Did You Just Say - "Try Harder"

 

The Answer May Not Just Be "Try Harder"

 

If things are going "well" for you, it might be difficult to admit that the vast majority of us will eventually suffer from the “three un’s” 

-    unhappy in general

-    unconvinced things will ever change

-    unsure what to do next

If you have been there, you would surely know that it is a very tough place to be.

And when somebody applies conventional wisdom to solving such a difficult problem, the experience is made even worse.

Society tells us that we don’t need help in making things better. Phrases like “it’s all in your head” may be true, but they oversimplify both the problem and the solution.

For instance, people in a challenging situation are often told to “just try harder,” implying that the answer is simply applying brute force to a complex problem.

This is bad advice. Here’s why:

One of the core traits of feeling stuck as we’re describing is that the next action isn’t obvious. The path forward is totally obscured by a swirling mass of what seems like a million problems, all of them in different shapes and sizes.

How are you supposed to “try harder” when you’re not even sure where to begin?

Imagine you’ve never climbed a mountain before. If you’re standing at the base of Mt. Everest and your job is to summit the mountain, it will take more than just raw effort to accomplish the goal.

You need a plan. And, ideally, a guide. More on that in a bit.

In fact, many of those we know have come to us after having followed this advice. They tried to feel better, to suppress negative feelings, and to force themselves to be happy. As you’ve probably gathered, this approach produced little success, if any.

Let me tell you a quick story about someone we recently interacted with.

From the outside, she really had it together. She had a great job and earned a good living. She and her husband had been married for 18 years and, if you asked any of their friends, they had a great relationship that produced three beautiful kids.

But she felt “off.”

For years, she felt a gnawing sense of unhappiness.

She would tell herself that what she was feeling wasn’t true—she had no reason to be unhappy. After all, she had what so many others wanted. Things weren’t perfect, of course, but how could she be unhappy?

“I thought I was being selfish and spoiled,” she told me during our first meeting. “With so many other people in worse shape, how could I possibly want more?”

It seemed then that her view of her life wasn’t what others saw from the outside

Her kids were getting older and starting to move out of the house and head off to college. Even when they were home, they were in their own worlds.

The death of her father a few years before had been sudden. Being the oldest sibling, she found herself as more of a support to her sister and mother than somebody who was grieving her own loss. Life kept moving and she never took the time and space she needed to mourn the loss of her father.

“None of that is unique to me, though. All kids move out. Marriages go through bad times. Parents die. It’s part of life. Why can’t I just see past the negatives and focus on what’s good?” she moaned

She, like countless others, had tried to just get over it or try harder to not feel this way. And it wasn’t working. “It’s almost like my body and mind forgot how to feel peaceful.”

If you've been in that situation before, this would definitely resonate with you.

It’s awful. It feels hopeless. And you feel like you’re not grateful for what you have, which makes it even worse.

You need to know that those feelings are valid, even if part of your brain tells you they aren’t.

The truth is, we need a change of perspective to make sense out of our feelings of dejection even in the midst of plenty and not just a matter of trying harder

And if you’re feeling that same sense of unhappiness, we can help - we are just an email away

Get in touch

#successwithdrjerrythefirst