Keep Moving Forward

4 Tips to keep moving forward

Keep Moving Forward

“We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we’re curious and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” — Walt Disney

Are there times when you just feel overwhelmed? How about those days when nothing seems to be going right, have any of those? Have you or someone you known faced a significant heath or financial crisis? Most of us have at one point or another and we are likely to face more in the future. Sometimes life throws some big challenges our way. What can we do?

We will all most likely face stressful times and hard decisions in our lifetime. These events will happen, usually not by our own making, and most often without warning. As these things occur we have two choices. We can either face the challenge and find ways to keep moving forward or we can surrender. We can either assess the situation and find a way to get to the next day, or not. Clearly the or not option is not a viable solution, so it really leaves us with the move forward option.

People who have faced difficult challenges tell us that the only really solution is to find the strength to move forward. Today may appear bleak and perhaps even hopeless, but if we can find the will to make it to tomorrow we will find that we are one day closer to our solution. When we are able to focus on getting to tomorrow we are in the process of moving forward.

There are many people facing difficult circumstances everyday and if we are one of them then we know the challenge of moving forward. Fortunately, for most of us we are not facing dire circumstances and we should be grateful for that blessing. Nonetheless, most of us feel the stress of things not going our way and have the same feelings as those in dire circumstances though perhaps to a lesser extent.

When we face difficult circumstances either personally or professionally, the best thing we can do is “put one foot in front of the other” and keep moving forward. There is no future in looking back, after all the future is in front of us. Looking back allows our emotions to relive the event and does nothing to help us get to the next opportunity.

Most of the things we fear never happen to us, they are just projections of our imagination. Sometimes we tend to view our current circumstances through a negative lens and only see more negativity in front of us. The reality is that most of the things we fear will not actually happen to us. Our fear is mostly driven by projecting ourselves into other people’s difficult situations. Our empathy for them can make us feel as though we are there and allow us to relive an event that we have never truly experienced.

Our worry is just wasted energy. Worrying about things that most likely will never happen engages us to focus on things that fortunately we will never experience. When bad things do happen, they usually happen in unexpected ways. And here is the thing, we are so resilient that when something bad happens, we almost always find a way to rise above the issue. We would not have gotten this far if our first action was to surrender.

When things are not going our way, the best thing we can do is to keep moving forward. Find a way to get to the next day and things will be better. Hang in there and give ourselves a chance to find a solution. Tomorrow will open a new door and we need to see where it leads.

Here are 4 tips for helping us continue to keep us moving forward:

1) Focus on our vision – As I mention in my book, EXCELLENCE: You CAN Get There From Here!, our vision helps us figure out what our future looks like. It provides that long-term horizon picture of our success that helps to put the challenges of today in perspective.

2) Just get through the day – Tomorrow opens a new day, we just need to get there. One thing at a time, minute-by-minute just fill our schedule. It may be hard to do, but we can do it. Just get to tomorrow.

3) Celebrate the small successes – Even today, more things went right than wrong. Look for them and celebrate. It will help us change our outlook and lighten our spirits and that opens our creativity. We may already know the answer to our challenge, we just have to allow ourselves to get there.

4) Help someone in need – No matter how bad things seem today, there is always someone who has a more difficult situation. Nothing seems to lift our spirits more than helping someone else. Give it a try, it works.

We tend to over estimate the impact of the things that happened today. Most things that didn’t go our way are just minor issues in the context of our lives. They may seem big today, but in perspective they will fade with each new day. Our challenge is to keep moving forward and give ourselves the opportunity to have a better day tomorrow. We can do it, it is the only real option.

Once again, please feel free to express your perspective on this topic. We learn from each other and sharing helps make us stronger and wiser. I look forward to reading your perspective.

Thanks,

Skip Gilbert

Please note: I reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive or off-topic.

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