6 Proven Ways to Stay Happy When Your World Is Falling Apart [Premium]

“When it rains, it pours.”

Sometimes, when things go bad in life, they go all the way “bad.”

One thing after another hits and it leaves you in utter shock, frustration, and confusion.

What do you do in these moments to maintain your calm, sanity, and mental health? How should you respond? And more importantly, how do you do so in a way where you give yourself the best chance to overcome these setbacks and set yourself up for success?

In this article, I’ll break down the six essential steps to help you protect your mental and emotional wellbeing, rise above the challenges, and get your life back on track. Here’s how:

1. Don’t Feel Bad or Guilty for Being Upset

If you’re upset, be upset. If you’re sad, be sad. If you’re angry, be angry. This is the first and most important step. 

Do not repress your emotions. Do not trivialize your situation. Do not try to delude yourself into thinking that “this is fine” when it most certainly is not. 

If things are not fine in your life, that is okay. You are not bad, weak, or a failure just because you’re feeling down due to real and difficult life problems. 

(Because, if that’s the case, let me tell you: You have a lot of company with you.)

In fact, deluding yourself into thinking that your situation is okay when it’s not can actually make things worse because you won’t have the clarity to make accurate and wise decisions.

You’ll cling to the false hope that “everything is fine” and prolong your suffering—yet if you just took a step back and realized how bad things are, you can take action now and make your life so much better both now and in the future.

So honor your emotions. Hang out with them for a while. Avoid judging them or “forcing yourself” to get over them quickly. Let them be…

…and eventually, they’ll disappear without you having to do anything. 

In the following sections, I’m going to give you suggestions on what to do to help you get out of your situation. But keep in mind: You don’t need to do everything at once. 

What I mean is, if something horrible just happened, there’s no need to try to instantly solve it and go through these steps as fast as humanly possible. Instead, be angry or sad for a little bit—it’s okay. 

Then, when you’re ready, try the rest of these steps. 

2. Journal

The science behind journaling for your mental health is incredible. 

Getting your frustrations onto a piece of paper (or blank Word doc) can be very cathartic.

It can promote a lot of solutions and healing because, when you get your thoughts out, you get more clarity, you get more objectivity from your issues, and you free up your working memory (and your emotions), which will help you see patterns, find better solutions, and feel better overall.

As you’re writing, feel free to vent at first. That’s fine. 

But at a certain point, you have to move beyond merely venting. Ask yourself, how you’re going to move forward from the situation. What steps may have let to the situation? What can you do—right now—to start getting things back on track? How are you going to move on? How can you avoid it in the future?

Be your own coach. Get yourself out of the situation. 

3. Remember “The Gain”

Your future growth and progress are now based on your understanding about the difference between the two ways in which you can measure yourself: against an ideal, which puts you in what I call ‘the GAP,’ and against your starting point, which puts you in ‘the GAIN,’ appreciating all that you’ve accomplished.

— Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D.

The “gap” is when people measure themselves based on their goals or ideals and how far they have to go. The “gain” is when people measure themselves based on how far they’ve gone since they started and appreciate all the accomplishments they’ve made.

For better mental health, peace of mind, optimism, hope, and motivation, you must spend far more time measuring the “gain” than the “gap.”

Yet almost everyone does the opposite: They’re fixated on the gap and they never see the gain. 

But if you only focus on the gap, you will always, always, always feel like you’re falling short. You will always feel like you’re never enough. 

I don’t blame you for that, though. Because for many people and cultures, this is how we’re raised. Hell, growing up, I was always taught to look at the gap. THERE WAS NO SUCH THING AS “GAIN!”

(The inside joke among Asian-Americans is if you get an “A” on your report card and show your parents, the first thing they’ll ask is, “Y U NO A+?!?!)

With this severe mindset, even your victories become failures.

The honest truth is that we will never get “there” (wherever there is). That’s just not how the human mind works. There’s always going to be another mountain to climb. There’s always going to be another river to cross.

The key is focus: What are you focusing your mind and attention on?

Psychologically speaking, the mind can only focus on one thing at a time. So are you focusing on how far you still need to go… or how far you’ve already gone?

Both are just as real as the other.

But only one is going to help you feel happy, fulfilled, confident, hopeful, and encouraged during the tough times.

The best part is you can do this exercise throughout your day whenever you have a lull. For example, while I’m walking to the grocery store, I can think about how far I’ve come in the last year or so. What I’ve accomplished. What I’ve learned. What I’ve seen. What I’ve done. How I’ve grown as a person. 

And it always leaves me feeling a sense of pride and confidence in myself. It helps me revere the hard work that I’ve already put in.

And it gives me a lot of hope and confidence that, whatever I’m going through right now, is something I can overcome.

4. Be Grateful

The science behind gratitude is pretty damn awesome. 

But when I say “be grateful,” I don’t mean this in a “toxic positivity” way. 

You know what I’m talking about: When you’re upset, but some genius tells you, “Turn that frown upside down.” “Just be thankful.” “How can you complain? Think of the starving kids in _____.”

That, my friends, is not what I’m talking about. 

I can be upset and frustrated, and I can still be grateful at the same time. It’s not mutually exclusive. You can be both. (It’s like the Schrödinger’s cat of happiness.)

Even if you’re pissed, sad, worried, anxious, etc., you can still honor those emotions and simultaneously feel grateful for the random acts of kindness in the world, the support from your loved ones, etc. 

I do a gratitude journal every night and write 5 things I’m thankful for, which specifically happened that day. While you don’t need to do a journal, I really think you should try it, at least until you start feeling better mentally and emotionally.

5. Have Fun

Life is a weird cycle. 

When you’re on “top of the world” and you “got the world on a string” (two good songs, by the way), every day feels fun. It feels like every day is going to be great, and it’s a lot easier to smile, laugh, and enjoy life.

But when you’re dealing with setback after setback and 99% of your life is focused on just staying afloat and surviving each day, life becomes stressful, frustrating, and anxious. 

As a result, it’s a lot harder to smile and enjoy life. You feel like you should be working harder and harder to get out of your situation. You feel like this isn’t the time to have fun or relax.

Or maybe you think that you can have fun once you get back to where you were. (i.e. once your problems go away, then you can have fun again.)

But that’s not always the best case.

In fact, it might be one of those “chicken versus egg” things. What came first: Your good times or your good mood? Maybe it was your good mood—and a fun, upbeat vibe—that created all of those great moments (and you simply manifested how you felt inside)? 

In the world of sports, when teams are in a slump—and they keep losing and losing and losing despite their best effort—every day can seem like an endless grind with little joy or happiness. 

Yet there’s only so much more they can practice, there’s only so much more analysis they can do, and there’s only so much coaching they can get, etc. Worse, with so much collective stress, everyone plays worse because they’re “overtrying.”

So a time-tested method to bust out of a slump is to have some fun and break up the drudgery. Go for a team dinner. See an event together. Go do a team activity like bowling.

Anything to build camaraderie, take their minds off their problems, and put smiles on their faces.

And almost instantly, the feeling changes in the team, they play freer (i.e. with less tension and inhibition), and good things start to happen. 

When you’re struggling in life, sure, work hard. Give your best. Keep improving and upgrading what you do. That goes without saying. 

But also make sure to have some fun. Lighten the mood. Do things that make you smile. That’s just as—if not, more important—than the hard work. 

After all, there’s always going to be some challenge or setback in life. So if you feel you have to wait until all of those problems go away before you can have fun again… well… you’re going to be waiting for a long ass time.

One thing to keep in mind: “Fun” does NOT mean you should spend five hours on Facebook or watching shitty television to “unwind.” That’s not really “fun:” Those are more like “mindless distractions,” which can actually be more stressful. 

Fun is doing something that’s pleasurable, enjoyable, and stimulating, preferably something outside or in a different environment. Go out for coffee with a friend at a swanky hotel. Sit outside and read a good book. Go to a ballgame with your family. Listen to your favorite comedian. Get some ice cream and explore a new area. Hike a new trail. 

It’ll get your mind off your problems and help you smile a lot more. 

In the meantime, don’t worry or feel guilty that you should be “doing something.” (And if you do, you probably need this a lot more than you think.) All your work will still be there when you get back, lol.

6. Have Faith

I’m not going to lie: The last few months have been difficult. I’ve suffered multiple setbacks and dealt with some consuming health issues that have forced me to see several doctors.

And in those moments, it’s really important to keep the faith that everything will work out in the end, no matter how difficult it is.

Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.

—Dale Carnegie

You’ve had problems, stresses, and difficulties in life before. 

Yet they all got resolved somehow. 

I mean, you’ve made it this far in life… right?

Sometimes, the best thing to do when your life is turning to shit is to do nothing. Let life’s problems resolve themselves.

And, as if by magic, those problems get solved somehow.

(Like, how many times have you heard that, when you stop looking for a relationship, the right person shows up?)

Trust me, I know it’s hard to have faith when things are sucking. Especially if you have a physical ailment that affects almost every moment you’re awake (and asleep). 

But that’s why it’s so important to follow all the previous points—because once you do them all together, it’s a helluva lot easier to feel like you have hope and faith. 

I wish I could go over to where you are and do this for you, but I can’t. Hell, I still have to remind myself this all the time. But when it clicks, you’ll know. When you feel that feeling that “everything is gonna be alright,” it’s kind of fun. 

No one sits on their deathbed wishing that they worried more. And regardless of the problems you endure from here until then, you’re still going to get there eventually. 

So you might as well have the best outlook you can in the meantime.

“Life is a banquet and most poor sons of bitches are starving to death,” said Mame Dennis. 

She was right.