#askacoach - How Can I Handle Feeling Discouraged?

Hey, good morning, everyone. Welcome to Ask a Coach a Question. I am certified high performance coach Sean Butner and this is the Friday show where we take questions that you guys submit over the week through social media. We through SeanButner.com ask through any other means of contacting me or my team, which is just me, full disclosure. And we just talk about things that are impacting your lives each week. So I do encourage you. One, if you haven't subscribed, make sure you do that wherever you're watching this video. And number two, if you have a question, leave a comment, send me a message, go to seanbauder.com ask and we'll address your question on the show next week. Right, so we'll always be a little like one week behind, but that gives me time to think through and try to group problems together or, you know, kind of get a little bit prepped for thinking through some things that you guys face because that's what I'm here for. As a coach, I help people all the time figure out what, you know, their way through, the things that they're struggling with, figure out how to achieve their goals quicker, how to feel the day more, live with more presence, more optimism and majority. Because guys, we need it more. And it's really applicable to today's question, which is what do you do when you think, I can't believe this is happening. Life really sucks. And I can't fathom why this is happening to me right now. Like, how do you handle that, that feeling of discouragement or when you hear that thought in your head? Because definitely, at least I can raise my hand. This past year I've had this thought, you know, it's been really inconvenient. You know, like me and my wife got married in 2019 and just celebrated our two year anniversary, which is amazing. And you know, Covid happened. We were, she works in a school, so we're like, okay, we'll go next summer on our honeymoon. And then Covid shut everything down. So we were stuck at home. And so how do you feel? Like we were looking forward to going out, taking a trip together, seeing the world and that had to change. And so that was, you know, life happened as it does often and, you know, left us a little bit disappointed, a little discouraged. And as this has dragged on, it's been a little discouraging. And I think a lot of you folks probably probably feel the same way or like, you know, we celebrated our two year anniversary last week. Ashley was in a car crash and then thankfully is okay. Right. And I'll talk about, you know, a couple things to do when you feel discouraged. But it came at a really bad time when she's starting a new job. You know, we had our plans to go up and celebrate our wedding anniversary together a little bit early. And so all the stuff very inconveniently was in her life. And again, like, I'm very thankful that everyone was okay. You know, she got hit, so it wasn't her fault. But, you know, it's scary, you know, to think someone that you really care for coulda, it could have been a lot different. But it also, you know, we're able to make things work, but it's like, why is this happening right now? We had that thought, but that feeling of discouragement, that feeling of, you know, unsettlement of frustration maybe can really take away your day to day life experience. Right? Take you away from the things that are really important. Because, you know, as you know, I was feeling this and kind of connecting it to this last year, it's like, oh, not another thing, right? Oh, you know, the guy that helps people try to see the day, try to see their lives in a positive manner was stuck in this feeling of like, this is too much. But we have control over how we feel, we have control on how we respond to things. And so that kicked in for me and I'm like, okay, I need to think about all these situations a little bit differently. Right. And so I got five ideas for you on, on how to turn around discouragement so you feel happy, content, that you feel like you're a little bit more in control of your life and that you can move forward with joy and confidence. Right? So big promise. But, you know, before we get into those five ideas, I really think the baseline of discontent is feeling that things are out of control for you. Right. If you, you know, life happens where you lose a family member in the middle of a big work thing, like very inconvenient, you lost a family member, that really sucks. And so you have to switch gears to be there for your family, you know, and that's just life. And there's a million different things that we could cover with this, you know, like a car crash. Right? Everybody left, okay. And that's the best case scenario for a bad situation. So. But now we have to deal with car rentals. Now we have to deal with finding a new car. And there's a global shortage. If you've paid attention to the news, it's very real. And so that's going to be a Whole process that we didn't intend. It just happened to us, and it happened outside of our control. So the first thing when you have these things that you feel discouraged about, you feel are a little bit outside of your control, is to get perspective. Right? You know, for me, with the car crash with my wife, it was okay. The most important thing is that she's here. We're able to celebrate our anniversary together. We can move things around. We can create or find ways to celebrate that don't involve traveling with our car that's now defunct. So honestly, like, there's not much to be upset about in that case, because it could have been so much more worse. You know, there are people that have family members that are in car crashes and the family member is severely injured or doesn't come home. And so thinking of that and making it important that she's safe, that she can recover from any of the psychological stuff that can happen with being jittery and getting on with our life and figuring out how we can adjust and take. Be a little more proactive. And some of the things we wanted to do was very instrumental in us both not freaking out. You know, we had our moment, but it didn't linger. So that happened last week. Things seem pretty much back to normal now, so. Which is good. But it's that perspective and knowing that, okay, how are. How could things have gone differently? How could. How have other people experienced this maybe? And how was their experience maybe better or worse? You know, having that. That ability to, like, take a step back and think, think through different scenarios can really help. So getting that perspective. The second thing is to do what's in your control, right? So if you're feeling discouraged, like, we were like, okay, we had this, like, day trip planned for our wedding anniversary. We didn't have a car. And it was, you know, calling around the whole Bay Area trying to find a rental. Things were booked up. So what could we do about it? Well, you know, for me, it was okay. We'll have to be a little bit more aggressive on trying to find a car rental, which is the first world problem. But most importantly, you know, for me was celebrating our anniversary, my anniversary with my wife. So as long as that happened, everything else was a minor detail that we could move around. And so we started plotting and planning, like, okay, if we can't do our day trip, what else could we do? And ultimately we were able to figure out a way to do the day trip. So we had a couple of close friends that had a spare car, and they're like, okay, don't worry, sort the rental car out later. You can use our spare car because we don't need it, which was awesome. So shout out to Kyle and Ari, you guys rock. And so we were able to do what we could about it. Not get stuck in that feeling of like, things happen. We can't move forward. So that's very important. So we have get perspective, we have do something that's in your control or take a step to get undiscouraged or couraged. I guess. Third thing is to connect with others experiences, right? This is again going back to that perspective. But if you know people that you know are struggling or there's other people in the situation, you know, like with the car crash, like Ashley's folks are also really concerned. So, you know, talking with them, making sure that, you know, being of service to other people in the situation can really help you or keep you from going into despair. Discouragement can actually bring you closer in a weird way. So it's a way to add a silver lining to the situation and make it helpful. Next thing, so we have get perspective, we have start something to get courage, we have connect with other people's experiences. Then we also need to seek inspiration. Sometimes if you're feeling like you're still stuck in I can't change the situation. Things are not going to change for me. I'm not excited for tomorrow because it's going to be the same old BS as it was today. Then maybe it's time to seek inspiration. You know, maybe it's, you know, listening whatever works for you. For me it's listening to good music, ghosting a show if I can. It's watching a movie, it's reading one of my favorite favorite books or a passage from one of my favorite books. It's, you know, doing some research on people that I admire. That kind of stuff. Because sometimes that inspiration gives you that hope that you can change. And hope can be everything. When you're feeling like, yeah, nothing's, nothing's going for me, right. Sometimes we just need a little hope to get going again, to get moving, to get moving forward and things can drastically change for you. So that's number four. Number five is to change up your routine and environment. Sometimes when we're discouraged and we're going and we're doing the same thing over and over and over again, you know, we wake up at the same time, you do go to the same things for breakfast, do the same thing during the day, we do the same thing, we go home and we don't feel that excitement for the future. We don't feel that confidence that we can handle the things that have happened to us or the things that are discouraging us. Switching things up, you know, do things in a different order during your day. You know, move your furniture around your house. It's one of the weirdest. But my favorite things to do when I'm feeling a little bit like just stuck, right? Because I think moving and shifting your physical environment or shifting your routines, you have control over that. So you're like, oh, if I can change this, if I can see the world in a little bit different way, then maybe I can figure my way out of whatever discouraging you right now in your life. So, yeah, that's it for how to handle discourage. It's get perspective. Start something to get you more encouraged. You know, connect with other people's experiences, seek inspiration and find a little bit of hope to get you going and then switch things up so that you have that realization that you can change your environment. So hope you love this video, guys. Again, you can go to seanbartner.com ask or submit a question through messages or comment below. Wherever you're watching this, I'd love to. To answer your question, get into your life, coach it through a little bit on how to maybe shift your perspective or just get back going and get going quicker towards whatever your, your ambitions are, your goals, your dreams, that kind of stuff. You guys can do this, right? We have the ability to change how we feel. We have the ability to change how we show up in life. We have the ability to impact the world. And that's why I love this job and doing this for you guys. So, yeah, believe like and Ted Lasso, believe you have more agency over what's going in your life. And if you need help, just shoot me a message and I'll answer your question on this awesome show because that's what we do. All right, guys, with that, have a great weekend. I'll see you next Friday for Ask a Coach a Question. This is Sean Butner signing off saying see you then.