How to Stay Positive when You Know Your Life Sucks

Ground Yourself. The most common reason why people think their lives suck is that they are not living their own lives. Look deeply into whether you are acting to please others - to please family, friends, and society. Realize that you need to get to know who you are and what your needs are, and make the choices to follow your own path. To know these things, a path of meditation and inner exploration is invaluable. This also comes to aid if you lose interest in things.

 Look on the inside. What are some qualities you have that you like about yourself? Are you funny? Are you intelligent? Are you sincere? Are you generous? What do you have pride in? Try focusing on the positive things in your life. You may be having a positive influence on others even when you think you're useless.

Prove those negative thoughts wrong. "Life isn't about finding who you are, it's about creating yourself" When you find yourself in a bad mood, you could think of the negative things such as, "I'm dumb and annoying", "I'm better off dead", "I'm ugly, I wish I looked different", etc. Even though it's not true. Change your mind. Look for your good features, think about the ones that you know love you, look on your greater side. Realize that nobody's life is easy and that there will always be ups and downs, and moments of low self esteem. Don't automatically assume that nobody cares. Every person matters to someone. You're alive for a reason.

Appreciate what you see. Look in the mirror. Find some beautiful things about yourself.... Do you have nice skin? nice nails? beautiful eyes? full lips? Find stuff that appeals to you. When you can't change something, change your attitude towards it!

It's all how you look at it. Jealous of the people with 'amazing' lives? They chose to be that way! Remember, there are people living in mansions who are miserable and people living on the street who are perfectly happy. It's all on how you look at it.

Determine how your life could be better. What can you do to make your life better? What do you desire to do? How do you want to feel? Make a few reachable goals and your own strategies. The first step is usually the hardest - getting help or admitting you need it.

Sometimes it's just luck. A lot of things in life are just luck. Where you were born, whether you had a kind loving family or an abusive one where your mind or even your life is in danger, whether you belong in your community or were born into an out-group by religion, race, etc., whether your family was rich or poor are all random things. It's what you do with it that matters. Remember that there is something epic and heroic in rising from harsh circumstances to do something well. Just surviving a rough situation and coming out of it with a heart is a triumph, a story that could move people long after you lived. That matters. 

Sometimes situations that look good from the outside, like a wealthy but emotionally abusive family can inspire both misery and jealousy from others. Accept that's the situation. Remember that your life is your own and its direction is your choice. You don't have to be who other people tell you that you are, whether that's Future Criminals of America or Ruthless Cut-Throat Capitalist. You can change your life by choosing the direction that matters to you and pursuing it one small step at a time.

Get motivated. What motivates you? What gives you energy to go on everyday? Music? Love? Family? A 1km run? God? Your attitude? Your pet? Friends? School? Give yourself a boost by focusing on what is important to you personally.

Remember that some things can pass with time. There will be a tomorrow. There will be a next week. There will be a next month and perhaps by then, things will have changed for the better. If you are underage in a bad situation you have a definite release date after which your life is your own, all the things you could do to better it will come into reach even if they're difficult.

Reminisce. Whenever you feel like the future is 'hopeless', think about happy memories. It will help make you feel better and remind you that in the future, there will be good things, too. Think about all the good things you've experienced, felt, and achieved, and consider how many more good things could be waiting ahead. There will be many great moments in your life - don't let a few obstacles get in the way. If you don't have any happy memories, this is relative - don't judge them by things other people think of as "happy memories." Think of the moments it wasn't as bad, even if those were only in solitude.

Don't stop yourself from feeling the joy. It's okay to step back once in awhile and just enjoy the moment. Even in tough situations - it's important to smile and laugh here and there. Don't restrict yourself from doing things you love because they're "not important" or because you think you'll be criticized for doing them. Let yourself enjoy life even if you're not at the best place you could be. You only live once - make the best of it.

Develop a gratitude journal. It's pretty simple. At the end of every day, write down five things that have made you happy or appreciative that day -- not necessarily big things, even small ones count. For example: nice weather, being praised by my boss for getting an urgent errand done, my playful dog, kids and hubby kissing me goodbye before they went to school/work, a hilarious joke a mate shared, etc.

If you feel persistently sad, unmotivated, anxious, hopeless or fearful, seek professional help. You may be suffering from a mood disorder or nutritional deficit which could be contributing to your situation. Chronic physical pain can cause these symptoms too, if an aspirin lifts your mood then go to a pain clinic. Remember there is always somebody there who wants to help you. You are valuable!

Tips

• To "go for it," simply get up and do it. There is a small voice inside saying "Get up!", and you need to do what it says; just dive in! Turn off the computer, turn off the TV, and get going!
• When you think positively, your whole views change about the world and you tend to look on the better, clearer side. It may sound stupid but being resentful is what really renders positive thinking useless. When you let down your walls (or hold out until they collapse...) really trying to "focus on the positives."
• Thinking positively means hanging on to hope and looking for new possibilities at the time when life's gotten too hard. It means striving against its challenges, however extreme. It means hanging on to what is good in yourself if everything else gets swept away and valuing your compassion, your warmth, your capacity to find beauty. There is always the sky, there is always a dewdrop on a weed.
• If the above fails for you, take the Buddhist view: Life is difficult. The fallacious thought is that we can change that. In accepting that life indeed is difficult, we begin to make it less painful...not less difficult. Accept that life is full of difficulty and choose the religion, belief system, or substance to ingest to decrease the pain; that is after all what the rest of us do. Life can suck, deal with it.
• What you think becomes your word, what you say becomes your habit, your habit becomes your character. Be positive and you'd be surprised about the good things around you.
• Remember: "No one can hurt you without your permission".

Warnings

• Don't make the mistake of standing still rather than giving it a try.
• Don't get lost in self-pity. Remember you have the ability to change your outlook and your situation. If you can't change your situation, you can always turn inward and decide how you'll respond to it. Sometimes innocent people are jailed for crimes they never committed. Sometimes people are crushed by discrimination and oppression, or robbed, or raped, or face job loss and fall through the cracks. You can't be who you were before tragedy, but you can become whole again as someone who survived tragedy and you can be remembered as someone who survived injustice without letting it poison you.
• Let yourself grieve real loss. Accept the five stages of grief and let them flow, cry, rage, journal, bargain with the divine, it's a process that takes as long as it does for anyone who grieves. Don't let someone tell you it's just self pity, accept that it's grief and feel your feelings. Losing a friend, a pet, a job, an opportunity or facing a hard truth is real grief. Losing your idea of who you were to a painful self recognition is grief too, all those possibilities are gone and you can't see the new possibilities until you've grieved them and let go of the old.
• Resist the urge to act out moods on those around you. Instead, write, confide in a friend, draw, take a walk, etc. Do something creative or physically active, something you feel comfortable doing and that others don't have the right to criticize.
• Consult someone if you start having suicidal thoughts. Don't keep it inside.
• If taking an aspirin or acetaminophen relieves suicidal thoughts and pushes you away from the brink, you are facing chronic physical pain instead of or in addition to depression even if you can't recognize it as such. Seek a pain clinic and an accurate diagnosis for the cause of your pain. You are much better off with a prescription if you need maintenance pain medication, a longterm prescription is likely to be safer and more effective. Migraines, fibromyalgia flares, many medical conditions can be easily mistaken for depression because depression is more common and well known. Specialists interpret symptoms within their own specialty. Sleep apnea and other types of sleep problems can also have this as a symptom. Become aware of your physical health issues and find the right doctors to get effective treatment for them. It can make a world of difference, especially if therapy and antidepressants have no effect but an over the counter pain medication reduces the problem.