This year has been tough on everyone around the world. People have suffered losses, both physical and financial. Many people have seen unfortunate circumstances in their lives with things spiraling out of their control.

One might have been struck with an illness, or lost their jobs, or lost someone close to them. Adversities have hit us hard and fast causing our heads to spin.

“Change is an unstoppable force that visits you often and when you least expect it.”

Unfortunate situations happen unexpectedly. What matters is how you choose to tackle them.

How to Approach Unfortunate Circumstances

We are often so busy with our daily routine that we do not prepare for adversity. What most of us fail to recognize is that when faced with adverse situations, it is life’s way of giving us opportunities to explore ourselves.

Being busy causes us to often forget who we are, what we want, and what we have been working for. Under such circumstances, we can begin to feel like victims. We can begin to believe that the things that are happening to us are out of our hands. More often than not, this causes nervous breakdowns, and illness to boot.

You need to understand that a challenging circumstance doesn’t necessarily have to be a problem. It can be an opportunity to find yourself again and explore a new road in life.

To tackle difficult circumstances, the first thing you need to do is — focus.

When several aspects of your life seem to be slipping out of your hand, you must focus and take control of something that is always in your control — your mindset.

Don’t let other people and their judgments and opinions take control of you. Start with forgiving your mistakes for trying to grow and make peace with those who have wronged you.

This will certainly take away obstacles in your mind and give you clarity of thought. The next important thing that will help you take charge of your life, is gratitude.

Show Gratitude and Keep Learning

When we face difficult situation, we often feel pain. Pain is not a stop sign for you to get anxious and frustrated. Pain is an opportunity to strategize and redirect your life to better situations.

You can take strength from the inspiring words of David Meltzer, who was recently a guest on my Rant & Grow podcast. David is a prominent speaker, author, top business coach, co-founder and CEO of Sports1Marketing.

According to Dave, cultivating and showing gratitude in your thoughts and actions will help you rediscover yourself and drive you towards growth and self-development.

To develop gratitude, you can follow his five simple and basic daily practices:

1. Take inventory of your values and appreciate them every day.
2. Be courageous in asking for help from others when you need it and be grateful to them.
3. See the things around you through the lens of gratitude, the ones that you have planned and even for those that were unexpected.
4. Do things with gratitude. Happy people get things done and unhappy people just don’t.
5. Identify the fears that are causing you pain and stop them from becoming exaggerated in your head.

“By embracing gratitude in your life, you will gain the mental peace and happiness that you have been searching for.”

With gratitude you will find yourself moving away from fears of challenges. You will indeed find yourself headed onto a path of growth, acceleration, and enlightenment.

Accountability

Once you embrace gratitude, you must take accountability for the things that you have done and for the things that have happened to you. The goal is to be a student of every circumstance in your life.

When things happen, ask yourself what you are supposed to learn from that challenging situation. A way to become empowered when circumstances become difficult, is to also ask yourself why you attracted this into your life. Look for the growth opportunities in tough situations.

There is a difference between accountability, responsibility, and liability. Don’t just hold yourself responsible for things and be a victim. You can’t hold the world liable for the things that have happened to you either. You must take accountability and start to learn from situations that present themselves.

Disasters do happen. You can always learn from challenges and find opportunities to grow. Once you are on the path of learning, you will stop bringing pain to yourself.

Take, for instance, David Meltzer’s story. He started with nothing. He worked hard and became a millionaire within nine months after graduating from law school. He was a multi-millionaire at the age of 32.

However, he soon faced hardships and went bankrupt. He kept learning and started over again by practicing gratitude and being in action towards his goals by being a student of his time and schedule.

Dave made his fortune again and is now a successful serial entrepreneur and philanthropist.

“When you realize opportunity is in challenges, you can lead an authentic life being more honest with yourself, others, and the world around you.”

Rather than fighting against change and feeling more pain than necessary, look through the problems and find the growth opportunities. You can do this by using your faith to invite positive energy and manifest it into actions.

You can have faith in a higher power, the universe, God, or yourself. It doesn’t matter what you have faith in, as long as you practice what faith does for you.

“Faith translates into certainty. Certainty gets you into action. Action creates manifestation.”

Remember, actions are important. Don’t get stuck at wanting. Go past it and start doing. Then, you will find more inspirations and opportunities. 

How you handle unfortunate circumstances is always up to you. So, buckle up, get focused, practice gratitude, have faith and start doing what needs to be done. 

Check out the Rant & Grow podcast episode with David. Maybe you’ll discover some wisdom for your own life. You can listen to the podcast right here.