Have you ever felt like you were failing at this thing called adulting? Every time you take five steps forward, life decides to take you ten steps back. Well, I’m here to share with you what you may find hard to believe: you are not alone. I know the exact feeling and thoughts that cross your mind when you sign on to Facebook and see all of the success from your friends and family. Everyone just looks so happy and content (well, as far as we can see on their status updates and photo albums). So, the million dollar question here is: how do you cope with feeling like you just can’t get life right?

Let me introduce to you the five-minute rule I learned a few years back while interning with Katie McCarthy’s Give Good Podcast. The five-minute rule was introduced to me by top-rated keynote speaker and author, Hal Elrod. Take five minutes to dwell on your situation, obstacle, challenge, etc. and ask yourself within that five minutes, “Is there anything I can physically to change this?” If you cannot, push forward to the next obstacle that you can. He stresses the theory of individuals spending too much time and energy on things they simply cannot change. Our inner being has the power to let go and ultimately say no. No, I will not allow this dark cloud to consume me, especially if I know for a fact I cannot change it. For example, I have a bachelor's of fine arts and I’m an English tutor at a community college making just a little over minimum wage. I cannot change the fact that employment in my field is not at a higher demand. In fact, it was accepting this realization that landed me the position as a tutor. I spent hours daily on Indeed, trying to land my dream job as a staff writer or editorial intern for a major publication and came up with nothing. Well, nothing paid that is (publications are always looking for contributors). And literally one day I said to myself, “Okay, I’m getting no call backs, so now I have to be creative.” I started reaching out to any and every college/community college in my area and offered my services as a writing advisor. And BAM, I finally got a call back at Howard Community College. I totally skipped the interview process because orientation was literally days away from the abrupt response. Just like that, I was in. Had I given up or continued to let the answer no consume me, I would still be browsing through Indeed at this very moment.

The moral of this story is life is truly what you make it. I’m not living out my dream job but I tutor students with so much passion for completing their studies that my assistance in this process is truly rewarding. My next challenge is to write a book. There’s a possibility that I will never get that dream job but that doesn’t mean I can’t set reasonable goals for myself that I know for a fact I can achieve. My words of wisdom for those out there struggling with this 'can’t get right' moment in life: keep pushing; keep planning; keep setting goals and understand that social media is just what you see, not always what it really is. We all have a fine way of masking obstacles and sometimes speaking about things that are going great in our lives, successfully shadowing the not so great moments we care not to share with the world.

personal success

Get relevant content delivered to you once a week