase.You get hit with an unexpected expense or financial challenge.You have a loss in confidence and find yourself on a downward spiral.

Life has a tendency of getting in the way just at that moment when you think you’re getting into your stride.

So what do you do?

1. Ask yourself – “What’s the lesson?”

Everything happens for a reason. And very often the problems arise as we’ve something to learn. So if you’ve faced a set back, ask yourself, “What’s this here to teach me?”

2. Ask yourself – “What’s the clue?”

If you listen carefully, life is always giving you clues about what you should be doing (or not doing.)

The path you were on may not be the right direction for you. And maybe you needed a slight “nudge” to stop you in our tracks.

So if you’ve hit a major road block recently – what’s the clue you’re being given here?

3. Ride it out

Whenever you attempt anything worth achieving  in your professional life, you’ll usually have some set backs and road blocks along the way – often in your personal life, and away from the work place.

It’s life’s way of testing you; to see just how badly you want the thing you’re chasing.

So you need to accept whatever challenge comes your way and accept that it’s just a set back. And accept the fact that you’re not superhuman and you will struggle.

Dust yourself off, learn the lesson, listen for the clues and keep going forward (even if it feels like you’re at times moving backwards).

4. Surround yourself with good people

Sometimes life will hit you hard. It may take some time to dust yourself down and move forward and out of that sticky phase.

That’s why we all need people to lean on during the rough times.

So take a close look at the people around you – are they the right type of people to support you when the going gets tough?

Our professional and personal lives are completely interconnected. You can’t progress in your professional life if your personal life is a mess.

So take time to look after yourself. And give yourself permission to “be all over the place” at times (it happens to us all at some stage).

Keep learning the lessons, keeping picking up the clues and remember that nothing lasts forever. Things will change in time and improve.

By Sital Ruparelia

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