Maybe you have just started experiencing what it feels like to have dreams crash and burn… Maybe you’re starting to feel sorry for yourself because your life seems to be hard lately, or maybe you have no idea what the concept of struggling means because your life is perfect (or at least that’s what you convince yourself every day).

Some of us tend to put ourselves down more than others to the point of feeling sorry for ourselves. But that’s not healthy at all.

I’m not sure how rough things are for you right now, but regardless of where you are with your fight to get unstuck or to move to the next step, you can make a conscious effort to change things around and improve your outlook on life. You just have to make a decision and a commitment for a few days, and the magic will follow.

Do you think you can do this? If so, then you’re ready.

Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself – 7 Tips

If you think that your life is perfect, then congratulations on mastering your existence, because it takes a certain level of wisdom to get to where you are. You can stop reading now.

If, however, you have self pity or you feel stuck in your life while you’re having difficulties pushing yourself outside of your comfort zone, then continue reading. There are great ways to stop feeling sorry for yourself.

There’s NOTHING wrong with you. You are perfect with all your imperfections. Don’t feel that you are less of a person just because you’re going through some tough times.

If you’re ready for change, here are some tips to help you get to the next step.

Tip #1: Don’t Give Up On Your Dreams So Easily

You might feel that your dreams are impossible to reach for many reasons: A struggle within yourself, PTSD, a breakup, a divorce, getting out of an abusive relationship (mental, emotional, or physical), an illness, the death of a loved one, some financial troubles, work-related problems, family troubles, an addiction to food or to substances like chocolate (guilty), drugs or alcohol, or a feeling that your life is unfulfilled and without joy.

Do any of these sound familiar?

If so, don’t worry. As human beings, we are all prone to wanting more out of life, feeling stressed out, and at times letting life’s disappointments get the best of us.

Just because life can be a tough teacher doesn’t mean that you have to surrender to its punches. It means that you have to face those challenges head on and push through, hopefully surviving minor bruises along the way, but without letting the fight put you out for good.

Tip #2: Challenge Your Fears 

It is perfectly OK to feel the pain of life and to want to crawl back into bed, but at the end of the day you have to trick yourself to move past the pain. Nobody is going to choose being uncomfortable if they can help it, but comfort is the enemy of progress.

Feeling sorry for yourself is OK for a short period of time (give yourself a couple of days or so if you really have to), but don’t prolong the issue.

You either stay put and accept that “this is it” for you, or move forward and continue peeling layers of your mundane life until you get to the soulful experience that will bring you happiness and joy.

Life is short, and it will be over in a wink of an eye. People who feel sorry for themselves for the rest of their lives will stay stagnant and will live an unfulfilled life.

Don’t let that be you.

RELATED: 15 Signs You’re An Old Soul (Are You Ancient?)

You can be old or young, male or female, rich or poor, single or in a relationship, married, widowed, with or without kids, with or without a family, with or without pets, with a minor injury, or with a major illness. You can even be unmotivated! The motivation is going to come once you take small steps to create your destiny, ride the momentum wave, and eventually learn how to change your life.

Your life can change for the better, but only if you want it to.

Are you ready to stop feeling sorry for yourself, put the past behind you, and push forward past your fears? Remember that fear is not real!

F.E.A.R. IS False Evidence Appearing Real

You can make massive progress in your life by doing the simplest and smallest things that will get you started towards a better future. But, you need to be willing to feel a bit uncomfortable at first.

So, the question is: Are you willing?

Don’t let fear take over you. Don’t let comfort make you surrender your life to a boring existence.

Tip #3: Connect With Others

As long as you are connecting with yourself on a deeper level, and as long as you have a few social associations with friends or family for support, then you can do this.

Even if you feel all alone, you can make social connections thanks to services like meetup, or other social groups in your local area, where you can find common interests with other people.

You will need some connections, because one cannot really live absolutely alone and stay completely sane. Growth is personal and internal, but it also needs a bit of an outside interaction with people to make it interesting.

So, try to stay connected with a few people who care about you. The rest you can really limit connections with for now, especially if you’re feeling committed to your own progress, and if others are bringing you down or are taking you for granted.

Once you feel stronger and well, then you can reconnect with the rest of humanity.

Growth is about Going Outside of Your comfort zone, because the alternative is a dull existence

Even when you don’t reach your goals at a 100% level, an attempt to better your life with various actions IS SUCCESS enough on its own. You should never really subscribe to the idea of maintaining the status quo when your happiness and personal growth are on the line.

Jumping through mud and dirt to learn something, or to enrich your life, can be hard… But it’s well worth it.

Tip #4: Redefine Your True Values

Today more than ever, it is inevitable to feel stressors coming from various places in society.

Everywhere you look on social media, you are reminded that you need to to “have more” and “be more”.

Acquaintances and famous people give false impressions of their true lives, which makes you wonder if you have enough, or if you are enough.

You have enough, and most importantly you ARE enough

Often times you find yourself comparing what you have to others, especially when you see them bombard you with their surface-happy lives.

Your friends’ lives may appear to be happy and self-fulfilled, but I assure you that many of them are struggling, just like most of humanity is.

The value YOU give to things or situations is what really matters.

If you measure success in terms of accumulations of things only, then it is time to re-align your values with what really matters.

Wealth comes from the inside out

People with a lot of money might argue that people who say that “money doesn’t count” are poor people. That’s not an accurate statement.

I’m not arguing that money doesn’t count. Of course it does, but only to buy comfort. It does not buy experience and fulfillment. Therefore, changing your mindset about what’s important in life has to be based on something more than money. It has to be based on the ‘WHY’ question.

Why do you want to have, or be, or do XYZ?

Concentrate on the “why” and not just  the “how”.

So, in terms of money, the question then becomes: “Why do I want to have more money?”

And the answer might be: Because I want the freedom from an 8-5 monotonous work environment, I want to help my kids go to college, I want to help my parents, I want to save the whales, I want to offer a sanctuary for sick dolphins, I want to help stray animals find homes, etc.

Chasing after money for money’s sake is not an authentic life. It’s just an experience that involves the accumulation of things. Chasing after a meaningful dream that money can help attain can definitely be a life changing experience.

Wealth is the ability to fully experience lIFE
(Henry David Thoreau)

Money can make a person rich, but only on the surface. Don’t get me wrong… In this time in history money is important, but a person with money only, and without soulful experiences, is indeed a poor person. A poor person with no money and a lot of soulful experiences is a very rich person. 

So, you are faced with two clear and valid options here: 1) Stay stagnant and have a mediocre life, or 2) decide to jump in rough waters in the hopes of coming out alive, enriched with great lessons, adventures, wisdom, and permanent change.

Which option do you think offers a more fulfilled life? If you answered option #2, then you are on the right track.

Tip #5: Have More Gratitude 

All circumstances that make our life the way it is require a lot more gratitude than the average person is permitting him or herself to experience.

Gratitude is a “here and now” conscious effort.

Not all situations will require that you change your life right away. Some circumstances need slower change. This is especially true if your safety and sanity are in jeopardy. In this case, try to appreciate what you have right now.

Concentrate on the positive of where you are and what you have. Wake up and thank the sky for being blue. Thank the air for being clean. Thank your roof for holding you safely underneath it. Thank your accident for not killing you completely. Thank your clothes for keeping you warm. Thank your dog for keeping you company. Be thankful and start planning your way out.

Keeping the status quo when your safety is on the line is important, at least temporarily. For example in times of wars or lack of freedom, or when your life depends on the status quo until you have a plan to get yourself out to safety.

There are also situations in life that require you to push forward right away. For example when you are sick and tired of a situation (and your life is not in danger) and you’re afraid to make the first step. Be thankful as well. Thank your mind for thinking clearly. Thank your job for providing you with a steady income. Thank your boss for being a jerk and a micromanager so that you can find a better way to live. Be thankful and make concrete steps to get out.

Gratitude grounds you when you want to push yourself out of your comfort zone and kick that status quo in the behind. Why? Because life is short and nobody’s getting out alive! This is when you want to “carpe the heck out of the diem” (seize that darn day)!

With all these facts about the ebb and flow of life, it is important to NOT take your life for granted. After all, the scientific chance of YOU being born (and nobody else) is 1 in 400 quadrillion. Can you even imagine that number? I sure can’t.

Do you see how much of a miracle it is for you to be born just the way you are in your current form? So, stop taking your life, or anything else for that matter, for granted.

Tip #6: Push Yourself

This notion of death alone should be enough to make you love yourself and others more and push harder. Never stop pushing towards your dreams.

You could be 100 years old, and if you want to get that GED that you never had the chance to get when you were younger, go for it. If you want to start a business and don’t know how, just make the intention and declare yourself a business owner and go for it. If you want to come to Florida and walk on the beach because you’ve never dipped your feet in the ocean before, start saving even $20 every month until you have enough money to come down and visit. Just go for it. You are just as important and as valuable as anybody else out there!

When you go for your dreams and want to change your life above anything else, make sure you differentiate between selfishness (where you envy others and don’t want to share anything) and self-love (where you wish nothing but the best for others, while releasing all envy and judgement).

Push yourself to accept yourself more. Push yourself to work an extra hour or so on your dreams. Push yourself to choose the tasks and steps that will serve your life and your future on a more positive note. Push yourself to get out of your comfort zone.

A lot of people don’t think of death, but in all honesty, once someone you love dies, you will start thinking about your own mortality and how short life is.

life is Very fragile and precious, and we’re all going to die, So LIVE IT Well WHILE YOU CAN

Death is something sure in life. Often times people surrender to external factors, such as to addictions to mood lifting pills or to other substances to help them deal with a tragedy.

Although medication can help in certain situations, it is important to go through the grief and feel the raw emotions of loss and dispair. Be grateful that you were able to share your loved one’s life before their passing.

It is very normal to feel sad, and that is exactly what makes us human. Push yourself to feel the pain of a loss. The loss of someone, a friendship, a relationship, a marriage, a job, the loss of your own motivation, the loss of your own self love and maybe disappointing that little girl or boy inside of you who is aching for a better life.

Even if a love relationship ended, don’t hold grudges… Be grateful that you have shared that person’s love at some point. You don’t need to continue being in that person’s life if they take you for granted, but just be grateful for everything and push yourself to move forward.

Whatever it is, process it. Push yourself to NOT mask your pain with material things or self-sabotage. Turn on some sad music. Find what triggers the sadness to come out… I can never hold myself when I hear Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings; the music is so hauntingly beautiful.

Push yourself to feel the loss, because unless you process it, you will not push past it.

If you’re a human being, then no doubt you feel the burden of life. You can keep making excuses that your life can never change because someone died, or you lost your job, or you have no money, etc. But life doesn’t care.

Life goes on until it doesn’t. So, what will it be for you? Stay where you are, or make changes?

Whether you want to feel better about a situation, more security in your life, more money, more love, more happiness, or more freedom, you can motivate yourself with very small steps.

Tip #7: Make A Decision 

Living a different life is possible. The day of the change has come, and it is TODAY.

Today you wake up with your lowest self, ever. Maybe you have cried yourself to sleep last night. Did you?

Now… Get ready to switch the button. Good hair day, or bad hair day, a few pounds overweight or not, broken up from a relationship or not, with a job or not. It doesn’t matter. Today IS THE DAY.

Decide that today is your LINE IN THE SAND

Your hunger has turned from simply surviving to wanting to thrive. It’s a zest for LIFE itself. Life is about feeling alive, not just existing.

When you’re so busy trying to survive, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel. But just like the stock market can be stagnant and going sideways for a while until a momentum occurs and the price bursts out of its range, you are about to cook up that momentum.

If you want exact steps that work for me, and that can also get you moving, then click to read: How To Change Your Life In 21 Days (Get Motivated in 6 Steps).

The Bottom Line On Feeling Sorry For Yourself

Humans prefer comfort over change. This is a fact.

It is easy to take your life, your world, the gifts that you have been given, and the people who love you for granted at times. It is also easy to feel sorry for yourself when things don’t work out the way you want them to. Last but not least, it is much easier to stay put and stagnant over moving around and feeling the pain of the unknown.

But the unknown is where growth is.

Failures are great gifts because without them, you will never reach your potential. Rehashing an event or a failure is not the answer, not to mention that wanting to make a move but being afraid of change is an absolute prison sentence.

Life is beautiful BECAUSE it has unknowns, failures, and lessons to learn. Embrace each one of them.

Feeling sorry for yourself is a waste of time. You have to be aware that you’re doing it, otherwise you cannot change anything.

Sometimes you have to orchestrate a different path in your life. It might take a bit of a push for your momentum to form, but if you are reading this and you’ve made it to this line so far, then I assure you that you have started the process.

The only two known things in life are death and the unknown. Don’t waste your life on sorrow and on living in the past.

Be ready for anything that comes. When the negativity takes over your mind, consciously interrupt the pattern and change your thoughts… Put on some upbeat music. Go for a walk. Smell the roses. Take photos of the sky. Be grounded. Be grateful. Concentrate on what matters and on those who count.

Push forward towards your hopes and your dreams and keep on pushing because life is INDEED for the living, and all you truly have is THIS moment.