5 Steps to Save Yourself from Complete Failure

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As we ALL go through life we face obstacles and battles. And the more good you do for yourself, it seems even more obstacles just seem to fall out of the sky. But what do you do when you’ve hit the end of your rope?

TW: This blog keeps it honest about real life situations.

1. Calm Your Mind ASAP!

I cannot stress this enough. The first step is breathe and remain calm. Yes definitely find a quiet place to break down for a moment but once the tears or panic subside, take a few deep slow breaths. One method I enjoys is the 444 method. Where you breathe in 4 seconds, hold it for seconds, then blow out slowly for 4 seconds. I don’t know the science behind it but it will instantly slow your heart rate.

Now if your mind is talking mean or negatives things you have to tell it to be quiet as if it were a petulant child. You have planning and staying alive to do so you cannot let that distract you. And for those of you like me, who have a family history of depression and childhood trauma, who have been holding on and feel ready to leave….Stay. Make it through the night. Do whatever you can do to distract yourself. Grab old photos, old yearbooks, old childhood drawings whatever you can find to grip on to the core of who you are. If that does not help, make a phone call to a random person, maybe an elder in your family who you haven’t spoken to in a while and tell then you were thinking about them. Usually they will have such a positive response from such a simple gesture it will remind you, you still make an impact.

Next do not touch alcohol. If you already did, don’t pour any more because it will get you to a risky numb state. Have a pity party but don’t stay the whole night, have a movie night to escape the thoughts you’re having, do a video game binge, exercise, or scroll the net. Give yourself the permission to mentally escape. And for those like me who get so troubled with their thoughts or who have a neurodivergent mind, turn off all the lights and just lay in the dark waiting for daylight. It means you made it another day. Victory.

2. Begin Planning

After spending 24 hours, or atleast the rest of the day just doing nothing and allowing yourself not to stress or worry, hopefully your mind is a bit more calm and docile. Now you can start planning.

Ask yourself:

Where am I in terms of my life goals?
What even are my life goals?
What is my birth talent that takes me no effort, or something people compliment and what is the skill I ACTUALLY ENJOY(could be the same as talent or totally different) that leans towards that talent, so that I can spend even a draining day doing it to make money?
What is the quickest route or entry starting point to making my skills legitimate enough to make money and what hobby can I do to keep the passion of a 50 year old rapper to create a portfolio of my talent?
Who do I know who can mentor me, refer me or I can help or work for?
What are TWO(I caution against building more than two at a time to maintain consistency and reduce stressing about it) keystone habits I can start for FREE with the least resistance?
What is my most urgent issue in my life I need to tackle first?
What makes me absolutely miserable?
MOST IMPORTANTANT QUESTION, what little things, especially free things, make me happy that I can get access to daily?

Just truly ponder on these things. Maybe take a walk or long drive or sit in silence.

3. Gather your Basics

Food, Shelter, Safety. Manage Your Time and Energy.

First things first, in most countries there are government social funds, and charity groups.

Make an inventory of what you know about off the top of your head and research services where you are. Some of us live in cities with public transportation, ubers and lyfts, or some live in small towns where they must depend on a bike or a favor to get around. Either make a budget to set aside funds for travel or bargain your way with honest people. Maybe you get a ride from someone and offer to babysit their kids for their weekend or cook a multi course dinner one day. Something that would be a fair trade with the current gas prices.

Food

If you unfortunately have no income, apply for whatever federal and local funds you qualify for. In the United States there is a federal food assistance program called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. This provides funds on Electronic Benefit Transfer cards that can be used, in all 50 states, at most grocery stores, gas stations and dollar stores, for food. Sometimes there can be a stigma or personal embarrassment when needing help, but if you are struggling and qualify, think of it as a temporary stepping stone. That is the purpose. To provide you assistance from the stockpile of taxes you have been paying and are going to be paying for the rest of your life.

There are also food pantries that have vital food give outs on certain days of the week. Certain support groups, charities and religious organizations sometimes run their own pantries.

Shelter

For living situations, a roommate will always be a great solution to saving on a place to live, you just have the burden of assessing their character to minimize any crazy surprises when you live in one space together.

For those with no where to go and find themselves homeless, there are usually state numbers like 211 or big name shelter organizations like Goodwill and The Salvation Army, that can get you a bed immediately or put you on a 1-2 month waitlist to get into one. In the meantime where ever you sleep prioritize safety. It’s better to be alive with some drowsiness in day then in a dangerous situation. And if you are targeted, please have some form of protection on you. See what weapons are legal in your start and how and where you can carry them.

Remember managing your time and energy will ALWAYS BE FREE.

You can’t give your life more time but you can give the time you have left more life.

Time is of the Essence

Regardless of our circumstances the saying goes, we all have 24 hours in a day. Time is the most precious commodity. None of us know how much we have but always be working on your life to wither go out with a bang or say you gave it a heck of a try.

To utilize your time wisely you cannot get around, energy being a main, if not the number one component I’d argue. You also cannot get around the fact energy is affected by sleep, food and physical activity.

Sleep

You’ve heard it before get good rest. Turn off your lights and get off your devices about 30 minutes before you plan to fall asleep. Black curtains can help with sleeping uninterrupted but understand you will sleep like you haven’t slept in day so use with caution. You also want to sleep in cool temperatures. Vice versa, you can use getting warm as a trick to get out of bet in the morning. Sometimes I will put a hoodie on first thing to mimic getting dressed and get my body heated to move around.

Food

You of course want to keep alcohol to a minimum. Wine in moderation has proven to be helpful for reducing stress and slightly aiding in heart health. For those of you with extra weight or even if you’re lighter but snore, you can’t afford to drink close to bed time for safety reasons, as alcohol relaxes the throat in sleep. You also want to reduce sugar to avoid energy spikes in your body leaving you lethargic and foggy headed out of the blue. Besides giving into sugar cravings just brings more sugar cravings and if you’re like me those cravings can be a distraction.

You’ll find eating like a so called health freak, even if its in spurts where you do 5 days a week strict or you slip in healthy treats like a chocolate drizzled acai bowl with granola regularly to keep binges at bay, you WILL notice an increase in energy. This is a promise.

Exercise

Even though it sounds like the most backwards concept, dragging yourself to go exercise even when you’ve been feeling low on energy, barring illness of course, you end up getting more energy back. I find you even have residual energy from a good workout up to 2 days after. And with consistency, you will feel young and magical.

Consistency over Intensity.

Vitamins

Vitamins also can help you get energy. Some say its better to get vitamins with one or two ingredients only for potency results. I say for sure you must have Vitamin D in your repertoire, something with Vitamin C and my personal favorite Sea Moss. Even though Sea Moss seems it should be fake hype, you can definitely feel the energetic affects of it with hours. To me the capsules seem large although potent, gummies can have a great flavor and have the same affects. I also recommend switch up your vitamins on the days you take them and of course skip days, to supplement your body, not overwhelm it or slow its own creation of nutrients.

Anything with pure caffeine or energy drinks needs to be used as a last resort. Like emergency Popeye Spinach type deal. Try to choose tea and natural energy drinks that uses things like Yerba Mate instead.

4. Find Where the Money Resides

You always want to have a source of income. Lets face it we all need money to live.

Start with Income.

You want to be able to pay your bills comfortably and have some extra money left over for socializing, self improvement and savings.

Once you have income you can plan a budget. Set aside your bill money that doesn’t get touched, then put some aside for saving, even if it’s just $20 bucks. Finally you must reward yourself each week within reason of course. There’s a saying that if you can’t buy it two or three times over you cannot afford it, so keep that in mind. Try your best to not use a vice for this, and yes that includes video games. Yes I know, seemingly innocent yet so sinister, due to the fact they are too risky around your precious dopamine, in a building stage, because they mimic accomplishment.

Instead maybe let your reward be for a dinner date, where you buy 2-4 drinks max or for that Blu-Ray collection gaining virtual dust in your Amazon wishlist. Even in your moderation, never think in a state of lack, even if you can’t afford something think of it as temporary. As you learn more skills to give rare high quality high return value, in the working world, the things you desire will be closer in your reach.

Now, if you do not have income, you will want to keep a steady flow of job applications, going as inevitable rejections come in. Warehouses, factory plants, fast food and gas stations are always hiring. These are places that are aware many don’t set out for life long careers at entry level and expect you to seek to move up in the company or they even specifically hire seasonally. Please remember the previous tips discussed in step 3, when it comes to ways of staying afloat and finding income sources.

School Scholarships and Training Citizens Grants

For those of you, who may not have been lucky, or perhaps I should say lucky to not have formal education or a degree and want to go to school for the first time you could find you qualify for scholarships. That is funding that does not need to be paid back. Grants also fall under this category, which is government allotted money for a specific purpose. So school my have grant for very specific degrees or career paths. Getting scholarships isn’t like it seems on tv. You don’t have to be some math computing savant. Often times it’s real people on these committees some of which have come from poverty and will actually take your dream or life story into consideration. So don’t be afraid to apply.

And as for loans only take what you need and try to come with a plan to be your own loan company of sorts and plan to do work study, or a paid internship even before you’re a senior or your final year of your program. Some companies would love to pull you in early and while they get the skills needed to help their company grow for a low price, you get trained to be an efficient employee before graduation and get to rub elbows with people who could prove beneficial in your professional network. It is a win, win, a fair trade.

For those like me who got a broader degree and ended up on a different path they did not intend, figure out what you’re talented in and what career path you can use that talent in. There are some unknown grants through community colleges for adults sometimes aged 21-30 who are underemployed with a degree.

Also cities that are short on certain professionals will give community colleges an allotment of money to enroll students for free who will be fast tracked into those city, state, or trade jobs immediately.

Get on google and start a search there.

Favors

When it comes to asking for favors, try to make it worth their while. Think about the barter system in which humans used to trade. If you’re utterly broke you can offer up a favor as a trade for rides or childcare, maybe a hair cut or dinner, or offer an interest like premium on top of the money you owe for allowing you to pay later essentially. Before a ride would be $5 bucks but now you may want to offer $10 to catch a ride. Definitely try to get in with a friend group or keep an ear out for others that may catch rides to start a carpool group where the driver milks off gas subsidies just to continue their regular routine of going to work. And whenever leaving you kids anywhere you are not go over safety tips with them and how they need to express to you when strange things happen. We will get more into detailed services in the next tip.

Freebies

See if anything you’re apart of, or your city offers charity help in any way or vouchers making services free. I’ve used food stamp benefits in the past to get an LSAT waiver, free trainings from start up companies using government grant funds to service communities and get their company known, so they welcome participants. I’ve also visited LGBTQ meet up groups who refer members to low cost services with medical professionals and free resources due to partnerships they’ve made with companies who may use the partnership for tax benefits, publicity and just plain altruism.

5. Be Patient and NEVER quit; For every obstacle find another path.

The most important step of all is to ALWAYS ick your self back up.

You can attend the pity party but never overstay your welcome.

Inevitably some things fall through. Let me remind you what I said at the start of this post. It seems the harder you work on yourself, the crazier obstacles come to level you. Not sure why life finds it amusing to do this but it’s apparently to sharpen our skills.

Don’t think because you’re at rock bottom more rocks won’t come falling. But with each problem you move back up to the start of this list…Calm Your Mind…

For Encounters with Rude Human Beings

Mean and rude daily encounters, even with family must be brushed off. Misery loves company is a thing and some people want to make others feel their wrath. For those of us who are spiritual you must remember, you are battling entities and energies unseen. They know the positive impact you could make even if your time is short here and will work through other people to get to you. They know the lavish life you could live if you could get up at 6am each morning with a positive outlook, maintain your energy to be productive and efficient, while managing stress throughout the entire day…Day upon day. That sounds basic but attempt it, it’ll feel like your own personal Olympic trials. Oh but the gold that awaits… But yes at it’s base, that’s how simple it is to begin to turn your life around. You may need coaching, training or therapy along the way and that is okay.

Toxic Families

For those of you with toxic, destructive criticism giving families, you must fund your business with your own steady income, other sources, contests/competitions and whatever other legitimate creative ways you can think of. This is because you’re more than likely not bathing in savings or have a supportive cushion to fall back on. Focus on getting STABLE income.

Then focus on creating a work life balance so you can get therapy and do hobbies you love to connect with like minded people. You can create your own family of people who see the good in you, give you encouragement, are there for you through ups and down, communicate with you healthily, validate your emotions and genuinely want the best for you.

Just because you understand what certain family have gone through doesn’t mean it excuses their toxic behavior. And just because you forgive them through your own form of solo closure, doesn’t mean you have to allow them near you again. Some people truly do not deserve the privilege to be around you based on the countless times they took your grace for granted. You can love your former family…from afar.

There’s a quote that goes something like, before you consider yourself crazy make sure you’re not surrounded by aholes first.

Traffic and Commuting Anxiety

And lastly for my people who drive a lot and spend time in traffic, you are not forgotten. People underestimate how draining commuting to work can be. It can make your body feel tired, your back sore, and you have more encounters with.. difficult people in society.

Like I stated earlier, you cannot take it to heart and when it comes to the roads, which can be life or death. Never put your vehicle in danger because it’s not worth a possible accident or a road rage attack. Let things go.

How do you do this? Remember the times, you were in a rush, having fun in the car or distracted with stress and did something goofy while driving. Give that person the benefit of the doubt that they aren’t trying to bully you on the road. The best way to let it roll off and not be that person, is not be in a rush yourself to begin with. You should be cruising to your destination, making the best of your time with good music, podcasts or audiobooks. Leaving early just for your drive is worth it more than you know.

To Wrap Up….

You overcome obstacles by not getting bogged down in the negativity of them, and instead turning your attention to being productive until the event passes or throwing solutions in the face of the obstacle since it dared to get in your way.

In the meantime feel free to throw some good deeds out into the universe to be the answer to someone’s prayers, but once again within reason. There’s a tendency for some of us to play savior to others while neglecting ourselves and goals to trick ourselves into feeling accomplish. Maybe when you see a kid selling lemonade, give them a $10 bill to show them their determination can pay off big.