What to do when you don’t know what to do: advice from psychologists

If you recently graduated from college and now have a job you hate

, or your employment is temporary, this material is for you.
You don't have to strain yourself to save the world. Or launching a new Amazon.com. Or figuring out how to get your own cooking show on TV. Or tomorrow turn into Oprah Winfrey. No. All you have to do is start. Here are 9 tips to help you find your own path if you don't know what to do
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Assess the situation soberly

The first thing you need to do is put your emotions aside and assess the situation. Is she really that hopeless? Perhaps there are some advantages to it after all? How to proceed?

It's best to do this in writing so you don't miss anything. Write down all possible scenarios and their possible consequences.

You can ask someone you know to help you. The less this situation concerns him, the better. A fresh, unbiased look will be very helpful.

If you are faced with a serious life-changing choice, for example, where to go after school or where to go to work, read our article “How to develop intuition.” It will help you reach your subconscious and get an answer.

10) Always say yes

Opportunities are always there—you just have to say yes. Even if the opportunity seems completely unrelated to what you want to do with your life, it never hurts to say yes.

As experience accumulates, learning never stops—everything you do and interact with becomes part of you.

When deciding what to do with your life, the first thing you need to know is how to make a choice.

At the end of the day, you want to look back on your life knowing that you made a choice rather than sitting at home afraid of it.

Now go, go with your life.

Don't cut from the shoulder

Never make impulsive decisions. In a shattered, unstable state, there is a high probability of making a mistake, which will be very difficult to correct later. Sometimes it is useful to suspend the situation for a while, perhaps everything will resolve itself. If you don’t know what to do, and you can’t postpone making a decision, choose the path with the least risks.

Sometimes to solve a problem you just need to take a break. Or, as some American psychologists say, “go out onto the balcony” - breathe fresh air there, and then, already rested, return to the problem.
Pause does not mean “sit and do nothing.” You just need to distract yourself with something. For example, you can train your brain on simulators from Vikium, which I recommend to readers in all my articles and which I myself use three times a day. They are free, exciting, and besides, there are already a hundred of them now and new ones are constantly appearing.
Another option is to read a book. Not necessarily fiction - you can read authors such as Napoleon Hill, Robert Kiyosaki, Jim Rohn, Randy Gage, etc.

SWOT analysis

This business planning method helps evaluate a particular decision. To do this, you need to analyze it according to four points:

S - Strengths - strengths.
W - Weaknesses - weaknesses.
O - Opportunities - opportunities.
T - Threats - threats.

Moreover, SWOT analysis will help to bring the non-ideal solution to the optimal one. Let's return to our example with chips:

S - they quickly satisfy hunger, are inexpensive, and easy to buy.
W - chips are difficult to classify as a healthy, balanced food.
O - you can eat them on the way and be in time everywhere.
T - in the long term, excessive consumption of chips can lead to health problems.

The solution is not perfect, and we see its weaknesses. But there is nothing critical. The prospect of having a quick bite and being able to get everywhere looks tempting. And to minimize the damage, it is enough to keep the rest of your meals healthy.

Reconsider your approach to the problem

Draw a random scale on paper. You can take an ordinary centimeter ruler as a sample. This will be a scale for objective assessment of your problem. At one end, let there be a state of maximum comfort and carefreeness, and at the other, absolute hopelessness, leading to inevitable death. Mark several intermediate divisions between the two extremes. Now find the place on the scale that adequately reflects the position of your problem in this coordinate system.

If you are not terminally ill, your house did not burn down in a fire, you did not lose all your close relatives overnight, then your situation will be somewhere in the middle. You are still very far from the extreme point of despair, but you worry as if the worst has already happened.

Remember what good things you have in your life and thank fate for it. Millions of people don't have even a hundredth part of what you have.

Results

Thus, we can say that the meaning of life is not an abstract philosophical phenomenon (although, of course, one can rant on this topic for a long time) and it is not an unanswered question.

The meaning of life is the concept of life of a particular person. A set of his personal provisions, rules, beliefs, values. This is all supported by internal personal psychological characteristics and external conditions, the concept of society.
The meaning of life includes goals for the future, but begins with the present, and even the past makes its contribution to changes in the semantic orientations of the individual. The first semantic questions and guidelines appear in adolescence (searching for oneself in the present, without focusing on the future), in adolescence a person makes plans for the future, in adulthood he implements them (if necessary, adjusting them according to real possibilities), in old age he evaluates, measures your success.
The meaning of life is your perception and understanding of life and yourself, the awareness of ownership of your life and the codependence of the meaning of life and your actions. That’s why you don’t want anything right now because there’s no point.

Do you know that it is passivity that people most often regret in old age, when they begin to evaluate their life, that is, their achievements? I would like to quote the Soviet psychologist and philosopher Sergei Leonidovich Rubinstein: “My attitude towards my own death is determined by two circumstances: firstly, how complete, and not cut short, my life will be by the time of death, how complete it will be at least to some extent.” plan, and, secondly, to what extent I did not abandon, abandon, or leave to the mercy of fate those people who need me.”

That is, you need to be active and active, to endow each step with meaning, and highly significant. The meaning of life is a changeable element. Finding it is not enough, you need to constantly implement it. As goals (meanings) are achieved, based on them, find a continuation - new meanings.

Among the main meanings we can name the meaning:

to be loved;
be happy;
be educated;
to be a successful specialist;
helping people and more.

Note that each of these meanings is subjective. Each person has his own idea of love, education, and happiness. I don’t know what you put into this goal, but I know that any main meaning (goal) can be divided into auxiliary meanings (tasks), which are quite achievable if they are real.

Thus, to find the meaning of life, you need to recognize your own resources and develop a concept for managing them. Get to know yourself, develop, plan your life, be active. Live, don't exist!

Don't blame yourself

We are not gods to foresee and control everything - our sphere of influence is very limited. If you are used to blaming yourself for all the failures that happen to you, then you are a hyper-responsible person.

Hyper-responsibility often leads to self-destruction - this is the main psychological cause of cardiovascular diseases. Therefore, you need to get rid of the tendency to self-flagellation. As soon as the next time your brain starts a chain of painful thoughts, about how you should have done it this way and not that way, that you are so and so bad, tell it STOP and with an effort of will, switch your attention to some important things.

Balance Sheet

Plato suggested listing the pros and cons, and then comparing which is greater, in his Protagoras.

Plato

Ancient Greek philosopher

You, as a person who knows how to weigh well, add up everything pleasant and add up everything that is painful, both immediate and distant, and, putting it on the scales, tell me, what is more? If you compare different pleasures with each other, always choose for yourself the more significant and abundant, and when comparing different pains, choose the insignificant and small. When you compare pleasure with pain, if the pleasant outweighs the painful, whether the immediate outweighs the distant or vice versa, you need to do what contains the pleasant; if, on the contrary, the painful outweighs the pleasant, it should not be performed.

To use the method, you need to divide the sheet into two columns. In one write down the benefits, advantages, advantages of the solution that you can extract from it now and in the future, in the other - the minuses, shortcomings, losses. All you have to do is see what is more and choose.

Mobilize all your resources

A difficult situation is not the time to relax and give up. On the contrary, you need to use all your hidden and dormant reserves. If, for example, you are suddenly faced with an acute shortage of money, you need to take an inventory of your skills and abilities for their potential profitability.

Are you fluent in English? Great, you can earn extra money by tutoring. Do you know how to fix computers? Why not do it for money.

It’s also not a sin to use external resources. These include useful acquaintances and connections.

Enlist the support of loved ones

As you know, friends are known in trouble. Now more than ever you need their support and participation.

“Sometimes the presence of another person, even silently, helps to cope with despair” (Marc Levy).

I absolutely agree with the author of the quote. Tell us about your problem and you will feel better. Most likely, your loved ones will offer to provide you with all possible help. Don't refuse, but don't take too much either. Don't forget to thank them warmly and, if possible, do something good for them in return.

Causes of emptiness

Getting lost in the labyrinths of life is not shameful; looking for meaning is not a shame, just like losing it. It seems to you that the whole point is in your passivity and apathy, but it also has roots. External factors of feeling the meaninglessness of life in a broad sense include:

globalization and technologization of society;
abundance of information;
identification of work calling and life calling (read more about this in the article “Is it possible to see the meaning of life in work”);
the collapse of old values and traditions of society without offering a new alternative (reminiscent of the situation in the 90s).

All this causes a person to fear being replaced by robots and technologies; The abundance of information from different sources and of different quality sows uncertainty in one’s own stability; the collapse of values prevents one from building one’s worldview.

Take up meditation

In any unclear situation, meditate. This is truly a universal recommendation for all occasions. Meditation harmonizes the body and mind, trains attention and imaginative thinking, helps to take control of your emotions and put chaotic thoughts in order.

I offer you a ready-made meditation session on video - you can start with it.

If you are a religious person, you can combine meditation with prayer. Pray when you don’t know the answer to a question that worries you, when the situation seems hopeless.

Don't let yourself go

Unfortunately, many people cannot withstand the onslaught of problems, give up and plunge into the abyss of despair. Against this background, motivation and the desire to take care of oneself disappear; a person may stop washing, cooking, or keeping order in the house.

If your condition is close to critical, and you are periodically visited by thoughts of death, read our article “What to do if you don’t want to live.”

Under no circumstances allow yourself such indulgences, even for a short time! On the contrary, now you need to show maximum care for the most important and dear person - yourself.

Think about what you would like that would help you take your mind off your painful thoughts at least a little. Sometimes even a bar of chocolate is enough to lift your spirits.

Aphorisms for the occasion - for the sake of thought

The beauty of aphorisms is that each person interprets them in his own way. I offer you several popular sayings of great people about the meaning of life. Perhaps this will be a “magic kick” for you. Well, take a little break from the previous “overload”.

A. Ananyev: “The goal of life cannot consist only of the promised eternal bliss; the golden gates of heaven awaiting us, to which only we should turn our thoughts and deeds, is wonderful; but there is, that is, there must certainly be something else... that brings satisfaction not in the mythical future, but today, here on earth. The purpose of life is the desire for immortality (even just name); The meaning of life is the choice of path (and actions) to achieve a goal.”
Aristotle: “What is the meaning of life? Serve others and do good. Every person individually and everyone together has, one might say, a certain goal, in pursuit of which they choose one thing and avoid another... Happiness is the goal of life.”
V. Belinsky: “Without a goal there is no activity, without interests there is no goal, and without activity there is no life.”
W. James: “Believe in the fact that there is something to live for, and your faith will help this fact come true.”
P. Coelho: “Life is a mystery that you must be able to accept and not torment yourself with the constant question: “What is the meaning of my life?” It’s better to fill your life with meaning and things that are important to you.”
B. Pascal: “The past and present are our means, only the future is our goal.”
P. Tkachev: “The life goal of each individual is to preserve and maintain his individuality.”
T. Wilder: “Life has no other meaning than the one we give it.”
O. Wilde: “The purpose of life is self-expression. To manifest our essence in its entirety - that’s what we live for.”

Throw away your pity

Self-pity is a destructive feeling that takes a lot of energy. In addition, it is fraught with a certain danger - a person can get used to being pitiful and even begin to receive certain benefits from it.

For example, many people live for years as unemployed on meager benefits from the state, without even trying to look for work. But it’s disrespect for yourself to admit that you’re good for nothing and are ready to be content with crumbs from someone else’s table.

No matter how difficult the situation may be, you must preserve the image of a strong person, first of all, for yourself.

Why look for the meaning of life

Life itself is unthinkable without meaning. It may be existence, but it is not life. The meaning of life allows you to:

feel the value of life;
understand your life story;
believe in your own uniqueness;
constantly move, develop.

Those who live meaningful lives take an active position in everything. They interact with the world practically and theoretically. Meaning allows you to live the allotted time fully and as fruitfully as possible. “So that there is no excruciating pain for the years spent aimlessly” is the motto of those who endow their lives with meaning.

Take an example from the strong

If you don't know what to do in a particular situation, try to find a guideline. Surely there are people in your circle who command your respect and admiration. Ask what they would do if they were in your place. If there are none, remember famous personalities or movie characters whose fortitude excites the imagination. Maybe as a child you dreamed of becoming someone - Superman, Spider-Man, RoboCop? Try to imagine what they would do in a similar situation, how they would behave.

I advise you to watch motivational films whose main characters have faced serious life difficulties:

"The Shawshank Redemption";
"Men";
"The Pursuit of Happyness";
“Three colors: white”;
“Deaf span.”

The structure and essence of the meaning of life

Despite all the ambiguity of the issue, scientists have been able to identify some stable provisions about the meaning of life, for example, regarding its structure. It is noted that, as a rule, there are several meanings in life: the leader and the subordinates. Based on this principle, the following models of meaning formation are distinguished:

All meanings peacefully coexist or oppose each other.
Subordination of all meanings to one leader.
Change in additional meanings under the influence and growth of the leader.
Inconsistency between the leading and additional principles (that is, the division of the inner world in two).
The leading meaning serves only as a cover for the ever-evolving true meanings.
The breakdown of the main meaning into secondary ones.
There is one leading meaning, but it is interconnected with others and can change.

Thus, the meaning of life is life goals, the means of achieving them (abilities) and the result (information obtained during professional activities, communication and knowledge of the world).

The first conversation about the meaning of life, as a rule, comes in adolescence. Young children can also pronounce this concept, but probably blindly repeating after adults. According to developmental psychology, at this age a child cannot consciously be puzzled by this question.

In adolescence, a person begins to look for the meaning of his life in the present, in youth - to build goals and dream about the future, in maturity - to embody ideas and adjust them taking into account the realities of the existing subjective and objective world.

The meaning of life is based on an individual’s sense of his place in society, his goals and interests, and ideas about the possibility of their implementation. The main characteristics of the meaning of life include:

duality (can be constructive or destructive for the individual);
realism (correspondence of meaning to objective conditions and capabilities of the person himself).

Thus, the meaning of life is an axis that helps a person adhere to a single line, build all his spheres according to one thread. Due to this, the individual perceives his life as a whole, and not by spheres (leisure, family, work), and also perceives himself holistically. For example, if there is inconsistency of meanings, a person can be a sycophant at work and a tyrant at home.

Take a trip back in time

I borrowed this exercise from the arsenal of NLP practices. The first thing you need to do is go back in time. Remember some difficult situation that happened to you several years ago. Let it not be inferior to the current one in terms of the intensity of emotions and the degree of despair. Try to relive all the feelings that you experienced then.

Now return to the present. How do you feel about that problem now? There is not a trace left of the former bright negative emotions, is there?

Now it's time to move into the future. Imagine yourself a year from now. Turn on your imagination to the maximum - the image should be alive and realistic. From this image, look back at your current problem, which by then will have already been resolved. Surely now it doesn’t seem so global to you. Gradually return to the “here and now” state, trying to maintain that “cold”, slightly distant look.

What to do

When you don't know what to do, don't do anything.

William Seward Burroughs

What to do if... After this “if” absolutely anything can happen, any problem, any situation in which a person finds himself.
And this person may not know what to do in this situation, what decision to make, what actions to take to resolve everything and deal with everything. The psychological state of such a person may vary, depending on his character and past experiences. In some cases, when people do not know what to do, they are overcome by panic, in others, people get angry and freak out, in others, they experience a state of hopelessness and fall into apathy, and then into depression. And only in some cases does a person find the strength to not only find the answer to this question, but also to carry out the actions to which this answer indicates. I will tell you in this article about a very useful way of thinking, relevant in such cases when you do not know what to do, thanks to which you can find a solution in almost any situation. Questions that begin with phrases such as: “What to do if...” and/or “What to do when...” are usually directed at the outside world. That is, we are talking about searching for the necessary knowledge in the outside world, with the help of which it will be possible to solve the issue that has arisen. This is the easiest and fastest way to understand a situation, solve a problem, a task that a person is faced with. Someone has already walked this path, and we are just learning about how it was done so that we can also walk it. So you, having found this article, want to understand your situation with the help of external knowledge. This is a good approach. It is on this approach to solving various problems that our education is built. We study other people's experiences in educational institutions, which we then apply in life. But sometimes it doesn't work. Or rather, it is simply impossible to use it. Because, either there is simply no knowledge about the situation we are faced with, it is so unique in some way that there is no way to find similar examples in order to use them to understand how best to act. Or there is knowledge, but access to it is impossible for various reasons. You may not even know that the knowledge you need exists in the world and you may not know where to find it. In such cases, there is only one thing left to do: look for the necessary answers within yourself.

What does it mean to look for the answer within yourself? This means thinking. And this is a very difficult task. As Henry Ford said: “Thinking is the hardest job; That’s probably why so few people do it.” When you think, you begin to create new knowledge. You create new ideas, come up with new solutions, using different designs created from the knowledge you already have. Perhaps somehow our brain is able to create new information, come up with new ideas, generate new knowledge without relying on existing knowledge, maybe they come to us from somewhere else, in addition to past experience, I don’t know for sure. But I know for sure that knowledge can be found within ourselves, that our imagination can create simply amazing things if we use it. Actually, this is what genius is based on. And we can develop our genius by more often turning to our own abilities to create the answers we need, rather than constantly looking for them in the outside world.

Thus, it turns out that you can find answers in the outside world, which is full of knowledge, you just need to find the right ones. As we know, there is nothing new under the sun, you just need to know history, in a broad sense, in order to know what and how to do in a given situation. Or you can find answers within yourself, relying on your thinking abilities, your imagination, logic, and your innate genius. In this life, you need to be able to do both well. If, for example, you want to understand what to do if you have a headache, then it would still be wiser for you to look for information on this topic in the outside world, on the Internet, books, or contact relevant specialists so that they can tell you , what medications to take, and maybe undergo examinations, you never know why you have such pain, or maybe you will simply be advised to rest. In general, there is no need to reinvent the wheel here; there is no need to reach with your own mind what is already known and what can be used to quickly solve the problem that has arisen. You find a ready-made answer and apply it. Simple, fast, effective.

But if you have problems of a more, so to speak, individual plan, if you, for example, want to figure out what to do if your business is going downhill or what to do when your husband/wife beats you, then the answer should not always be sought in outside world. In these cases, you need to think with your own head, and therefore take responsibility for the decision you make, and not just copy other people’s decisions. Because the situation with your business may be very unique in many respects or even in everything, and there is simply no or you cannot find a similar example in the world from the lives of other people to find out how to act correctly in your situation or what exactly should not be done. Something similar, yes, maybe, but not a completely identical situation. Therefore, you will have to think about what is best for you to do in order to save your business. Also with relationships, you cannot completely impose someone else’s experience on your life, it will be too rough an approach that can lead you to mistakes. In one case, husbands/wives behave aggressively for one reason, in another for another, in another for another, there can be many reasons for one or another of their behavior. And other people, sharing their experience with us, most often distort it, shifting all responsibility for problems in their personal lives exclusively to their partner, and presenting themselves as white and fluffy, victims of other people’s aggression, injustice and, in general, victims of the situation. Well, how can you rely on such a distorted experience, which, moreover, is not universal, to solve such an important issue? No, here you definitely have to think for yourself, taking into account the experience of other people, but not relying entirely on it.

And there are also situations when a decision must be made solely on the basis of one’s own considerations. Well, for example, when you make a choice about what is best for you to do - where to go to study, where and with whom to live, where and how to work, and so on. At this moment you determine your destiny. Of course, you need the experience of other people in order to understand what awaits you if you follow this or that road, if you make this or that decision. But what is best for you and how you need it - only you can decide for yourself. There are no absolutely right decisions. Each solution has its downsides. Therefore, when deciding how to live, a person must take full responsibility for such a decision. This is if he wants to live his life and not regret anything later.

Thus, we can find the answer to the question: “What to do?”, or we can invent it. Now think about how unique your situation is in order to understand where it is better for you to look for an answer to resolve it - in the external or in the internal world. Or, doing it both ways, consider whether to give preference to internal or external knowledge.

What to do when you don't know what to do

What usually prevents us from thinking properly and making the right decision, whether in a familiar or unfamiliar situation? That's right, emotions. They are the ones who can force us to make hasty and wrong decisions. And when you don’t know something, but you need to know because you need to do something, then emotions will definitely arise in this case. Of course, negative. And there are two ways to pacify them so that they do not harm - this is to do something and do nothing. In the first case, a person does something so as not to be afraid of his own powerlessness. And in the second case, he just waits to calm down and not panic.

Now, think about your situation in which you don’t know what to do, what feelings does it make you feel - do you panic or are you afraid that you won’t be able to do anything, you give up and you think that everything is lost? I cannot tell you here, in this article, what exactly you should do in the situation in which you are now, or you may find yourself in, if you are one of those people who is trying to solve the problem before it occurs. I do not know all the specifics of your situation to give you specific advice, if it is even possible in your case. But I can help you cope with yourself, so that you yourself do everything as it should, so that you find the knowledge you need, and think properly, and ultimately make the right decision. Therefore, you definitely need to figure out what emotions you have now. Either you are panicking because you don’t understand what and how to do to solve the problem, or you are afraid that you won’t be able to change anything. Let's start by considering the first option - panic.

addictive

In the case of panic, emotions push you to make bad decisions. And if you, following my advice, decided to wait, so as not to panic and not make mistakes, then in order to take this pause you need, to wait until some time passes, believe me, just believe that your life is in trouble won't leave. You won't get lost. Here you need faith that some higher powers will take care of you, push you on the right path, suggest a solution, help you, therefore, you don’t have to fuss, don’t worry about the fact that you’re not doing anything in your situation to correct it. Wait until something happens that gives you a valuable thought. I may not be able to scientifically prove to you that some higher powers exist, the same God or someone else or something that people are used to believing in, but you don’t need this evidence. Believe that you may not know about something, but it exists, and this is always the case. Because we always don't know something. And it's something you don't know will help you. And it will help. Wait, don't do anything. You don't act. Well, make a fuss. If you don’t have a fire, both literally and figuratively, when you need to act with lightning speed, then you can wait before you start doing something, so wait!

Great power lies in the simple ability to wait. It's like putting life on pause to think about its future scenario, which you will write yourself. Wait! You should not expect that the answer, solution, help will come to you ready-made, and not that the situation will resolve itself, without any effort on your part, although this happens. Wait until your brain, your psyche simply gets used to the new reality, to the current situation, when you begin to consider this situation, well, not just acceptable and normal, but, let’s say, permissible. Well, everything happens in life, right? Why would suddenly everything turn out the way we want? Sometimes everything works out contrary to our wishes and expectations. And we must accept it. We have to come to terms with this. Let it be as it is. You have to get used to it, so you need time to adapt to the new reality. Then your brain, your mind will calm down and begin to work normally with this situation. There will be no panic, no fuss, no nervousness that causes us to make mistakes. Normal work will begin on what we have. The same search for knowledge will begin, both in the external and in the internal world. In a word, you will tune in to a constructive wave. All this will be possible thanks to the pause that you take to give your brain time to get used to the situation that you want to resolve.

A pause will protect you from such actions that at first will seem right to you simply because the thought of them is the first to come to your mind. Do you know what people start doing in problematic situations that are unfamiliar to them, when something needs to be done, but what exactly is unknown? They do what they are used to doing. Simply because they don’t know anything else. Well, for example, the military fights, believers pray, comedians joke, and housewives are busy doing housework, because that’s what these people are used to doing, including in situations where they don’t know what to do, when they are nervous and they worry because they need to do something. Everyone does what they are used to, what they know how to do, what they were taught. And the situation may be completely far from their activities. Tomorrow it turns out that a large meteorite is flying towards us, which can completely destroy life on our planet and we need to do something to try to save ourselves. And many people in panic will do what they are used to doing. As I already said: the military will begin to fight, believers will begin to pray, and so on. A stressful situation will push them to actions that are familiar to them, be it creative actions or destructive ones, when people fall into madness and begin to smash, break, destroy, commit crimes, essentially turning into animals. Unreasonable, irrelevant, even funny? Well, pay attention to how this happens now, in simpler situations, when people stop thinking constructively, you will see for yourself that this is exactly what happens. Because this is such an automatism of our life. We receive a signal from the outside world that calls us to action. But without taking a pause, sometimes a very long one, in order to properly think about everything, calm down, and understand the essence of the situation in which we find ourselves, we begin to act not just incorrectly, but generally inadequately.

We often substitute a more or less suitable answer to the question life asks us. Suitable does not mean correct. And sometimes it's just the only answer we know. And it doesn’t matter that it’s not suitable for the current situation at all. Something needs to be done, so people do what they can and know. This is an inadequate reaction, but it is something, and something is always better than nothing. For the reaction to be adequate, for the answer to be correct, we must wait. The brain will figure everything out, give it time.

Action

In other situations, when a person thinks that he cannot cope with the situation, when he begins to go to the other extreme and gives up, he loses faith in himself, becomes apathetic, he needs to start acting. Action is the cure for depression, passivity, apathy, and depression. It only helps before such conditions arise. Well, or before they get worse. Therefore, when strength is lost, the main thing is to remain active and not relax. When a person does something, he subconsciously thinks that he has the situation under control. And the feeling of control over the situation, process, life is important for our psychological state. Even if your actions are not entirely correct, even if it is an imitation of solving a problem, the main thing is that you do something and do not become sour. Just don't overdo it, don't make too big decisions, so as not to fall victim to the extreme described above, just stay active. By acting, a person gives himself hope that he will cope with the situation and everything will ultimately be fine. And that's exactly how it will be.

What to do if it doesn't work out

Also an important point, isn’t it? No matter what you do, even any necessary things, being completely confident that you are doing everything correctly, something may still not work out, especially at first. Well, this is one of the laws of life, which says that not everything always works out the first time and the way we want. Our world is very complex, there are an infinite number of options for the development of events, and therefore you can never be one hundred percent sure that all your plans are being implemented with high accuracy. It happens that you start doing something to get one result, but you get another. Otherwise you don’t get any at all. Well, in such cases, it becomes somehow uneasy. It's unpleasant when reality doesn't match expectations. What to do when it doesn't work out? And we need to understand the pattern of the result. Or rather, study such a pattern to see how you got to where you got to. This will allow you to understand how you can go differently to arrive at something different.

You see, dear readers, people tend to step on the same rake several times. But they do this not because they are stupid, although there is a place for this, but mainly because they do not understand how they even approached such a rake, what is the pattern of such a result when they received a rake in the forehead. It is not always easy to identify all cause-and-effect relationships in order to understand the patterns of the situation. The result you get does not always allow you to understand how you got it. So, a basic analysis of what happened, this is exactly what needs to be done if something doesn’t work out. Sorry, but I can’t offer you anything new or special here. Just an analysis of the situation, that's all you need. But I focus your attention on this moment, without distracting you to anything else. Analyze what happened. Remember that a negative result is also a result, just one that you did not expect. But it was the result of many reasons that you need to identify. By the way, what is analysis? This is the decomposition of a whole into parts, with the aim of studying these parts, their connections with each other and their role in the composition of the whole. Well, that's it, in a nutshell.

Each of your actions and the result associated with it must be identified and thought about what could be done differently in order to try to get a different result that suits you. You don't have to change everything. Sometimes you need to change just a little, one or two things in the whole thing, and that will be enough for everything to work out.

What you should never do

Whatever problem a person comes to me with, the first thing I try to do is help him not to make hasty conclusions. And this happens very often. Our brain always wants to quickly put an end to any issue. And then, when a person already, as it seems to him, knows exactly what happened and why, he looks for a solution to his problem. That is, the problem itself has not really been identified, but the person is already solving it. It's like treating a non-existent disease by misdiagnosing yourself.

This happens to me often in my work. We begin with the client to solve one of his problems, which he himself identified, and end with solving a completely different problem, which he actually has and which he was not even aware of. Therefore, you should not draw hasty conclusions in any situation. To do this, constantly tell yourself that you don’t know what’s really happening, you don’t know how it really happened, no matter what they tell you, you don’t know what’s true, even if someone convinces you that that his words are the ultimate truth. Then your mind will not close this question to itself. And he will continue to return to it. And even if it’s unpleasant for him to do this, we don’t like to keep some questions in limbo, we don’t like to put commas or question marks in our minds, we need certainty, we need periods at the end of our mental sentences. But if you accustom yourself to this, constantly repeating to yourself, as Socrates said, that you only know that you know nothing, then this approach to life will take root in you and you will not deceive yourself or confuse yourself. You will learn to think deeply, broadly, and in detail, and this will give you the opportunity to understand different situations very well.

What you need to do to be one step ahead of others

This is a very important question that ambitious people sometimes pose to me, and I often pose it to myself, because I also want to achieve certain goals earlier than others. And this makes sense. As in the case of problems that need to be solved before they occur, so in the case of success, you need to be not only better than others, but also faster. You should know some important information earlier, make better decisions, act proactively, think ahead. If you know about something important before others, you will always be one step ahead of your competitors, which means you will be able to make the right decision before them, which means you will be the first to get a positive result, that is, grab the biggest piece of the pie. In general, it is clear that in order to win, you need to be proactive. This is relevant for different areas of life, especially for politics, business and military affairs.

But this important question is very difficult to answer. More precisely, the answer is clear, you need to think creatively, imaginatively, differently from everyone else, in order to stay ahead of the times. But we mostly think conservatively. Just as our education taught us to think - looking into the past to find out the future, so we think, that is, in yesterday. This is a good way of thinking - it's called learning from the experiences of generations, standing on the shoulders of giants. But the thing is, everyone does it. Everyone who is well educated, who educates themselves, all do exactly this - they receive knowledge that is new to them, but old for the world, and on their basis they draw conclusions regarding the probable future and make appropriate decisions in the present. It's like with generals who are always preparing for the last war. This means doing things the old fashioned way. In such cases, there is competition between knowledge; whoever has more of it and who has it more accurately, better, and sometimes fresher, is the one in grief. Well, in some cases, the same inside information in the financial market, as information hidden from the majority, but available to someone, helps that someone beat the majority in making financial decisions. This is how people are ahead of each other, let's say, half a step.

But in order to stay ahead of all the people - your competitors - by a whole step, or even several steps, in order to surpass everyone in something, you need to create new knowledge, you need to give free rein to your imagination, allowing even the most absurd thoughts to appear and develop in your head . There should be no restrictions, no self-censorship, complete freedom of thought. Only by creating, inventing something completely new, can you be significantly ahead of others and, accordingly, skim off the cream. Do you know what contributes to this? Freedom! Or rather, a feeling of freedom. Only a person who feels free is capable of limitless creativity. By getting rid of all unnecessary responsibilities, all possible fears that are holding you back, you will turn into a creator. But in order to get to this point, in order to achieve such a state, you need to do a tremendous amount of work on yourself. It is about getting rid of all the old ineffective, conservative, fearful thoughts and attitudes. To leave your intellect completely naked. Old knowledge should not limit you. Thoughts shouldn't be scary.

You see, I’m not talking now about intellectual work, about the development of mental abilities, about the development of thinking, I’m talking about the psychological state of a person in which he can turn into a creator who will create something that has never been seen in this world and thanks to this he will accomplish a breakthrough, ahead of all other people in something. What exactly depends on human activity. The main thing is that in order to get ahead of everyone else, you need to create, and in order to create, you need to feel free. To do this, you don’t need to be afraid of anything and don’t limit yourself to anything. But it’s not easy to come to this, because of the peculiarities of our lives, because of our conservative attitudes and all kinds of fears that we need to get rid of. We must do our best to develop the idea of freedom and bring it to life, then we will open the doors to our own and other people’s creativity.

Also, the development of creative abilities is facilitated by love, a limited amount of information, interest in some business, an urgent need to solve a problem or task, and moderate hunger. But these are all ingredients that need to be mixed in different proportions until you get something that will give an impetus to a person’s creative abilities. If you overdo it with one thing, then something else will suffer and nothing will work out, your creative streak will not develop. The feeling of freedom especially should not suffer; for this, it is necessary to prevent the emergence of a feeling of fear, at least a very strong one. Otherwise, it will completely ruin the feeling of freedom, and therefore deprive a person of the ability to create.

What to do if everything is meaningless

And the last thing I also often have to deal with when working with people and which can seriously ruin our lives. We are talking about a state when we stop seeing the meaning in everything. Sometimes in life things develop in such a way that we stop seeing the meaning in almost everything that surrounds us. We don’t succeed, there are no serious successes, and therefore no joy, which is why we give up and don’t want to do anything, because we see that no matter how much we do, it doesn’t change anything and doesn’t give us anything .

And in such cases, a person wants to know what to do when he doesn’t want to do anything, because he doesn’t see the point in anything. And I tell these people: do what you have to do or what you have to do. And in such cases they usually add: come what may. This means that you cannot escape fate. Well, I don’t know how things are with fate, I am of the opinion that we create it ourselves, but in this case, if your desires no longer help you act, if you don’t want anything, then you need to use a sense of duty . It can be real or imaginary, as long as you think you have to do something. This feeling often allows you to do something through strength, through I can’t. And by acting in this way, guided by a sense of duty, people begin to get some results. Sometimes there are very good, significant results that bring joy. And then the desire returns to people. And they see the point in taking action again.

You see what we have achieved. The question: “What to do?”, regardless of its continuation, was partly transformed into the question: “How to do it?” and we discussed with you the approach to such situations in which the question begins precisely with the words indicated in the title of the article. In this case, we were not interested in specific situations and specific cases. We were interested in the correct thinking and psychological attitude of a person necessary to understand these situations. When a person thinks correctly, exactly as it should be done in the situation in which he finds himself, then the form of the question put before him by life is not so important. A person will find the right answer by thinking as shown in this article. The main thing is that he looks for it. And he will do this only with the right psychological attitude.

Take action

Let the mental part end here; it’s time to get down to business. If you don’t know what to do, you need to start doing at least something - do a general cleaning of the house, dig up the garden, prepare food. Only with the help of active actions can you distract yourself from painful thoughts and experiences that consume energy.

“If you feel discouraged, seek healing in work” (Abraham Lincoln).

If you have no desire to do something, you need to force yourself to work through willpower. Usually the hardest thing is to start, but then you get hooked and don’t want to stop.

9) Be confident

Many of us don't pursue what we really want in life because we feel like we're not good enough. Self-doubt creeps in and prevents us from taking action.

But no matter how difficult it is, you have to rise above it and become better. Know your worth. Change your negative thoughts to positive ones.

And I know it's easier said than done when you're lost in a constant loop of negativity, but good things take time. It takes time and effort to rewire your brain to be more optimistic and confident.

And to learn to be confident, sometimes you have to fake it until you make it.

A study published in the Journal of Health Psychology found that mock interview participants who sat up reported "feeling more enthusiastic, excited, and powerful, while participants who fell reported feeling more fearful, hostile, nervous." , quiet, still passive, lethargic, sleepy and lethargic."

Remember, the only thing you control is your actions. When your mind tells you that you can't do something, prove it wrong! This is your servant, not your master.

You only get life once, so you might as well believe in yourself and make the most of it.