One strategy I’ve been learning is to slow down.
When things feel hard, my old reflex was to feel overwhelmed fast. Sometimes the mind wants to jump straight to: “Help me. I can’t do this.”
And I understand that feeling. Some things really are difficult. Some even feel impossible.
But I’ve learned there’s power in trying first.
Not because trying always solves the problem.
Sometimes it doesn’t.
Sometimes you really do need help.
But if help becomes your first reflex every time something feels hard, you lose the chance to think through the problem yourself.
Trying builds problem-solving.
Trying builds patience.
Trying teaches you where you went wrong.
I learned that years ago working for a man named Don Orlando, who owned his own chorizo business.
At the end of the day, I would hand him the money and he would match it against the invoices on the laptop.
One day he told me I was short five dollars.
So I pulled five dollars out of my own pocket and handed it to him.
He looked at me and said,
“What are you doing?”
“You said I was short.”
He laughed — then got serious.
“Don’t ever do that again. Look slowly through the invoices.”
So we checked them carefully.
It turned out I had marked one invoice as fully paid when it was only partially paid.
That day taught me something simple:
Slow down.
Take your time.
Look again.
We live in a rush, and rushing creates mistakes.
Rushing also creates panic.
So when negative feelings hit, one strategy I use now is to stop, breathe, and think through the problem slowly before assuming I’m helpless.
Help is necessary sometimes.
But first, try.
Reader question: When something feels hard, do you rush to solve it — or slow down enough to really see it?
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