When Life Gets Hard, Remember This ONE Thing

Life is hard… and it’s hard a lot of the time.

I cannot count the number of times I’ve heard from my clients over the years:

"I just need to make it through these next two weeks, and then things will calm down."

Then, they scrape through the next two weeks, giving up on whatever goal they had because things got hard, and guess what? Things still did not calm down.

I am convinced that adulthood is a never-ending cycle of telling yourself things will calm down in two weeks—over and over again.

The chaos of life used to absolutely wreck my headspace. I’d get overwhelmed and stressed, and I’d have so much anxiety about all the things on my plate—this was a big reason I sought therapy in 2019 and continue to go every month now, six years later.

It was through my work in therapy that I adopted perhaps the most important key strategy to deal with stress and chaos in my life, and it’s the first strategy I teach my clients.

That strategy is acceptance.

Yes, acceptance. Simply relinquishing control of the situation.

That might sound funny because I speak and write a lot about control and action, but control and action are a step ahead of acceptance.

You must first accept the circumstance in order to establish control over yourself and then act.

I have come to believe over the years, after working on myself and working with so many clients, that the stress and overwhelm they feel is largely due to fighting against their life circumstances.

They push back against an immovable object. Trust me—if you’ve got a deadline in 10 minutes, you just burned dinner, and your dog shit on the floor…

That shit IS ON THE FLOOR.

You cannot change that.

You can extrapolate this out as far and as deep as you want. Even loss…

When you lose someone, there is nothing in your power to bring them back. The process of grieving is the process of accepting the loss. Only once you grieve and accept can you then move to control your actions in response to the loss.

This is how I approach everything in my life… like last night.

We just arrived in Charlotte, our new home. We had to stay in a hotel last night because the movers don’t arrive until the 7th, and the bed we ordered will not arrive until today.

At 10:30 p.m., I took the dogs out to pee, and the hotel admin approached me because we had too many dogs for one room—despite being checked in by her colleague earlier in the day and paying the pet fee. She threatened to evict us from the hotel if I didn’t purchase a second room.

I cannot control this situation because at 10:30 p.m., I can’t control much of anything in my brain. Not to mention that this woman was on a power trip and would not listen to the rationality I was calmly speaking to her with. She continued to raise her voice and attempt to escalate the situation.

So, I accepted that I had to pay for the room and the additional fees, paid them, and this morning at 8 a.m., I’m going to speak to the manager before we check out and attempt to resolve the situation and get a refund.

Will it work? I have no idea. Maybe I’ll keep you posted?!

What it did do was avoid any stress or overwhelm I would feel from that situation.

Am I upset that I had to pay the financial cost of this encounter? Yes, absolutely.

But I accept it and I move on with no additional stress in my life.

I cannot control other people.

I cannot control many of the circumstances of my life… although I firmly believe that my decisions have largely impacted them up to this point.

I cannot control anything except my own actions.

I strongly suggest that every one of you feeling stress and overwhelm during a heavy season of your life, seek to practice acceptance—stop fighting that immovable object of life—and seek to evaluate what you are in control of and act in your best interest to move forward in a positive direction.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m about to pull my best Karen impression and speak to the manager.

Stay Strong,

Paul Oneid, MS. MS. CSCS

Founder and Head Coach