Unless you live a perfect life, sometimes, navigating through life is hard.

It happens to everyone — the rich or the poor, the optimist or the pessimist, the good or the evil.

Life has its own way. Sometimes, it seems like all your hopes and dreams are coming together while other times, life throws all the bombs at the same time.

So what do you do when life shows no mercy at you?

You could do what most people do — You could blame and complain. You could get frustrated and angry.

But then there are other options which are far better.

1. Diversify Your Source Of Fulfilment

People usually talk about the concept of diversification in the investment world. They say you should not put all eggs in one basket as it will make you dependent on one source for all your investment returns.

The same principle applies to your life. You want to diversify where you find fulfilment from.

I’m not saying you should distribute your focus to multiple projects. What I am saying is you should set goals in many areas of your life.

Don’t just depend on your career to make you feel accomplished. Because many times, you will fail miserably. During those times, you can drive fulfilment and self-esteem from other areas of your life such as the progress in your health and fitness.

You can find meaning and progress in your career, health, finances, relationships, hobbies, personal development, and so on.

When one area fails to give you fulfilment, others will back you up.

And when every area seems to fall apart, start with the basics which are:

Food

Movement

Sleep

Stress

If you keep these four activities healthy in your life, it will become way easier for you to get back up.

The reason these four activities triumph every other is that they will change the chemistry of your brain. You will feel good, motivated, focused, and happier.

And that’s the starting point you need to change your life.

2. Change Your Environment

Your environment is number one predictor of your habits, thoughts, and feelings.

While it’s not always possible to change your environment, every person must experience a change in the environment at least every few years.

By changing your environment you will:

Increase self-awareness

Gain clarity in life

Find new opportunities

Explore new possibilities

Find people with different perspectives who will challenge what you know and believe

Get out of a creativity rut

Get better at adaptation

Increase self-confidence because of your improved ability to roll with the punches

If you can’t change your environment, then take out time to travel.

Many people travel to gain more experiences, which is great. But to take it to whole new level, let the new environment change you. Observe and absorb your surroundings.

Ask yourself — what can I learn from the culture? What new shift in mindset can I take away from this place?

With this new identity, you won’t live the same life even in your old environment.

But what about the times when you can’t get into a new environment?

The answer is simple — Eliminate. Eliminate. Eliminate.

Take out the trash.

The trash could be junk stuff, junk food, junk people, junk feelings, junk thoughts or junk habits.

First, embrace the empty space you get once you eliminate and then replace the space with a high-quality environment.

This new high-quality environment will force you to raise your standards.

3. Use The Hard Time

After doing everything you can, if you still can’t overcome the tough times, you can take out the biggest weapon in your arsenal — your philosophy.

Nature shows us the rules. The sunset is followed by the sunrise. The winter is followed by the spring.

Life runs in cycles and seasons. If your life is at a low point today, it will not stay the same. Simply knowing this can give you the strength to endure the pain.

In fact, don’t just endure the pain. Feel the pain. Embrace the pain.

Why?

Because you only realize happiness compared to the bad days you have.

If your life stays perfect, it would be boring and you’ll hate it because of our tendency to adapt to a baseline level of happiness. It’s called hedonic adaptation.

But I’m not just telling you to sit there and wait for the magic to happen.

On top of using philosophy, express yourself through your preferred method of creativity — writing, painting, singing, dancing, speaking, playing and more.

The expression will heal the pain and give you the push you need to get back up again.

And last, use the force of pain to shake up your life. The force can either keep pushing you down or you can use it to create a momentum in your life.

Every situation gives you an opportunity. The opportunity could be to:

Train your mind.

Learn a much-needed lesson that will help you for a lifetime.

Help others so they don’t make the same mistake you did.

Get away from something so you can start the next chapter of your life.

Become a beginner again to get in a new personal transformation cycle.

You can start by learning something new or you can restart from scratch. Either way, you will experience a tremendous challenge which will fuel your growth.