How To Stop The "I Can't Cope" Circle
We all face situations or events when we feel that the best approach would be to hide under the blanket and wait until everything is over. Sometimes, life gets in the way, and everything feels too much.
Then, you’ve got two options. You can, indeed, hide under the virtual blanket. After all, not every situation requires to be handled right now or at all. However, more often than not, you need to engage with the situation. You need to take an active role. And that’s when you hear the little voice in your head: “I can’t cope”.
In the end, the only thing you’ve managed to do is to convince yourself that can’t find a way out. But this is not true. You can break the negative circle before it breaks you.
Express your emotions rather than bottling up
Emotions have a life of their own. Positive emotions can lift you while negative emotions can have the opposite effect. Strangely enough, a lot of people find it hard to know what they feel at any given time. Indeed, because many of us bottle up negative emotions, any stressful event we face adds a bit of negativity to your inner bottle. As a result, a straightforward issue that wouldn’t have been noticeable, otherwise, can take huge proportions. Because it’s not one isolated problem anymore, it’s part of a massive bottle of darkness. If you don’t learn to express yourself as and when you need it, you bottle things up. Whether you talk to a friend or use arts for relief, you need to empty that bottle before it becomes too much.
Find someone who is on your side
Dealing with a difficult situation is challenging for anyone. But dealing with it alone could make things worse. Sometimes, the truth is that you can’t cope ALONE. That doesn’t mean the issue can’t be sorted. It means that you need help to progress. Say, for example, you’ve been hit by a car. It affects your health, but also your income, as you can’t work. There’s help available in the form of a personal injury law firm. The bottom line is that coping is not always about managing everything by yourself. It’s about knowing who to turn to for support.
Don’t let your fears get to you
Are you someone who needs a safe routine to feel confident? When something new and unexpected happens, you can worry about how to manage. More often than not, we fear new challenges not because they change the routine but because we are worried about failing. Ask yourself: What is the worst thing that could happen? More often than not, the worst thing that could happen is not as dramatic as you make it. Let’s assume that you’ve been tasked to make a sales pitch to a client for the first time. You feel anxious, and you are not sure how to approach the task. Two things could happen: You could either convince the client or not. Once you’ve visualized the two options, you realize that failure is only part of a learning curve.
It’s time to ban phrases such as “I can’t cope” from your vocabulary. “I can’t cope” is only inspired by three things:
- You’re overwhelmed by negative emotions
- You don’t know who to ask for help
- You are scared of failing
You can put yourself back into the driving seat of your life by learning what triggers your “I can’t cope” circle, so you’re equipped to stop.