3 Tough Things We Need to Do to Be Happy in Tough Times

1. Be fully present in each moment.
Life is not lived in some distant, imagined land of someday where everything is perfect. It is lived here and now, with the reality of the way things are. Yes, by all means you can hope for and work toward an idealized tomorrow. Yet to do so, you must successfully deal with the world as it is today.

Sometimes we avoid experiencing exactly where we are because we have developed a belief, based on past experiences, that it is not where we should be or want to be. But the truth is, where you are now is exactly where you need to be to get to where you want to go tomorrow. So practice appreciating where you are.

Your family members are too beautiful to ignore. Call them. Text them. Take a moment to remember how fortunate you are to be breathing. Take a look around, with your eyes earnestly open to the possibilities. Much of what you fear does not exist in the space around you. Much of what you love is closer than you realize. You are just one brief thought away from understanding the blessing that is your life.

Remind yourself that happiness is a mindset that can only be designed into the present. It’s not a point in the future or a moment from the past, and yet this misconception hurts the masses more often than we realize. So many young people seem to think all their happiness awaits them in the years ahead, while so many older people believe their best moments are behind them. COVID-19 is only exacerbating these kinds of mindsets right now. Don’t let it get the best of you.

2. Bring gratitude and passion into the little things.
Over the years, Angel and I have guided hundreds of friends, course students and Think Better, Live Better conference attendees through a process of finding sincere gratitude and passion in tough times—a process of stepping forward gracefully, no matter what…

A couple short years ago, on the second to last day of her life, a friend of mine, who I was coaching daily, told me her only regret was that she didn’t appreciate every year with the same passion and purpose that she had in the last two years of her life, after she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. “I’ve accomplished so much recently—so much inner growth—and truly appreciated every moment of it,” she said. “If I had only known, I would have started sooner.”

Her words made me cry and smile at the same time. What was truly miraculous was seeing the genuine gratitude in her eyes at that moment. She was immensely grateful for actually being able to accomplish the little things she had accomplished in her final two years. And her sentiment has always remained with me, and sits at the top of my mind right now. While I agree that dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic is disheartening, and that it can be very painful and debilitating for some people, the pain for most of us can still be mediated by a sense of gratitude and passion for being alive. For still having a chance to do the little things that bring us joy. For still having a life worth living, from moment to precious moment.

Honestly, you’re doing it right when you have so much to cry and complain about, but you prefer to breathe deep and appreciate your life instead. Because there is always, always, always something to be thankful for and some reason to take another step forward. Just invest your heart and soul into whatever you have right in front of you. Bring gratitude and passion into otherwise ordinary moments…

What if you woke up tomorrow with only the little things you were thankful for and passionate about today?

3. Be consistent with healthy daily rituals.
About a decade ago, when I was intensely focused on weight lifting and physical strength training, I gradually learned that you can’t be truly committed to anything worthwhile if you have a weak mind that’s unwilling to do tough things. To combat this, I wrote two simple questions on two different post-it notes and stuck one on my bathroom mirror and the other inside my gym locker:

How many daily workouts have you missed because your mind, not your body, told you that you were too tired?
How many daily workout reps have you skipped because your mind, not your body, said, “Nine reps is enough. Don’t worry about the tenth”?
To this day, the answer to both questions is surely hundreds for most people, including myself. Weakness of the mind can easily get the best of us, especially when the going gets tough. And the only way to fix this weakness is daily practice.

Far too often we think inner strength is all about how we respond to extremely dire circumstances, like actively coping with Covid-19: Can we keep our lives together even after suffering from a major illness, or losing our livelihood?

There’s no doubt that extremely dire circumstances test our bravery, determination and inner strength, but what about less dire, daily circumstances? Perhaps just passively coping with Covid-19 from a distance, when it’s not directly and personally debilitating us.

What we need to remember is that the mind needs to be exercised to gain strength. It needs to be worked consistently in healthy ways to grow strong. If you refuse to push yourself forward a little bit every day, of course you will feel completely stuck when the going gets tough.

But you don’t have to feel that way right now…

Choose to do some sit-ups in your bedroom every morning when it would be easier to sleep in. Choose to do the ten reps when it would be easier to quit at nine. Choose to create something special (like a new journal entry, drawing, or family highlight video) when it would be easier to consume something mediocre on TikTok or Instagram. Choose to send loving texts to family and friends when it would be easier to watch another show on Netflix. Prove to yourself, in dozens of little ways over the next few weeks, that you have the discipline to get in the ring and wrestle with life.

Inner strength is always built through lots of small, daily victories. It’s the individual choices we make day-to-day that build our “inner strength muscles.” We all want this kind of strength, especially in tough times, but we can’t simply think our way to it. If you want it, you have to do something about it ritualistically. It’s your positive daily rituals that prove your mental fortitude and move you in a positive direction.

(MARCANDANGEL).

What It Means To Have Truly Lived...

To lift up the burden of another while you trudge yours along.

To help another find company while solitude fastens itself around you.

To catch a sagging spirit while yours is barely grovelling in the basement.

To say a word of prayer with another while your litany of heart desires remain on queue.

To comfort the one who just lost a loved one while you had to bury your baby son in a box.

To ditch out refined hope while uncertainty looms over your life like a White tailed eagle.

To come off the phone with a friend who is contemplating suicide while having to cry yourself to sleep with your niggling depressing thoughts.

To preach the effervescent love of God while you can't seem to find him in your chaos.

To give your last bread to another with the maleovance assurances of lack going through your life with a fine tooth comb.

To help another find sleep while insomnia makes love to you all night.

To trudge into bed every night, beaten and tired from the strain of living. Yet, each morning when the alarm goes off, you find the last ounce of tenacity to pick yourself and go again, assured that if you just keep living, life will somehow break for you along the way. God is on your side!

Letter to my Friend: Getting Ready For Life After COVID 19

Dear Friend,

Top of the day to you…and that is me imagining that there is any cherry left at the top of our days in these times. It must truly be an unprecedented time for you. Whatever you do, hang in there, and just ensure that we all scrape through this in one piece. It is amidst all of the drama that I thought to put some ink on paper for you; something for you to chew on. Call it my little note of wisdom. You know I am trying to ensure that my motivational career takes flight as a side hustle. No one knows tomorrow my dear friend.

I sincerely hope that you have used this period to put on some weight, fatten your flesh and grow bigger. Forget the naysayers, the true test of a man’s arrival to wealth is in the amount of body meat he can boost of. Eat my friend, eat like your life depends on it; you only live once afterall. Pay no attention to the calories at this point. Discard going to the gym or doing any form of hiking. The virus is an arrogant one and it is on the prowl. Don’t risk your one fragile life in the name of ‘keeping fit.’ Stay away from those who tell you to invest your hard-earned money in books. They don’t have your best interest at heart. How will anyone in their right senses even suggest investment in books in these times. Things are hard; money is scarce, and the last thing you want to do is to subject your already strained brain to any form of stimulating activity. Who needs books when you can gain all the inspiration you need from the video nuggets of our Prophet Odumeje, the most revered Indaboski Pahose of our time. And for those that tell you to read on your phone, they are just being ludicrous. Too much of screen light is damaging to your eyes, and you need those eyes to engage in far more rewarding ventures, which brings me to my next point.

I can also imagine that you must have spent so much money on data at this time. You know my advice? Spend more. Data is king. Data is everything. Data is life. Try all you can to be online 24/7, even if it means you emptying your life savings on data. The world is moving at a breakneck speed and you need to be at the gate of the internet always to gulp it all in. Frolic from one social media platform to another as much as you can. Stay abreast with the trending topics on Twitter and ensure that you don’t miss all the funny skits on Instagram. While you are at it, remember that those many Instagram live sessions will not watch themselves. Join them all. Show you are present, mark your name in the hall of fame register of the internet. If you can’t see the world physically, at least you can be everywhere on the world wide web. My dear friend, perspective is everything.

Always ensure that you are a walking COVID 19 encyclopedia. From numbers of death rate in New York to infection rates in Moscow, you must have all the trends and statistics in your beck and call. If you can, know the names of all the dead people from COVID 19 by heart. This is hard, but the brain is capable of wonders my friend. Remember that the true test of your intelligence after COVID in conversations with your friends, colleagues and prospective employers will center around your overall knowledge of the virus. Keep abreast dear friend. From Channels TV to CNN, take it all in. Also ensure that you have your notepad while watching the news. You know what they say, the faintest of ink is more powerful than the strongest memory. You really can’t afford to muddle up your COVID 19 statistics.

As I close this letter, may I use the opportunity to inform you that there are plans to ensure that the English Premier League returns in June. Happy days are on the horizon my friend. We shall see all the matches. From Brighton vs Norwich to Watford vs Southampton. My dear friend, I hope I have been able to inspire you in these unprecedented times. Live your life, go wild. The main thing is surviving this phase. Who knows, the kingdom of God may even come at the end of this. Stay woke my dearest friend!

1 Secret to Getting Through Tough Situations (and Truly Bad Days)

Releasing Your Judgments

The truth is, it’s impossible to get over a difficult situation—to let it go—if you’re still obsessively judging it and comparing it to something else. Let’s revisit one specific gut-wrenching situation from your past again—choose one that still stirs negative emotions. And then ask yourself:

Do you believe it should not have happened at all?
Do you believe the outcome should have been different?
Do you take what happened personally?
Do you blame someone else for what happened?
Do you blame yourself?
Do you believe the situation is impossible to get over?
If you caught yourself thinking “yes” to one or more of those questions, then what’s prolonging your suffering and preventing you from getting over it is judgment. Your judgments about what “should have happened” continues to postpone the love, hope, and self-care you know you are capable of practicing.

Now you may be thinking, “What happened was unbelievably horrible! I can’t conceive of ever getting over it!” But releasing your judgment does not mean you’re pleased with what happened, or that you support it, but rather that you are eliminating the negative burden you are carrying by perpetually judging it.

When you let go of your negative judgments, you automatically replace the victim mentality with acceptance and presence. And acceptance and presence together will free your mind and move you forward.

This very same principle applies to our present challenges with COVID-19, especially for those of us who are not ill.

When we think better about our circumstances, we live better in spite of them.

And there is no reason to postpone. Now is the time to practice being more mindful of your judgments and how you respond to life. Of course, that’s much easier said that done. Mindfulness as a daily ritual is the ultimate challenge. It’s a way of living, of being, of seeing, of tapping into the full power of your humanity, without judgment.

At its core, mindfulness is…

Being aware of what’s happening in the present moment without wishing it were different
Enjoying each pleasant experience without holding on when it changes (which it will)
Being with each unpleasant experience without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).

(MARCANDANGEL).