Handling The Hard Stuff

Handling the Hard Stuff: A Blog about Life and How to Deal

Don’t Stare at Closed Doors

When a door closes in life, let it close. Don’t slam it, don’t try to force it open, don’t belabor the door. Let it close. And go find an open door. We spend so much of our lives forcing relationships. Over the years I have had so many clients come to me wanting to fix…

February 21, 2024
Keep Your Word to Yourself

Often as we go through life being busy adults with lots of responsibilities, we push ourselves further and further back on the priority list. Your kids and their activities take up your attention. Or your work requires a lot of focus. You spend your energy on your relationships and you have nothing left for legit…

February 19, 2024
There is No Normal

One of the biggest lies we tell ourselves is “next week things will go back to normal.” What is normal? It seems like literally every day there is something that’s requiring our immediate attention or pulling us out of our default position. Things never get back to normal. Things evolve. We’ve recently started calling changes…

February 16, 2024
You are Doing Better than You Think

We are terrible at reasonable self-analysis. Invariably we are our own worst critics. We second-guess every choice we’ve made and consider whether things would be better if we’d done things differently. Stop. You are where you are and you’re doing better than you think you are. You are trying. You are changing. Those two things…

February 14, 2024
Trying Harder

I have a lot of quit in me. I am really good at pushing myself a little but not a LOT. I have never gone “to failure”. I’ve never pushed myself so hard I literally can’t keep going. I’ve never tried to lift something so heavy I needed a spotter to help me finish. I’ll…

February 12, 2024
Time is a Choice

We often say things like “I don’t have time for that” or “I can’t, I’m too busy” when the reality is we just aren’t making the time for it. We choose our priorities with our schedule. Try replacing “I don’t have time for that” with “That’s not a high enough priority for me” and see…

February 9, 2024
We Can’t Hack Everything

This is such a trend lately – every advertisement or online post is Five Quick Ways to XYZ. We are constantly pitched a cheat code or a hack or a quick way to circumvent hard work in order to get the outcome we desire. The reality is that the outcome isn’t nearly as desirably if…

February 7, 2024
Safety Net

A friend of mine messaged me today to tell me she quit her job – her first professional, career, JOB job – without having another lined up. She was freaking out. She sort of had a plan, she’d loosely lined up additional work to fill the time and space and has a strong likelihood that…

February 5, 2024
Easygoing

As kids we’re taught to be nice. We’re taught to be polite. And we’re taught to figure out how to get along with each other. Some of us are taught to be silent until spoken to. We learn to be agreeable and go-along-to-get-along. We practice saying yes to things so we can avoid conflict. We…

February 2, 2024
Boundaries do not Mean Beef

Drawing boundaries does not mean you are picking a fight. It is not an adversarial thing. You are not doing this at someone, you are doing it for yourself. Choosing to unfollow someone on social media does not mean you dislike them or don’t wish them well. It means that your mental health is negatively…

January 31, 2024