Have you ever felt like everything has come to a standstill? All bad things are coming your way? Failure has become your portion? Everyone is against you? Poverty is chasing after you? And all you thought is to surrender, give in to the pressure, the hardship, the storms, and if anything you retorted to death?
This is how I felt sometime back in 2017 when my world was crumbling down and caving in on me, everybody left, all bad things happened, I lost hope I gave up! If anything, whatever I used to do was all negative and faint for I was living on the attitude of after all am not gonna make it! This time when you feel all is done is usually your moment of coming back, rejuvenation, and the 11nth hour for the son of God Jesus Christ to look down on you and give you hope again! It is the moment you need to stand strong as an individual and be selfish enough to only think about yourself, yes about yourself and do all good to yourself and restore your life again.
Here are the tips of restoring your hope when you feel all is gone and you want to give up
1. Give a blind eye to everyone: On the hospital bed I wondered where all my friends were, including those whom I paid their hospital bills often, I thought of all I did good to, but this day none even send a text message of a simple QR or WhatsUp gal? Every time I saw people being visited in hospital and brought flowers I felt sorry and bad about myself. There came a moment I stopped comparing everyone with myself and I just focused on myself and my strengths, which was my healing moment! I viewed myself in a unique way and I was fit for a discharge, after eight months of being hospitalized. Self-acceptance, confidence, and love should be your daily bread. Focusing on others may distract you from achieving your dreams since you would want to copy what others are doing. Other people may make you feel inferior and inadequate but consider them irrelevant and press on until you make it.
2. Be your own encourager: While in hospital no one encouraged me nor told me I was improving, if anything the doctor kept saying you need more bed rest and monitoring…this killed the inner me but then I realized those not saying a word to me were innocent, for the burden was mine, not theirs’s. I started motivating myself by analyzing my health state when I was bedridden. I started telling people I was worse when I was bedridden and that I had improved, this was true for the first few months I survived with the Normal saline drip water and promethazine but at the moment I could take in small amounts of solid foods. This encouraged me and I focused on my full recovery. Having people to motivate you or encourage you is a luxury, not a necessity, you are your compulsory motivator, when feeling low focus on your strength encourage yourself to pick up your pieces, and move on.
3. Acknowledge every little thing: I kept complaining of everything around me until a certain male nurse rebuked me and told me that was a hospital and not my home and that everyone was trying their level best to help and accommodate me, and if anything it was not a must for them to what they were doing to me. This hit me strongly, I got remorseful and I started thanking them for every effort and sacrifice they were making. This opened ways, for every nurse and doctor who wanted to attend to me.! we often miss the beauty of the journey simply because we only focus on the destination of our goals. The things that happen along your journey provide new energy to press on. New happenings, surprises, storms, etc are the fuel for your vehicle – hope and pressing on.
4. What next? I was stressed wondering when I will fully recover. My then ringtone “One step at a time by Jordin Sparks” uplifted my spirit. I went back to the drawing board and started reviewing my recovery milestones. With the aid of my doctor and nurses, we started focusing on one thing at a time, treating and managing a condition at a time, and it worked! When your project seems too big it may scare you and even feel like abandoning it. It is okay, break it into manageable stages, phases, or parts that are easy to handle, monitor the milestones until you are fully done with it all.
5. Analyze deadlines: Being a political journalist, I was expected to be in the field covering campaigns and the then-upcoming elections. I told the doctors that I was to be well soon enough, actually before August 2017 so that I could cover the elections. Focusing on time stressed me because nothing was happening and time was flying, the doctor then said just give us time to attend to you. She further added that the politicians never cared whether I covered the news or not. It hit me, yes very hard. When working on achieving something stop looking at the clock, it will distract you, it will exact pressure on you, it will remind you that you are out of time and you’ll do shoddy work, if anything it will shout at you that you’ve failed. Stop measuring yourself against others or something else focus on the end result, it will keep you going.
6. Face the challenge not everyone who goes to the hospital is bedridden, you can go get the over-the-counter drugs and save yourself the admission bills. At a moment I thought of leaving the hospital and just going buy medicine. Do not always look for a way out when the heat gets hotter, instead of fighting it, move through it. Challenges will always be present in your journey to success, do not look for a way out or a short cut instead face the challenges overcome them do not run away because they will still be there waiting for you. Face the challenges
7. Acknowledge your shortcomings. I had some pains that I was not telling the doctor because I thought opening up will make me stay in hospital for long. I had to be honest with myself this pretense was doing me more harm than good. I had to share this and was attend to making my path smoother. Everyone has his or her own different journey to success, everyone’s circumstance is different. Appreciate your weakness and shortcomings and work on them to smoothen your journey.
ALWAYS HAVE HOPE ND NEVER GIVE UP UNTIL YOU MAKE IT. AM FULLY HEALED, STRONG AND HEALTHY.
