March was a heck of a month. From getting detained mid-travel (thanks last minute border closings), to having investments and online sales plummet, nothing seemed to go right. This happens to everyone and sometimes, through no fault of your own, nothing goes your way. You play the black, it comes up the red.
While you can’t control everything that happens to you, but you can control your response.
And this article shares several mindset techniques to help you get through any rough patch.
“Worse Things Have Happened To Better People”
No idea if this is a quote from someone, but it is something I always tell myself. By simply recognizing that the situation isn’t a huge deal, you can instantly move past worrying about it.
Likewise, reminding yourself that “Worse things have happened to better people” is a great way to re-frame scope of your problem. The gravity of most setbacks is relative. Being detained at the airport was the worst thing ever, until I got on my next flight and experienced 30 minutes of uninterrupted violent turbulence. The threat of crashing into the Atlantic made me nostalgic for being stuck at customs.
The next time you face an issue, try thinking about its actual scale. You’ll quickly find that most problems have very little long-term impact and aren’t worth worrying about.
“It Will Shock You How Much This Never Happened”
Many people define their entire life around the low points.
To paraphrase John Goodman’s character in The Gambler, the average person’s life story is “I Can’t Handle My Problems by Mr. Crybaby.” In reality very few issues are going to repeat themselves. While it is good to prepare for the worst, obsessing over the past or crippling yourself out of fear that a once in a lifetime setback will re-emerge is stupid.
The stock market were cruising along until it saw massive drops. Permabears rushed out to declare “The Great Depression Part Two is upon us!” There are people who saw portfolio drops of 10%, 20%, 30%, or 50% and probably listened. Selling all their assets at the lowest price and deciding to never “Play the Wall Street casino” again. They’re going to miss out on a lifetime of future gains. Same goes for business. E-commerce and affiliate marketing took a hit (at first), and there are people who quit because of it. I’m sure they’ll cite unemployment concerns, or things like Amazon cutting commissions as proof that Internet business is dead. They’ll miss out too.
Becoming too conservative or nebbish because of a one-in-a-million event is often worse in the long-run than whatever the event was.
The average American lifespan is 4,732 weeks. A really terrible event lasts maybe (?) a year at most. If that.
There’s no sense in re-writing your entire life over something which occupied 1% of it.
Learning from mishaps is great. And making small defensive hedges to prevent history from repeating itself is smart too. But deciding that the worst thing to ever happen to you is your new normal, is just stupid.
Sometimes you have to shrug things off and keep going. Whatever happened is in the past is done, and the future is where you’re headed now.
As the old saying goes: “Only a fool trips on what’s behind him.”
Final Thoughts On What To Do When Nothing Goes Your Way
Bad things happen and sometimes they’re out of your control. Get over them as quickly as possible and move on. As Charlie Munger said (when discussing the death of his child), “Never let one problem compound into two.”
Wallowing in your problems leads to stagnation. Think about the complainers and negative people you know. How many of them would you want to switch places with?
Moving on helps you maintain your momentum and focus on a brighter future. You can always find a solution or alternate path to all your problems.
And when you do, they become distant memories.