You’ve gotten fired by a client. The fan comments on a social media post seem more like a dumpster fire than a productive place to be. Whatever is going on, you feel like it’s all going wrong and nothing will be going right ever again.
It’s happened to all of us at one time or another when failure is all around us and we can’t imagine succeed again. But there is an end to the failure even if it doesn’t seem to be in sight. And success is literally just around the corner. Yes, success can totally be the end of the failure. I know I have counted that more than once.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed right now with how things are going, let me help you get back to right.
Take a breath
Taking a breath can mean so many things. It’s whatever takes you out of the situation that seems overwhelming and can get you thinking about something else.
For me, that can be meditation, taking a walk outside, going for a run, playing with my daughter, dancing to music and more. I find having more things to do in my toolbox the better. Then if it rains and I can’t go outside, I have other things to lean on. It takes the excuses away, so I can just focus on doing. That’s so important when you are in a dark place.
And taking yourself out of the situation could be enough to give you much needed perspective so you can get to a place of action. If it doesn’t…
Talk to someone
The goal is to get you out of the spiral and if literally taking your self out of the situation doesn’t do it, then it’s time to bring someone else in.
In my case, I have a friend who is awesome at putting things into perspective. This person will patiently listen to the spiral and then gently pick at the strings until I start getting out of it. It saves me a lot of time of spiraling.
If you don’t have this person in your life, you need to find them now. It’s so vital to have a nonjudgmental person in your life who can pull you out of the hole you’ve dug yourself or has been dug for you. You’ll get back to action so much sooner.
Take baby steps
When you’ve had everything fall on top of you, it may seem too hard to dig yourself out. When you have everything to do, you generally don’t want to do anything. So you have to battle against that.
The best way? Pick apart each big task into tiny little tasks. Something tiny is easy to do and can lead to you doing more. You’re trying to go from inaction to action, and giving yourself a light push is likely all you need to do to get that started. One baby step can turn into two and stringing those two steps together will get you further and further away from whatever it is that happened.
Keep taking those baby steps and get yourself back to who you actually are.
Consider further actions
If you find that you are still stuck in this place with no way to truly get out and the spiral is continuing, then it’s time to look at what else you can do.
The first step I personally would take is going to my doctor with my concerns and talk about if medication might be right for me. I’m not saying that medication is the answer to every question, but it might be the answer to feeling hopeless and unable to create action within yourself.
I would then take a look around. Something else may be wrong that I might not be able to focus on while this catastrophe came upon me. It could be complicating things, so I need to figure out how to address that underlying problem. Maybe I need to get out of my job because of a toxic boss. Maybe I am in a relationship with someone who is constantly telling me how terrible I am. Whatever it is, if I’m already feeling terrible about myself, I can’t really address a bad situation when I’m not myself.
Remember that everyone goes through a terrible time, especially when they work in social media. It’s not weakness to struggle. It’s weakness when you don’t do anything about it.