364 - How to Stop Making a Hard Situation Even More Miserable

Speaker A: On today's episode of Mentally Stronger, have you ever noticed how two people can go through the same hard thing, like a health scare or a move that they didn't want to make, or a stressful season with family or a job they can't stand? And they came out in very different places. One person feels completely consumed by it, but the other person acknowledges, yeah, it was a little bit tough, but they still have a positive outlook and and plenty of energy for the rest of their life. Well, the difference is what's going on inside their heads. What we think about has the power to either fuel our misery or reduce it. And the good news is we can take charge of our m mindsets to stop making ourselves feel more miserable than we need to, no matter how difficult the situation is that we're going through today, I'm sharing three simple tools that can help you stop adding extra misery to situations that are already hard. And just as important, I'll talk about when you shouldn't try to make the best out of an unhealthy situation. This year I want to get my loved ones holiday gifts they'll appreciate, so I'm getting them skincare from Oneskin. Their new limited edition holiday sets not only support softer, smoother skin, now they help skin age healthier. I'm especially excited about the Rich and Body Duo Discovery Set which comes with travel sized versions of Oneskin's new Rich cream to hydrate skin while replenishing collagen, elastin and hyaluronic acid, and their super nourishing body moisturizer that's scientifically proven to improve crepey skin. There's also the Longevity Protocol Discovery Set which includes Oneskin's complete routine for the face and body and convenient travel sizes. Oneskin's products are powered by their proprietary OS1 peptide, which has proven to reverse skin's biological age by targeting the dysfunctional cells that drive skin aging. There's a set for every budget and they all come ready to gift in a sleek silver travel bag. I love all of Oneskin's products, but the Rich Face cream is my favorite. Go to this fall for keeping my skin hydrated and healthy. I don't travel anywhere without it. Born from over 10 years of longevity research, OneSkin's OS1 peptide supports healthier, more resilient skin through the holiday season and beyond. For a limited time, try OneSkin with 15% off using stronger at OneSkin co. Stronger, that's 15% off OneSkin co with Stronger. After you purchase, they'll ask where you Heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

Speaker B: You're listening to a quick ad. You know what else is quick? Selling your car on Carvana. Just put in your vehicle information and we'll give you an offer. Done. No hassle, no negotiation. No guy from an online listing lowballing you. Which means by the time I'm done explaining this, you could have basically done it. Still haven't started. Hey, better late than never. Sell your car today on Carvana. Pickup fees may apply.

Speaker A: Welcome to Mentally Stronger. I'm Amy Morin, a psychotherapist, a mental strength trainer, and the author of seven books on mental strength. You're listening to the Friday Fix edition. Every Friday, I share a quick mental strength strategy that will fix the thoughts, feelings, and actions that can hold you back in life. And the fun part is we record the show from a sailboat in the Florida Keys. Now let's dive into today's episode. A few years ago, during the pandemic, I took a corporate job. I know some of you have been following the podcast since then. In fact, I started the podcast right in the earliest days of the pandemic. And, uh, some of you have stuck around while the show underwent an overhaul and we changed the name for a while. During that time, taking a 9 to 5 job was actually never part of my plan. I'm an author and a speaker and a podcast host and a mental strength coach. I wasn't really looking for a 9 to 5 job, but this company that I had a relationship with already, they reached out to me and they created this position for me. They asked me to work for them. I was flattered, and I was really excited about the opportunity because it sounded great. So I said yes. But it was not the best fit for me. In my previous nine to five jobs, I was a therapist. I'd never worked in corporate America in New York City before in my life. And the red tape was unbelievable. It was really hard to get anything done. And, um, there wasn't much room for creativity at all. And there were so many rules. We're gonna meet almost all day long. Keep your camera on. You have to go to meetings in Zoom, and then we're going to meet about the meetings. By the time all of that was over, there was very little time to actually do any of the work, let alone to feel creative. And whenever I raised an issue, the answer was almost always the same. Well, this is corporate policy. So many times I was thinking, ah, uh, I shouldn't have taken this job. This job is taking Away from my actual business because I was continuing to write books and host a podcast and do all these other things and speak. But every time I thought I shouldn't have taken this job, I felt worse. And thinking, uh, that made me more miserable than ever as I sat through those meetings. But then it hit me. Like, Amy, I'm the mental strength person. I'm supposed to teach people how to handle tough situations. And here I was doing the exact opposite of what I was telling everyone else to do. So I reminded myself, okay, if this is a situation I'm in, I can either make it miserable or make the best of it until I decide to do something else. And I started looking at that job as a place where I had opportunities to build mental strength every single day. Like, this is a boring meeting, but I'll survive, or I don't have much time to get work done. But this is what they wanted my schedule to look like. I ended up staying there for about two and a half years, and then I resigned. But by the time I got done that job, I had stopped m making it worse. Now, obviously, I know this isn't a life or death situation. It was a voluntary job, right? They plucked me out of nowhere, asked me to work there. I didn't need that job to survive. So, of course, it's easy to say I didn't make myself miserable while I was there. But if you know my story, you know that I've had plenty of more serious times in life where I was in a miserable situation, and I had to remind myself I can make the best of it by changing my mindset. So I want you to know whether you're dealing with a health problem, a family situation, a financial crisis, or just a really hard season in your life without meaning to you might make it a harder situation if you're not careful. Because it's not the situation itself that makes us miserable. It's what we tell ourselves about it. The situation is real. Yes. And often it's out of your control. But then there's a story that we tell ourselves about the situation. Like, uh, this shouldn't be happening. This is awful. I can't stand this. Those kinds of phrases turn a hard situation into a miserable one. And therapists have been helping people with this for decades. It's not new. There's a lot of research showing that changing how we think about a situation changes how we feel about it. Even when the situation stays the same. Being miserable is exhausting. It drains the energy out of you that you need to solve the problem right in front of you, or to cope with it, or to figure your way out of it. So I'm going to share some strategies that can help. But before we get into those strategies that will prevent you from adding to your misery, I want to be really clear about what this is not like. First, it's not about pretending things aren't bad. If you're going through something hard, you're going to feel bad. If you feel sad or frustrated or disappointed, those things are healthy. Those are healthy reactions to hard things. The goal isn't to feel nothing. I don't want you to be numb. It's to feel a healthy amount of bad instead of being consumed by it. And second, mental strength isn't about suffering just for the sake of suffering. There's no prize for enduring the most pain, but being mentally strong doesn't mean you have to grit your teeth and put up with anything. I hear so many mental toughness gurus talk about that like, you should just endure the pain at all costs, no matter what. That's not true. And third, the strategies I'm going to talk about aren't because I think you should talk yourself into staying somewhere that's hurting you. If you are in a relationship where someone mistreats you or controls you or you feel unsafe, the answer isn't to change your thoughts to make it more bearable. The answer is to get support and make a plan to get out. The same goes for a job that's taking a toll on your health, or even a friendship that's tearing you down. So here's the first question to ask yourself. Is this a situation I need to accept for now? Or might this be a situation that I need to change or leave? Sometimes making the best of your situation is a strong choice. At other times, though, walking away is the strong choice. But here's the good news. When you stop adding extra misery to your hard situation, you can think more clearly about which one of those things you're facing. So you can decide Do I need to accept it? Or do I need to change or leave? Okay, we're going to pause right here for a quick word from today's sponsors, but when we come back, I'm sharing the three strategies that will help keep you from adding to your misery when you're in a tough situation. I hear so many speakers tell me that they're using AI to run their businesses, but I had no idea how to make that happen. So I decided to learn how to create an AI agent that could manage some of the logistics for me, and I did that with a class on Masterclass called Revolutionize your workflows with AI. Masterclass has more than 200 classes that can help with every area of life. Unlike other learning platforms, masterclass puts you in a room with the people who defined their fields. Not just experts, but the best in the world. They offer classes in business, writing, cooking, creativity, wellness, and more, with plans starting at just $10 a month billed annually but now up to 50% off for the holidays. I love I can take classes from my phone while I'm traveling, so I make great use of the time that I spend on airplanes. Masterclass keeps adding new classes, so there's never been a better time to get in. Right now you can get up to 50% off any annual membership at, uh, masterclass.com mentallystronger that's up to 50% off@masterclass.com mentally stronger head to masterclass.com mentallystronger to see the latest offer Losing weight on your own can feel like a fight. You keep losing weight loss by hers offers access to FDA approved WeGovy pill and the WeGovy pension WeGovy is the first ever JLP1 weight loss medication available in a pill and also comes as a pen, so you've got options. With WeGovy, you can lose up to 20% of your body weight. People lost on average 14% body weight in 64 weeks in a clinical trial of WeGovy alongside diet and exercise. To get started with WeGovy, just go to for hers.com and complete an online consultation with a licensed provider who will determine if a prescription is appropriate. Ready to reach your goals? Visit forhers.commorin to access personalized, affordable, uh, care for weight loss, hair, menopause and more. Individual results may vary and stopping treatment may result in weight regain. Weight loss by hers is not available in all 50 states. WeGovy is a registered trademark of Novo Nordisk A S to get started and learn more, including important safety information, WeGovy clinical study information, and restrictions, visit for hers.com okay, we're back. Here are the three tools that could change your mindset so that you stop adding more fuel to your misery. Tool Number one Catch the Must look for words like must, should, have to, and shouldn't. Those words often signal that you've turned something you'd like into something that you demand. And we usually make those demands in three different places. Number one ourselves. Like I should be handling this better. I shouldn't have made that choice. Or in my case, it was I shouldn't have taken this job or make the demands on other people. My sister should understand. My kids shouldn't act like this. And the third one is on life itself. Like, this shouldn't be so hard. Things shouldn't be this unfair. And when reality doesn't line up with the demands that we're putting on it, and it often won't, we tend to feel really angry or guilty or hopeless. Because in our mind, we're like, the world is breaking a rule. This shouldn't be so hard. Right? So swap the demand for something that sounds more like a preference. So instead of saying, ugh, uh, demand, this shouldn't be happening, try I really wish this weren't happening. Or instead of I shouldn't have made that choice, try I wish I'd chosen differently, but here's where I am now. This lets you still want to make things different, but you're not fighting reality all day long. Because wanting something to be different might actually motivate you to create change. But demanding that reality should be different is exhausting, and it will make you feel more miserable. Now, it's important to note, though, that some shoulds are actually healthy boundaries. Like, if you say, my partner shouldn't scream at me, you don't need to change that or soften it. That's a signal that something needs to change. Okay, tool number two is downgrade awful to bad. We're going through something tough. We want to describe it in extreme terms like, this is awful. This is the worst. I can't stand this. But the funny thing is, as you're saying, I can't stand this. You're actually standing it like you're getting through every day. But when you tell yourself that something is unbearable, your brain believes it. It reacts like you're facing something that you're not going to survive. And that ramps up your stress and leaves you feeling helpless. So make sure that the situation is in its proper place. Is it bad? Yes, maybe it is bad. Is it frustrating or disappointing or unfair? Probably. But is it truly the worst thing in the whole world that could happen? When I sat through those meetings, after meetings, like it was annoying, but it wasn't a catastrophe, I. I have lived through way worse things. Now, don't get me wrong, some things really are awful. Trust me, when you lose someone you love, it's awful. When you're mistreated or when something horrible does happen, this tool isn't going to minimize your actual pain, but it's for the everyday hard stuff that your brain tends to blow out of proportion. So try saying, this is hard and I can handle it. That doesn't deny that the situation's hard. It just reminds you that you're stronger than you're giving yourself credit for. And tool number three is to rate the action, not the person. When things are hard, it's easy to start labeling people, including ourselves, like, I'm such a failure. I'm an idiot for ending up here, or he's a terrible person. But the problem with labels is that they feel permanent. If I'm a failure, then there's nothing I can do about it. Uh, a label will leave you feeling pretty hopeless about change. So instead, describe the behavior. I made a choice that didn't work out. That's much easier to live and learn from right Than I'm a failure. Or instead of saying, he's a terrible person, maybe you say, he said something hurtful because that's something that you can respond to. And that doesn't mean that you have to excuse something that someone did. In fact, describing the behavior can help you see when there's a pattern that you need to address. But it will prevent, like, one mistake or one bad day from turning into a verdict on somebody's entire worth, including your own worth. And of course, when it's about you, it's important to practice self compassion. If you end up somewhere you didn't expect, instead of saying, ugh, I'm such a loser for being here, just remind yourself your plan didn't work out and it just means you're human. And back to my job. Once I stopped telling myself I shouldn't be there, like, I shouldn't have taken this job, I just started asking, how do I use this job to build mental strength? Because that's kind of the cool thing when you're in a hard situation that you've decided that you're going to accept. For now, one of the most helpful questions you can ask is, how do I use this to get stronger? A long wait might be a chance to practice patience, or something you can't control could help you practice acceptance. And getting through that tough day is at least proof that you can handle tough days. And when you tolerate a difficult circumstance a little bit longer, you're proving to your brain that you can stand it. And that's not going to make your hard situation good. But it changes the question from why is this happening to me? To more like, what am I gonna do with this? And that doesn't mean that you have to stay forever in a unhealthy relationship or in a job that you really don't like. I eventually resigned from my job and it was a thoughtful decision, and it wasn't just because I was miserable and I said, I can't take this one more second. It was because I thought, all right, this isn't for me. So first ask yourself that question. Is this a situation I can accept for now, or is it an unhealthy one that I should change or leave? And when you feel miserable, use these three tools. Number one, catch the must. Like, whenever you hear I must or I should swap it for a preference, remind yourself of your language and you have a choice. Number two, downgrade awful to bad. Tell yourself, okay, this is hard and I can handle it. And number three, rate the action, not the person. Because mental strength isn't about pretending that things are fine or about toxic positivity. It's about not adding extra suffering because you need all the energy that you can to get through a difficult situation. So here's my challenge for you this week. When you face a tough situation, listen for that language that you use. When you say I should or I shouldn't have or I must or I have to just rephrase it, turn it into a preference and see what happens. That alone might be enough to start shifting your mindset so that you don't fuel your misery. Thanks for hanging out with me today and for listening to Mentally Strong or if you know someone who's going through something hard right now, send them this episode. Just sending them a link to the show might help them feel better and grow stronger. And if you like the show, hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And of course, if you like what you hear, I would love it if you'd leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. It helps us reach even more listeners. And as always, a, uh, huge thank you to my show's producer who says the show must go on. Nick Valentine

Speaker C: Progressives Accident response can contact emergency services if you're in a major accident. The only thing worse than someone you love being in an accident is not being able to help them. So Progressive is here to help when you can't. So get peace of mind knowing your loved ones are protected with Progressive's accident response. Learn more@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates Limited availability in California. Driver is responsible for emergency and towing charges not covered by the policy. Coverage subject to policy terms and conditions.

Speaker D: Pink Panther S here. Coach and Spotify are teaming up to bring music and style together and they want you to be part of it. Grab your friends and head to the Tabby Tour, hitting cities around the country with live performances from special artists, exclusive experiences, and personalized products. And discover custom playlists on Spotify built just for you, based on who you are and how you listen. Live your story with Coach. Learn more@coach.com.