How to survive when you are in a hard place 

How do you survive when you are caught between a rock and a hard place? When there seems like there is no light at the end of the tunnel or options to choose?

How do you keep on moving when the situation stretches from days to weeks and then months? When it seems like the only sane option is to throw up your arms and just give up?

Tough times require tough choices and a single-minded determination to keep pushing forward. (Easier said than done, I know.)

“I’ve come to believe that all my past failure and frustration were actually laying the foundation for the understandings that have created the new level of living I now enjoy,” Tony Robbin.

Here are 10 tips that have helped me weather the storm while job hunting Down Under:

1. Stop worrying about things that are beyond your control. “Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow. It empties today of its strength,” – Corrie Ten Boom
2. Stop wasting energy being angry and blaming yourself, others or God when things don’t work out as you expected.
3. Instead focus your energy on doing a few things that will move you forward (even if it is small steps) each day.
4. Keep positive and move forward one moment at a time, one day at a time, one week at a time. This is sometimes the best plan when that’s as far as you can see.
   

   CAUTION: Anger <coupled with fear and loss of control> can destroy you!

5. Accept whatever it is that’s stopping you and deal with it. This may be the hardest step but a necessary one if you want to move forward. There may be a many reasons for why you are in this situation. Bad choices, circumstances beyond your control, etc. We don’t choose to have bad things happen to us, but we can choose how we respond.
6. Remember that the pain (you are going through) does not equal divine punishment and it’s sometimes not about what you did or didn’t do.
7. Network – make new friends even though you may not feel like it. Strong relationships will help you weather the storms of life.
8. Believe in yourself. You have what it’s takes to get out of this situation and make it happen. You have done it before and will do it again.
9. Keep your faith, keep praying and hoping for a breakthrough.

When you go through deep waters, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. (‭Isaiah‬ ‭43‬:‭2‬ NLT)