What to do when you feel powerless
If someone says to you, I feel powerless; you can assume that they feel fear and lack skills to deal with a situation. They have also given control of the problem to someone else or something outside themselves. Feeling powerless in daily life contributes to anxiety, sadness, and loneliness.
Dealing with challenges by creating a new perspective can enable someone to find other alternatives. By finding other options, they could also get back their power and confidence.
Today I was hoping you could think about a new perspective that I like to use to open my mind and keep it wide open when I feel powerless. This perspective is enabled by questioning what you believe about feeling powerful.
What if feeling powerful could be as easy as letting go of your need to be in control? What if you accept things as they are? I understand that these questions can sound contradictory to you. How can the solution to feeling powerless be to let go of control?
Whenever difficulty arises in our lives, there are always many alternatives, but our narrow view of problems tends to let us see a limited amount.
Most of the time, feeling powerless comes down to a scarcity mindset. Scarcity means that we limit ourselves as we think that we don’t have the resources to deal with the problem. If you don’t have the skills, you can’t find a solution. Right?
But what if you question this limiting belief? This limited view of the world comes from our culture. I want you to consider the opposite idea. What if there is not a limit to the number of resources you have?
External factors always or mostly are not in our control. Creating a new mentality is required to deal with more resilience and overcome feeling powerless. What if when you feel powerless, you believe that there are always available resources? These resources you already have them. You have skills, strengths, social connections, and inner resources with you all the time.
New mindset: Start with abundance
Whenever you are feeling powerless, bring to mind your strengths and inner power. I’m talking about what you are great at, what comes naturally, and accessible to you. Then see how you can adapt to your challenge by using the power of what you have and previous success. Creating a flexible and resilient mentality comes with working with what you have right now in the present. Better thinking comes from being open-minded.
Suppose you work with your strengths, and suddenly, that gives you the freedom to stay open-minded. People that stay open-minded have better tools that enable more creativity and confident problem-solving.
Please remember fears and challenges are always around. Some could feel easy to solve, and others could feel unsurpassable. They are all part of living. Understand that you have the power to overcome them all. Consider just taking them one at the time.
Right now, think about your past and how many unsurpassable challenges you have been able to overcome. See how far you have become. What looks big right now will seem small in some years down the line.
Nothing in life is permanent. Your challenges today will become tomorrow, and new ones will rise. It would help if you to keep moving and evolve by keeping an open mind.
Quote
“When you feel alone, unloved, and powerless . . . your emotions are lying to you.”
A.M. Brewster
One question
When was the last time that you remember feeling powerful?