HOW TO FOCUS ON YOURSELF DURING HARD TIMES // Making Sure You're a Priority

Sam, sit and talk. What's going on? Welcome back to my channel. We're going to talk today about stressful times, hard times, difficult times, and what happens to us when those times come up. There's a lot going on in the world right now, but if it wasn't this, it would be something else. The only thing constant in life is change and stress or bad times, tough times, difficult times are kind of a byproduct sometimes of just being alive. And I hate to be negative about that, but stress happens, change happens, difficult times happen, things in our lives occur and we need to know how to handle them. But the big thing is what is the first thing to go when we feel stress or what is the first thing to go when we fall on hard times? Your self care you, you as a priority. You're the first thing that usually gets tossed out the window when life happens, when stressful times come upon you, if there's financial or relationship difficulties or there's what's going on in the world, whatever is happening, you tend to probably be a lower priority than everything else that you're having to deal with. So I really want to talk about four categories, four things that you need to focus on that will help you through those hard times so that A, you can make it through in the best way possible and B, when they start to turn around or when things get better, or when there's light at the end of the tunnel, that you're in the best place possible to handle another change. Because the only thing constant in life is change. The only thing that we can always guarantee ourselves is that change is going to happen whether we like it or not. So we want to make sure that no matter what is going on, that you're in the best place possible to handle change, handle the stress, handle the pivots that you need to make and that you can emotionally and mentally and physically handle what is happening in your life and also come out on the other side feeling, feeling pretty good about how you handled it and what you're going to do next. The first thing to focus on is self awareness, your ability to be aware about how you're feeling, what you're thinking, your behavior, your reactions, your responses, how you perceive events or experiences. Your own awareness is going to help you figure out what you need to do to shift away from a struggle, or how you you're feeling and thinking and perceiving it, or what you need to keep doing if you're doing well. So we raise our own awareness by being mindful of how we're thinking and feeling and acting and all of that stuff. So an easy way to do this is to set an alarm on your phone. And you can do this with either Apple or Android. Set an alarm and name it, how am I feeling? Set it for once an hour, every three hours. Set it for morning, afternoon, and evening, whatever works for you. But for three days, five days, maybe even a week, let that alarm go off and start to pay attention and ask yourself, how am I feeling? And go beyond happy, sad, frustrated, upset, get deeper. Expand your vocabulary with your emotions so that you can raise your awareness and really get to know know yourself, but that you're also recognizing any patterns that are coming up. Are you always waking up in the morning feeling the most anxious? Is bedtime the worst time of day for you? During the day, at 3 o', clock, are you losing energy? Your emotions start to struggle and then you start to overeat or you start to lash out at a friend or a spouse. Whatever it is, raise your awareness by being mindful of your thoughts, your feelings, your actions, your reactions, your responses, your experiences, how you're perceiving, perceiving things. All of that is going to help increase your awareness around how you handle life, especially during stressful times, so that you can figure out what you need to do to shift away from how you're feeling and thinking or what you need to do to continue on a good path. If you're maybe doing well, the other thing you can do with this, if you're struggling, if your feelings are I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling defeated, I'm feeling hopeless, angry, overwhelmed, frustrated. If they're quote unquote negative feelings, right? Feelings aren't negative or positive, good or bad. If you're noticing patterns or you're just noticing that you're feeling a way that you don't want to be feeling, pay attention to it and say, how would I rather be feeling right now? And again, go beyond I'd rather be happy or I'd rather not be sad. Is it I'd rather feel hopeful or, or I'd rather feel confident? Think about the opposite. How would I rather be feeling right now? Then you can do things to begin to pull yourself out of the sadness or the frustration or the overwhelm or whatever it is. Or on the flip side, if you're doing well and you're like, I'm feeling really good, or I'm feeling excited and I'm feeling hopeful, or I'm feeling positive about life, really pay attention to what are your Thoughts, what's your attitude about what's going on? What are you doing? Are you still working out? Sleeping? Are you doing things that's fueling a feeling of struggle, or are you doing things that's fueling a good feeling and how you'd rather be thinking, feeling, acting, things like that? So really raise your awareness and use alarms on your phone, journal it, pay attention, notice patterns, and really get honest with yourself. How am I feeling? What am I thinking? What is going on right now? But most importantly, how are you feeling? Get honest, be willing to be honest about what's going on in your heart, in your body, in your mind, and just start to pay attention to what is going on within you and, and you'll learn a lot about yourself and then you can start to move forward with everything else that you need to be doing. The second big area is build a routine. Whether you're struggling or not, routine is so important. Our rituals, our habits, our routines, our daily life is what is going to determine our outcomes. It's what is going to determine how, how things look 30, 60, 90 days from now. What you are doing today is going to determine what life is going to look like for you in a couple months. So are you reinforcing where you want to be in the future, or are you struggling and not doing things that is going to lead you down the path of where you want to be? So build a bulletproof routine. Use your morning, use your afternoon, use your evening. You don't need a ton of time, but there's a few things that I teach my clients that will help you start to figure out how to build your own routine and build your own daily habits so that you can make sure again that you're doing things that are creating certainty in your life. Your brain craves certainty. In a world of so many unknowns. We need knowns, we need certainty, we need to expect what is coming. You need to set out and say, here's the things I'm going to do today. You need to be able to trust yourself that you're going to get them done. Every time you follow through with a schedule or a routine or a plan or a task or a checklist. Every time you follow through with what you said, set out, that you said you were going to do, you learn to trust yourself. So there are byproducts of creating a routine that are endless, but it has to start with creating the actual routine. So a couple things you can do is in the morning, you have a twilight phase of when you're not really awake, but you're kind of waking up, but your eyes aren't open yet. Start thinking of a mantra, a positive mantra. I'm safe, I choose to be here, or today's going to be a good day. Something that is positive, current tense, not I will, it has to be an I am. That way you get into a headspace of where you want to be in the future, or your affirmations are surrounding a goal that you're working on. So roll a mantra around in your mind. The minute you start to like become conscious in the morning, you do that three or five times. Say it to yourself, say it out loud. Then get into a state of gratitude. I'm grateful that I just heard the heat or the air kick on. I'm grateful that I have a toothbrush. I'm grateful that I have a job to go to, or a car to drive, or a friend that really loves me. Just the few first things that come to mind. Get into a feeling and a state of gratitude. And within 60 to 90 seconds of waking up in the morning, maybe before your eyes even pop open, you literally can set the tone for your day. Before your feet hit the ground, before your eyes open, you're already in a feel good state and you're telling your brain, this is how we're going to wake up. Instead of going to the I have to's or the oh my gosh, everything going on today or oh, this is a huge problem in my life right now. You set the tone and then you can decide how you're going to handle everything that life has to throw at you that day. But before you even get out of bed, set the tone. Decide what your mantra is going to be. Let your body get into a state of gratitude and positivity and expecting that you can handle life, not that life is going to happen to you. The other thing with this is once you're out of bed, then what are you doing? Are you getting out of bed and then immediately going to work, getting ready for work, getting ready for your kids, going to do something for other people? Or are you getting out of bed for yourself? Are you getting out of bed and going to the kitchen and getting a glass of ice water or lemon water or your cup of coffee and then you're sitting and actually enjoying it for a couple minutes? Stop getting out of bed for the world, for other people and start getting up for the day. Getting out of bed for you. It only takes a couple minutes. You don't need an extensive hour long routine in the morning. If you can create it and you have the time. Awesome. By all means, please do so. But if you just have a couple minutes, wake up with your mantra, get into a state of gratitude, and then get out of bed for you. Learn to get out of bed for yourself. Learn to start waking up in the morning for you, not for everybody else. And that will greatly start to shift how you see your day. And then when you start your day on your terms, everything else during the day, you're able to handle better because you set that tone. You chose what you were going to give your mind in the morning. You chose how you were going to think and feel first thing when you woke up. Not that you immediately started letting the day just infiltrate your thoughts and your feelings. You chose, you got out of bed for you. So start to really think about your routine and what you're doing the rest of the day. Working out, eating well, getting outside, doing something fun, learning something, all of those additional things, figure out how to piece them in as little puzzle pieces and build them into your daily routine. We're wasting probably a lot of time. There have been studies that have shown people at work are actually productive like three or four hours out of the day because we're talking with people, we're on social media, we're watching cat videos on YouTube, really are. Audit your time and build those things in that you haven't been making time for. So that every day you're waking up for you, but you're also setting out to do things that are going to get you closer to your goals and also give you a sense of like, satisfaction and fulfillment at the end of the day. Then you also have that feeling of trust in your own self because you're saying, these are the things I'm going to get done. And then you do them. And at the end of the day it feels really good. It builds your self worth, it builds your self confidence and your self esteem. So create a routine. Create a bulletproof routine and do your best to show up for you day in and day out. That way in times of stress, you really trust yourself and you're in the best place possible to handle what life is throwing at you. The third way to start to learn how to focus on yourself during tough times, during difficult times, is self development. I'm a huge fan of self development, learning things and always challenging your brain. So whether it's learning a new dance, learning how to use a new app, reading a biography, learning a skill skill, knitting, something like that, guitar, doesn't matter what it is, but when your brain isn't being challenged and you're not learning and growing, it actually impacts your mood. So be doing something every day that gives you a little bit of challenge so that at the end of the day you can be like, I learned something new or I thought about something in a different way, or I'm working on this skill, knitting guitar, or, or I'm reading a book and I'm learning about how this person lived. Doesn't matter what it is, but learn to challenge your brain so that you feel a sense of productivity and satisfaction and fulfillment. Those things, learning things, growing, expanding your mind and yourself as a human being and your knowledge base, those are the things that keep us going as human humans. And that way if you're struggling with something, a, it gives you a little bit of a distraction and something else to focus on, but B, it gives you that sense of productivity. That way if you're handling something more emotional or you're struggling with something, your brain can problem solve and it can start to kick in and say, what do we need to do here? Because it's already been learning every day, you're challenging it on a daily basis. So when you need it to be practical, when you need to be problem solving or thinking about how to handle something in your life, your brain kicks in automatically and you feel better about your ability to problem solve or handle things because you're in that growing, learning, expanding kind of state on a regular basis. And the last thing, probably the most important thing, is self care. The first thing, when you think about what we said in the beginning of this video, the first thing that goes during stressful times is you, you as a priority, self care is the first thing that goes when we start to struggle, sleeping, eating well, drinking water, even things like showering or getting ready. But most people, if they're struggling, they start to really do the bare minimum of just getting by. So if you're struggling and you're having a hard time or you're trying to figure out how to focus on yourself during a tough time, really pay attention to your self care. How are you sleeping? Are you still going to bed and waking up at a certain time? Are you staying on that schedule? Schedule? Are you eating even something? As I'm going to eat at least one or two nutritious things every day, doesn't have to be anything crazy. You don't have to go from 0 to 60, but you have to do something. When your self care, when your emotional health, when your physical health completely flies out the window, when you're struggling, it's really hard to get that back. It's really difficult. Then when life starts to settle down, it's difficult for you to be able to say, okay, like I'm gonna get back on the horse now. You need to keep up these self care habits as good as possible when you're struggling. Cement them in when you have time, really lock them in when you're doing well so that you can call on them easier if you start to struggle that way when you're having a hard emotional time or you're really sad, or you're dealing with a loss or job stress or something like that, your brain still says, you know what, we have to get outside today. We need fresh air. You still want healthy food, you still want to drink water, you still need sleep. I get it. Stress is going to impact that stuff. But if you literally throw it all out the window and if you let it all fall by the wayside, your mood is going to struggle even more. So and I get it. I understand it is really difficult to keep a positive frame of mind or continue on self care when there's so much happening in your life and in the world. But you have to do something. Don't not do anything, just do something. Maybe it's okay, I'm going to drink a little extra water today or I'm going to make sure I shower. The way I talk about it with my clients is, are you pouring gasoline on the fire and making the explosion bigger and worse or are you moving yourself further from the stress and giving yourself what you need so that you can handle things better? Pay attention to your self care. What are you not doing? What are you not making time for anymore? What have you let fall by the wayside and that maybe you need to start picking up again so that you can handle the bigger stuff in a more productive or a more efficient manner? The biggest thing when it comes to figuring out how to make yourself a priority during difficult times is realizing that the big goal is that you come out of this on the other side in an okay place. That we use the self development and the, the self care and routine and self awareness, that we use all these things and these categories and habits and skills in our life to handle the stress or whatever's happening, but that we also put ourselves in a really good place when we come out on the other side or when there's light at the end of the tunnel or whenever life goes back to normal or whatever it looks like for you so that you're in a really Good place to pivot again. Again. Because change is the only thing constant in life. I've said it before and I'll say it again. It is the only thing that we can really rely on always happening change. Change will always happen, whether we like it or not, whether we're ready for it or not. So use all these things to take care of yourself during stressful times, but also put yourself in a really good spot so that when you have to pivot again or. Or when life says, here we go, here's another wrench in your day, or here's something else you need to change or figure out how to manage that you're in a good place to be able to handle it. You don't want to dig yourself a hole when you're stressed. Yes, there are days where you need to throw your hands up in the air and you need to cry and you need to be upset and you need to say, this sucks. That's absolutely okay. It's all, all valid. But more often, if you're taking good care of yourself, you'll be able to move out of those emotions and you'll be able to bounce back quicker and take care of yourself and handle the stress in a better manner. We don't want to dig ourselves a hole so that when things start to get better, whatever that looks like for you, then you now have a hole to dig yourself out of the. And change to deal with again. You wanna keep yourself on an even playing field and be doing well. You wanna be able to look back and say, wow, I handled that pretty good, or, wow, that was a really difficult time in my life, or that was really stressful. But I'm proud of what I did with that. I'm happy with what I did, how I handled it, what I did with my time, my reactions, my perception of the experience, experience how I felt, all of those things. We always just want to be able to say, I'm really proud of how I handled that. I'm happy with what I did. That was tough, that was difficult, that was not ideal. But wow, look at how I handled it and look what I learned about myself. Look at the lessons I can pull from that experience. You just want to be able to. To look yourself in the mirror at the end of the day and say, as stressful as this time in my life is, I'm okay with how I'm handling it. I'm acknowledging my feelings, I'm feeling the discomfort or the things I don't like, but I'm still doing things to keep myself on the right track to take care of myself, to learn something, and to put myself first. You can't take care of life. You can't take care of stress. You can't take care of other people. If you are not making yourself a priority at some point in your day, in some fashion or another, if it's not the stress that's happening right now, it's going to be something else. Don't forget to focus on yourself no matter what is going on in your life. If you need support, you need help, please reach out. But don't forget that no matter what is going on in your life, that you matter and you matter a lot, and that you are still a priority no matter what is happening.