Ever had one of those days when it feels like the world is against you?, You have very low energy and every negative emotion you can think coming in. Your motivation is lost, you just want to stay in bed all day and not even talk to anyone. Your confidence.. Same with your motivation, nowhere to be found. This can sometimes lead to a feeling of being worthless. Relax, this happens to the best of us.
This feeling can come from a variety of sources, most especially if you are on a path of growth where you have been trying new things to improve yourself and hit a plateau where things aren’t going your way for a while.
Imposter syndrome can also be a contributing factor to this as you feel you are not good enough. A harvard study of top CEOs reveals that most CEOs have gone through these same feelings at a point. This is good news for you and I as it means you’re not alone.
What is wrong is staying in this feeling for too long and allowing it to overwhelm you to the point of taking you back to before you started trying to build a new life or a new business for yourself. This leads to a loss of clarity and is a slippery slope to depression if you do not nip it in the bud by understanding your feelings and understanding what it means
In this post, I’d be sharing very important tips that will help you bounce back when you hit this supposed rock bottom and how to go about it.
See it as a sign that you’re growing: feelings of worthlessness or not being good enough only surface when you are doing something outside your comfort zone.
It means you are trying to achieve a goal or do something that is new to you. This is a good thing, you only see the downside because it is still new to you and maybe the results you’re expecting are not coming as fast as you want them to.
Growth in any form would require learning to deal with messy emotions that come as a result of doing something new. Remember that you are working on yourself, you are trying to change your life and this is just one of the things that comes with it.
Negative emotions are healthy: “Joy wouldn’t feel so good if it wasn’t for rain” – 50 cent.
When you have negative emotions what do you do? Allow it consume you or wait for it to pass?
Negative emotions are seen as something you and I should never experience but if you have lived the past 2 decades on this beautiful planet, you’d understand that negative emotions are a part and parcel of life (and a healthy part ).
There is no escaping feeling bad every once in a while. While negative emotions by itself are not harmful, our reactions to these emotions are what can harm us.
Negative emotions means something is not right and in dealing with negative emotions productively, growth most times occurs. You should always see it as a catalyst for growth and not let it consume you.
3. You just reached a plateau: When you start something new, there is an immediate period of growth before you reach a plateau. A plateau is the point where nothing seems to be working as you want it to. Maybe your results even out, maybe your growth stopped for a while… while it is bad, we most times interpret this as something worse.
We see it as going back to square one, especially if you have experienced any sort of failure that knocked you off balance. Remembering that this is just a phase and things would soon pick up is something you should keep telling yourself.
4. It is just temporary: One good thing about feelings is that they come and go. It is a very temporary phase that you would surpass once you let it run it course.
Feelings are not facts, they are just your mind’s way of interpreting something that is happening based on your previous experiences.
Feeling worthless is no different as the emotions that come with them are also temporary. According to brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor, emotions last much shorter than we believe. According to Taylor, the chemical process of emotion only lasts 90 seconds!!!
What does this mean to you?
Simply put, You are going to feel better. You most definitely will feel worthy, motivated, and excited about life again. Accepting this, instead of letting the emotions consume you can lead to a sense of peace.
5. Everyone goes through this: Like I told you earlier, even the best and most successful ones among us go through this phase. It is an integral part of growth.
You cannot avoid feeling blue every once in a while. What separates winners from those who don’t is that winners have found a way to deal with this and losers just sink in and make it a part and parcel of their identity.
You should remember this and choose how you want it to be for you. If the best and brightest in the world can feel like this with the admirations, successes and celebrity status they experience, feeling worthless every once in a while is something you too can deal with.
6. What are you grateful for: When feelings of worthlessness raise up it’s ugly head, it is easy to start thinking of everything that is going bad and not thinking of everything that has gone good so far.
One way to take yourself out of this is to think of everything that has worked to your good previously and how it made you feel.
You should keep a journal of things you are grateful for and look at it everyday but most especially on days when you are feeling worthless.
This would help reinforce what an amazing person you really are and can help you not get attached to a feeling that would soon go away.
This moves your awareness form everything that is not working for you to everything that is working for you snd can be the boost you need to feel better.
7 Breathe, Pray, play connect with others: If you are like me, then you have the unhealthy habit of locking yourself up when things are bad or when you feel worthless.
You do not want to contaminate people’s joys with your troubles and worries
fun to do ( binge watch comedy series or funny youtube videos), play loud music and dance by yourself or just find someone to connect with and talk to.
You do not have to talk about what’s going through your life if you do not want to but being around someone (who is not in a depressed mood as you) can help snap you out of it.
You can also find someone you can help. It has been proven that by taking the focus off yourself, you can find healing. It doesn’t have to be anything grand—but encouraging an old friend, a random act of kindness like helping someone in need can create what psychologists call the “giver’s high,” and shift your perspective and improve your mood.
We do hope you find this helpful.