What Do You Do When You Feel Like You Can’t Win?
When you feel like you can’t win you always have options.
The past couple of weeks have not been good.
I got COVID. Even though I took lots of precautions and was as vaccinated and boosted as possible – I still got sick. However – it was no worse than a cold, and there seem to be no lingering effects. Vaccines work – thank you, science.
Right on top of that, my mother-in-law had to be hospitalized. Without oversharing, she’s doing better now – but there remains a lot of recovery ongoing and work for my wife and sister-in-law to come.
My wife spent a week at her mom’s place so that I could isolate myself. We missed doing our usual Christmas stuff between COVID and her mom’s hospitalization, and nearly missed New Year’s. I tested negative, she finally came home – feeling like garbage. And now she has tested positive for COVID.
To add to this, when taking a detailed look at book sales and earnings from writing, I learned I’m earning close enough to nothing to need to consider a new approach.
This is a lose-lose situation, right?
Here I am, at the start of a new year, feeling like I can’t win. I can let that sink in, feel bad about it and myself, and sink into a nice, deep, downward-spiraling depression.
Or I can choose something else.
What do you do when you feel like you can’t win?
The first thing to do is get clarity
Clarity begins by looking at your situation and circumstances with a neutral eye.
What does that mean? It means stepping outside of the situation and seeing it for what it is. Not what you think it is or how it’s affecting you – but what it really, truly, actually, is.
For example – let’s just disregard and ignore the feeling that you can’t win. It might or might not be true – but that’s utterly subjective. Let’s look instead at reality.
I had COVID. Keyword – HAD. I have since recovered and tested negative. And, even though my wife has it now, after a lot of research, it looks like I should be most likely immune. Just to be safe, I’ll consult with my doctor’s office.
My mother-in-law is recovering. Full recovery is going to take time, but all signs point to her recovering.
My writing isn’t earning what I would like it to be. So, I can choose to take new approaches to marketing it – or give up.
Finally – there is nothing WHATSOEVER I can do about my wife having COVID, my mother-in-law’s hospitalization, or my disappointing book sale numbers. Zero. Zilch. Nada. All I can do is be here for them however they need me and keep writing or not.
Lose-lose? If I choose to view it from that perspective, looking towards the negative – then yes. But it’s a choice. I choose to see this as a you can’t win situation – or not.
When I’m clear on what I have control over – all of which, spoiler alert, is my inner mindset/headspace/psyche self – the situation as it is becomes clear. Not as I think it might be (i.e. I can’t win) but as it genuinely is.
With that clarity, I can make informed choices for what to do now.
You feel like you can’t win – but is it true?
In her brilliant Loving What Is, Byron Katies explores what she calls The Work. This involves asking 4 questions, here and now, to identify what is – versus what you might believe is – and turnarounds for the things you are questioning.
The first question is – IS IT TRUE? The answer is either yes or no. If you need an explanation to justify it – you’re not providing a true answer related to what is.
Is it true that I can’t win? No. It might feel that way – but the truth is that this is depression, sadness, frustration, and other emotions expressing themselves. In the face of elements that are – COVID, my mother-in-law’s hospitalized, and my low book sale numbers – win or lose is nothing but a perspective I assign. All three of these things just ARE – or, what is.
This is part of why feelings are so damned complicated. It’s bad enough that there’s both a what and how attached to feelings. But they tend to defy logic, rationality, and reason. Because of that – they can make us believe that things are worse than what is.
As I’ve written before – positivity and negativity aren’t opposite sides of a coin. Rather, it’s a cylinder – and a flexible one at that. You and I exist somewhere between those extremes. From where we are on the cylinder between them, we choose which way to face all the time.
Yes, it sucks that I had COVID, my wife now has COVID, my mother-in-law is still in the hospital, and my book sales are low. But by accepting what is – rather than assigning the idea that you feel like you can’t win – you choose whether to face the positive or negative end of the flexible cylinder.
The next thing to do is choose your perspective
This is a choice. You are on the flexible cylinder between positivity and negativity. You get to choose which direction to face.
It’s also possible to choose neither. But even facing out and not towards one direction or the other – you’ll likely lean in a direction subconsciously. Which means you cede the control that’s rightfully yours.
Hence why it’s best to choose your perspective. Because that empowers you.
If you feel like you can’t win – that’s going to take root in your mindset/headspace/psyche self. That, in turn, will connect to your subconscious mind. Before long, you’re going to feel bad.
Yes, that might look like an oversimplification. That doesn’t lessen the truth of it. Feeling like you can’t win is a feeling in your control.
How do you control it? Via mindfulness. Specifically, you need to ask
- What am I feeling?
- How am I feeling?
And just for good measure,
- What am I thinking?
- What are my intentions?
These questions can only be answered in the present, here and now. The answers will put your conscious awareness in the driver’s seat – giving you control.
This is a matter of active versus passive action. Choosing to be consciously aware via mindfulness is active. And that opens the way for you to take control.
Hence why, when you feel like you can’t win, you always have options.
Seeing what truly is when you feel like you can’t win isn’t hard
It’s all about working with mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, and intentions to direct your actions.
When you recognize that feeling like you can’t win is a perspective that’s not truly aligned with what is – you have numerous options to alter that. Knowing that you can choose to face the positive or negative, you can decide to employ conscious awareness – mindfulness – to take control over what you’re feeling and change it as needs be.
This empowers you – and in turn, your empowerment can empower others around you. Then that can expand to change the bigger picture matters, too.
Taking an approach to positivity and negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts matters in a way to open more dialogue. In that form, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
Lastly, the better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can also open those around you to their empowerment.
To me, that’s a worthwhile endeavor to explore and share.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the four hundred-and-sixty-fifth entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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