It’s Not Always Bad To Struggle

Sure enough, too many philosophers have reached the conclusion that life is a constant struggle. However, struggling may not be as bad as you think. At the moment you may be feeling sick and tired of it, in reality you have no choice but to deal with it.

So how can you make the most of this tough time?

First of all, you need to arm yourself with the thought that everything in life is temporary. Perhaps you remember the fable of King Solomon’s ring. In short, he gathered his wise men together and asked them to make him a ring that had a very specific quality – to make him sad when he was happy and to make him happy when he was sad. After some discussions, the sages produced a ring with the inscription ‘This, too, shall pass’. This wise reminder tells us that whenever you are struggling, don’t give up and don’t lose hope.  Maybe brighter days are near.

Pain is part of growing. We grow and learn during each struggle, big or small and it gives us the tools to fight again tomorrow. Every struggle is a means of obtaining useful experience. After each hard situation in life, you come out stronger, sturdier, and more capable.

Just like everything else, your ability to successfully turn anything to your advantage is something you can learn – an attitude you can develop. It changes your response to every situation, and suddenly there is a reason or purpose behind what you are going through.  Most of us can cope with anything as long as we know why it’s happening.

Struggles are sent to test us, as our parents often told us. It turns out that they were right.

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What Do You Do When You Hit The Wall

Are there times in the day or week where you have just simply hit the wall? Your day may have started off badly. Someone may have annoyed you or you are just having one of those days when everything seems to be going wrong.

Sometimes this can also happen when working from home or in a small office where you are the sole person facing these issues and where there is no assistance or support from others.

When this happens and you feel you have hit the wall what do you do?

How do you manage yourself and address these issues?

Some people simply knuckle down and just get on with it whereas others may need to take a break.

Sometimes you just need to walk away and give yourself some breathing space. Head down to the local coffee shop and catch up with some friends. Go for a walk or the gym for some exercise or even just sit back and listen to some music.

Constantly struggling to meet deadlines can be tiring and while in some cases deadlines can’t be changed, there are many that can easily be changed with a simple phone call. Just having an extra day to complete the work can give you a bit of breathing space that can alleviate some of the pressure and stress.

The important issue is that sometimes you need to recognise when you have hit the wall and be able to do something about it.

What do you do to take care of yourself and your stress levels?

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Budgeting

If you have a mortgage, you are no doubt watching the rising interest rates and petrol prices with your own kind of special interest. As circumstances change with income, expense and cash flow fluctuations and it is important to budget accordingly so if (when) interest rates do increase we can make little adjustments. More particularly we know when we need to make significant adjustments. eg. sell your car with a V8 engine!

If budgeting is new to you, I’ve come across a great website with practical tools to assist with your personal finances. It is www.secretbudget.net. The budgeting spreadsheet would have saved me a lot of time in preparing mine!

Budgeting is equally important in managing our businesses as it is in our personal finances.  If you have Microsoft Office Small Business, it comes with some handy templates to assist with budgeting and forecasting.

What tools have you used for budgeting and cash flow forecasting?

 Here’s to volunteer treasurers

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