How to get through this "Economic Downturn" Unemployment and Life as we Know it!

What at one time might have been thought to be an "unusual" story it's becoming far from uncommon in America. Either we have lost our jobs, are worried about being laid off or know someone -maybe even a family member who is going through "tough times." Let's face it, these are hard times, not just for Americans but for the world at large. The price of gas is ever rising, the airlines predict a dismal forecaset and it seems there is trouble all around us at every turn. How do we cope? How do we keep our heads when the it seems everyone around us is losing theirs (to quote Kipling). Follow my helpful and practical steps and you'll be a lot better off than when you started.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderate

Things You’ll Need:

• Positive Attitude
• Perseverance
• Will-Power
• Faith
• Family
• Friends
• Support

1. Find a quiet place. It's important to sit somewhere quiet and take a deep breath and just relax. Take a deep breath. There is nothing going on in this life or the next that can't spare you about thirty minutes out of every day to just relax. Stress will kill you. Find a quiet place where you can be alone and take a deep breath.
2. Okay, you are alone. Make a list of all the good things going on in your life. Write things that you are thankful for. Let me get you started: perhaps you have a good family, or a nice home, or your health, or the love of family and friends, or at the very least a sunny day once a week. Write down what you are thankful for, truly thankful. If you can't think of anything, then do not despair. Eash day write what you are most thankful for in the day. It could be something as simple as the fact that the barky dog next door fell asleep early, or maybe your back didn't hurt as much as it usually does. It's so easy for us to come up with a million reasons to complain about. It is a little harder to find the light in the darkness when times are tough, but in order to reach our full potential we must find a way to look up and be positive. Start with the thankfulness list.
3. Realize that this isn't the end. Times are hard, true. But as Americans we are an incredibly resourceful people. We are made of good solid stock and I happen to believe that we are pretty smart as a whole. Realize that we will come through these tough times. Didn't we invent the internet? Didn't we give it to the world? Haven't we bailed so many others out for so many years? Aren't we a blessed nation? We need to start thinking in ways out of the problems that we face from day to day. What I challenge you to do today is to re-think your thinking. Sometimes the best way to find a solution to our problems is to turn the situation around. Try to think of your problems as a shirt. I know, difficult, but think of it this way. Think of your problems as a plain old white cotton tee shirt. You always put it on the right way, tag in the back, pull it up over your head, right? Well now picture yourself putting it on inside out and upside down, tag in the front. Or even tear out the tag. When you approach your problems from a differentangle,you will be amazed by the solutions you will come up with.
4. See the troubles in your life as challenges. IN this life it is the challenges of our lives that make us better people. Sure it's easy to take that route of complaining and talking badly and blaming everybody else for what happens to us. Sure if gas was cheaper it would be easier for us, or if we hadn't have lost our job or if this would have happened or that would have happened. But for whatever reason, things occured as they have and here you are in the situation you are in now. And blaming others (even if they are at fault) isn't going to help get you any farther than you are right this second. But if you'll begin to believe in the possibility of a solution..then one can come to you. Pray and read and think and speak but get yourself out of that negative thinking bug which only serves to bring you down and to defeat you. If you'll begin to look upward and outward, you will find a better way - the way that leads to victory! See these hardships as challenges to make you into a better person. Let's face it, if we didn't have so many houses burning down from gas fires with children dying in this country, we wouldn't have come up with electric. These hardships throughout our American history are what have caused us to move better and higher. Look at the Automobile or the Airplane! Sure we may have to go back to steam engines or walking or even horse and buggy, but..what do you think? Do you really believe for a second that the great minds that have come up with so many of our modern day conveniences will not solve todays dilemma. I say we can not only tackle these challenges but much much more. So bring it on world. We are more than conquerors and we will succeed.
5. Positivity affects change. This is a fact. I know a man that had a store that was going out of business. He couldn't afford to keep the doors open. He was about to go bankrupt. These were hard times. He had a friend who told him about keeping a positive attitude. So the man cleaned up his store, changed some displays around, watched, looked and learned and saw his problems from a different angle. He repainted the entire store with some old paint he had in the back. He created a "training" program for some underprivileged youth in the neighborhood -teaching them how to paint and build objects from scrap wood he had lying around in a pile in his back yard. He got the community involved. He became a player instead of someone merely sitting by on the sidelines. Sure he could've given up. He could've sat back and watch as everything he had was lost...but he changed his thinking...he put his tee-shirt on inside out and re-thought his situation. He realized that he wasn't generating any business by sitting in the store feeling sorry for himself. Soon the parents and friends of these boys and girls were buying items from his store. The local paper ran an advertisment on his charitable events. The local television station picked up on what he was doing. His store more than prospered. He took what he had at hand, his knowlege, some scrap would he had lying around back, and his time and created something good for those less fortunate them himself, and for that he prospered. And when hard times came around again, he was there to help, but so were the people who built him up the first time. Get outside of your present thinking. Turn the situation. Open new windows and new doors to opportunity. You'll be surprized what you discover inside yourself!
6. Don't be afraid to think outside the box. This is an important last step. Many times we think we can only do what we can do. Maybe you are a Legal Administrative Assistant and the Attorney has let you go and you think all you know how to do is type, or maybe you've always been an Executive with a top Advertising Firm, whatever your lot in life...when the chips are down, and right now for many of us they are, the solution is always to abandon any ideas of "who" you are or "who" you think yourself to be. You may think that taking a job as a janitor in the local fast food chain is beneath you...but if that's the only job there is that you can get, and it will help make the bills or put food on the table, don't be ashamed, take it! There is nothing more honorable than putting food on the table or trying to do what is right. And if you have friends that feel secure in their jobs and would put you down for doing this..then they aren't friends...try frenemies. Because who knows when they may face the same dire circumstances. There is nothing shameful in an honest days work. And keep the attitude about what you can learn from the situation. Ecnomic times won't last, but tough people will. Learn as much as you can. Who knows how this knowlege that you gain during this brief period will aid you in the future. Who knows? Maybe you'll learn enough about the fast food chain to someday own your own chain? Anything can happen. See this as an opporutnity for growth. Being poor for example, teaches us how to stretch a dollar. Sure buying gas keeps us from getting that Latte, or bottled water, but if you'll continue to bypass the water or the coffee or any of the other changes you make during this time, and take that money when the economy is good (and still live like it isn't) you will be able to amass real wealth. Ask almost any senior citizen who's lived through the depression. Many of them are quite wealthy. Why? Because learning to live without..and go through hard economic stretches has taught them the value of a dollar. Getting more isn't always the answer. Sometimes living without can give us the greatest lessons we will ever learn, and these lessons are far too valuable and couldn't be bought. The only way we can learn from them and to grow into better people is by experiencing them. Necessity is afterall the mother of invention!

Tips & Warnings

• Realize that these are exciting times that we live in. This is a great time to be alive!
• Be positive and hopeful.
• Look towards the light
• Try to avoid Negative people places and things and if you can't develop a thick skin and tactics for dealing with them
• Don't give into depression -it will surely bring you to no good end
• Give up complaining
• Make realistic plans and goals, but reach for the moon
• Don't listen to negative people
• Don't let anybody steal your hopes and dreams
• As Winston Churchill said, "Never never never give up!" Fight Fight Fight!!!