“Let nothing trouble you. Let nothing frighten you. All is fleeting. God alone is unchanging. Patience obtains everything. The one who possesses God lacks nothing. God alone suffices.” - St. Teresa of Avila
by Rich Vosler
Like many of you, I have had many challenges in my life. Sometimes my reactions to those challenges have been less than positive and that reaction further increases the “dark cloud” effect that follows. I’d like to give you some simple tips to help you overcome the challenges that you face.
It’s important for me to tell you a little bit about my story so you know what perspective I’m writing from. My wife Joanne and I have had many challenges in our life together. Along with job losses, credit problems, money problems and me being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes and severe depression, we have a very interesting, uncommon story.
We have nine children together. We had those children in a span of less than 13 years (yes, we’re Catholic)! What’s interesting about this is that while we had money problems, the children kept coming.
Now I know it’s not some cosmic force that provided these children. We were fully aware of what was causing it! But our attitude had always been that we wanted a large family and if God intended for us to have these kids he would help us find a way to provide for them. Some people have told us we’re downright irresponsible and stupid but God has provided for us and more.
What’s even more interesting about this story is that in November of 2004, my wife was diagnosed with a rare type of liver cancer and nine months later she died. Now I raise our nine children alone. When I say alone I mean that I’m single, not dating (don’t have time) and am the sole provider for them. I do have a wonderful nanny who works Monday through Friday from 8-5 and people who can help in a pinch but on nights and weekends it’s just me and them.
One of the things I’ve learned through this tragedy is that there are some good things that come out of our challenges. I call them little pearls of wisdom.
One is that I’ve never been as close to my kids as I am now. When Joanne was alive, she would take care of the kids, driving them to all their commitments, shopping (sometimes with all 9 in tow) and cooking meals, doing wash and keeping the house orderly. On top of that she volunteered a lot. She was simply amazing. I worked as a VP for a financial services firm and worked long hours and traveled frequently. I loved my kids but quite frankly, I didn’t have time for them. I was too busy chasing my career. My attitude was that “she wanted all these kids, now she’s got them. What’s my next goal?”
Now, since my wife has died, I’ve started my own training and coaching firm, work from home, have lunch with my two youngest kids who are still at home, have snacks with the others when they come home from school and have grown to love being able to spend so much time with them and to be here for them. Is that a trade off? No it’s not.
But in order to move forward we have to be able to try and get some value out of our situations. So let’s talk about that.
Examine Your Self Talk
One of the things I think it’s important to look at when faced with a challenge is your self talk. What do I mean? Listen to the conversation going on in your mind when you’re faced with challenges. If it’s all negative banter about what a loser you are or how you’ll never get out of this or how you deserve everything that happens to you, you need to figure out a way to change that. If you’re in a constant battle with your thoughts, it can be debilitating.
At the time that my wife got sick, I had been listening to self talk CDs several times a day for over a year. So I had support for when I had negative thoughts. After she died I paid extra close attention to it because I knew that my thoughts were going to make me or break me in this situation.
Today I can say that I believe that this was one of the major things that helped me through the last two and half years. Now I have to say that I did grieve heavily and we did have some tough times. I cried every day for a year and I often screamed at God for taking away the love of my life and the mother of my children. During this same time period one of my children was so distraught that suicide was considered. Thankfully after much therapy that child is happy and thriving. I’ve also gone through some intense therapy as did three other children, one who is still in therapy. So I’m not saying that some self talk CDs made everything “hunky dory” but I am saying that they kept my attitude hopeful. And a hopeful attitude is very helpful during crisis.
Get Some Help
Every challenge does not warrant professional help. However, if you feel it’s necessary, definitely go for it. I wasn’t a big believer in counseling or therapy but after going through it myself, I’m now a big believer.
What I mean is try to find someone who’s been through what you’re going through, preferably someone who’s been successful getting through to the other side and who’s willing to share with you their strategy for doing it. If you can ride on the coat tails of someone who’s been down the road you’re on, it may make your trip easier and less costly.
Stay Positive
Read good positive uplifting books. One of my favorite series of books is the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. There’s a book for everyone in that series. Positive stories about how people have overcome similar situations will lift you up and give you ideas to apply to your own situation.
Listening to uplifting recordings by experts and speakers is another good way to stay positive. Listen, if all your friends and family are negative and you’re hanging around with them as you go through your challenge, nothing’s going to get better. The last thing you need is for people to drag you through the mud. By staying positive your solution will come quicker.
Cultivate a Strong Spiritual Life
The main thing that helped me deal with the death of my wife has been my faith. I don’t think I would have survived without it. Because it’s something I started cultivating before any of this happened, it gave me insight into how I thought about it.
And that’s this: That life is like a giant portrait. We only get to see a small corner of that portrait so we don’t really understand the bigger picture. When there is a tragedy in our life, we know it’s not possible to understand why it happened. But since we believe that we’re a small part of something much bigger, we have the faith to believe that there is a bigger purpose for our life. And we also know that when we die, we will get to see the whole portrait and everything that happened here will be fully explained.
We all face tough times. Right now we have economy issues, war problems and a major election looming around the corner. On top of that we have issues with our kids, our jobs and our health. How do we deal with all this stuff?
We have to take a step back and look at what’s important and what we can control. How we react to what happens to us is really the most important thing. By following the things I’ve outlined above, you can be assured that your reactions to your challenges will be positive and proactive. And with those two attitudes behind you, you will conquer anything. I know you can and I definitely believe in you!
Rich Vosler is a Sales Success Coach and a Life Coach who was a mortgage professional for 18 years in New York, New Jersey and Georgia. He is also a speaker and author. Rich can be reached at 609-790-8757 or by email at rvosler@verizon.net. His website, Sales Training & Motivation, is at www.RichVosler.com and is full of sales success tips as well as his brand new blog. He is also running a special on his brand new DVD, Secrets of Sales Power sold there. Call today for an initial session!
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