Overcoming Adversity: 7 Powerful Ways to Thrive in Tough Times

Overcoming adversity is a powerful opportunity to reevaluate your life, eliminate what no longer serves you, embrace new practices and ways of living, and become your best self.

And I’m going to share with you some suggestions on how to do that with 7 strategies.

If you take these strategies and practice them every day, you are going to come out of whatever adversity you are going through in a tremendous way.

You are going to be a better person. You’re going to be amazed by what opportunities come. In fact, if you follow these practices, I predict you’re going to look back five years from now and you’re going to say to yourself, “That was the best thing that ever happened to me!”

Let’s dive in.

1. Change Your Narrative

Adversity has the opportunity of going one of two ways, of either breaking you or making you a better person. And you are the one that will decide which way that’s going to go.

The mind is a storyteller and likes to tell us stories. Your mind right now has a story about this crisis. The story might be, “I’m never going to get out of it. I’m in a financial mess. I don’t know how I’m going to pay the mortgage or rent.” And for many of us, this is the story we are telling ourselves.

Let me share with you a Mind Power technique: it’s called “Taking Control of the Narrative.” How we take control of the narrative by observing what we’re thinking each day and choosing to either continue thinking this same way or to change the way we view the situation.

If the narrative is positive, great. If it’s negative, you have the option to turn the narrative into something more positive.

Are you thinking right now, “I don’t know how I’m going to get out of it. I’m never going to rebound from this”?

If that’s the narrative, then you notice it. You realize that this is a very negative way of thinking and it is not helping in any way. This belief is probably stressing you out and holding you back from taking action. You notice this and then you decide to either do nothing and let the mind keep thinking these thoughts or you become proactive and change the narrative. You begin a Mind Power practice: you change the narrative.

2. Use the Acknowledging Technique

A powerful way to overcome adversity is to remind yourself that you have been here before. No, not this particular crisis, but you’ve lived through adversity, and you did manage it.

I want you to reflect on previous times of adversity. It might have been a health crisis, a marriage breakup, a bankruptcy, or any number of challenges that you went through.

At the time you had no idea how you were going to get through it. You thought it was hopeless. Be honest, you did.

But did you get through it? Yes, and often the better for it.

This is important to remember and to keep reminding ourselves. This way we don’t panic. We ride out the storm and do whatever is necessary.

3. Develop Positive Beliefs Through Affirmations

In times of adversity more than ever, it is important you use affirmations to imprint positive thoughts into your subconscious mind.

When you wake, say to yourself, first thing in the morning:

“Adversity will make me a better person. I will not only survive it, I will thrive. I will become a better person. I will become stronger. I will become more resilient. I will become more creative. I will develop new work habits. It will strengthen me in many ways.”

And when you fall off to sleep, you remind yourself once again:

“I am going to come out of this a better person.”

You keep telling yourself this story, creating a new narrative.

Something profound will happen. Your subconscious mind will start to accept this message. The affirmations will become imprinted into your subconscious and your subconscious will start acting on it.

With affirmations, you set in motion synchronicity in your life so that what you envision begins to happen to you.

It’s not really that magical or mysterious, it’s just the way that life works when we choose to harness the powers of our minds.

4. Seize the Opportunity

The opportunity of a crisis is that you get to re-examine your life in a new, more exciting way. You’re not restricted. You get to look and evaluate what you thought was so important in your life.

How was I living my life before this crisis in an inappropriate way? Was I spending too much money in different ways? Maybe I was jollying too much. Maybe I had not been spending time with my family. Maybe I had neglected my spirituality.

You get to re-examine your goals and to see: am I living my best self? How can I make myself a better person? It’s an opportunity to look at your life, reset it, and reevaluate what’s important to you.

5. Visualize Your Future Self

Five years from now, this difficult moment will be long over and you will be in a new position altogether.

So as an exercise, you can project yourself ahead five years from now. Imagine you’re your future self right now, and you’re looking back at yourself and you see how you’re reacting right now.

Is your future self proud of how you’re reacting? Is it pleased with how you’re reacting? How could you make your future self say, “Wow, you really got it right, didn’t you? You really reacted appropriately. You did the things, you had the practices, you had the strategies.”

6. Practice Daily Gratitude

One of the most powerful practices energetically is the practice of being in gratitude every day. Not thinking of all our problems and difficulties and negative thoughts, but thinking of all the good things that we have to be thankful for.

Let’s take on the practice of kindness. Let’s reach out to other people and help them in whatever way we can.

Let’s take on the practice of being a better person. Let’s take on the practice of doing our Mind Power practice every day. Let’s take on the practice of being proactive. Let’s become the person that we want ourselves to be because that’s what adversity can do.

Related: Enjoy the Little Things: 5 Ways to Experience More Joy in Life

7. Practice Active (Inner) Listening

We can also learn to overcome adversity by listening to our inner voice, that quiet wisdom that often gets drowned out by the noise of our daily struggles. When we truly listen to ourselves, we gain clarity on what’s truly important and what actions we need to take.

Set aside time each day for quiet reflection. Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and ask yourself: “What do I really need right now? What is this adversity teaching me?” Listen without judgment to whatever answers arise.

This isn’t about self-criticism, but creating space for your authentic self to speak. You might be surprised by the insights that emerge when you truly listen. This is a practice. The more you do it, the better you’ll become at discerning your true needs and navigating adversity with purpose.

When Adversity Becomes Opportunity: Understanding Post-Traumatic Growth

Adversity is never enjoyable. It is hard and can be traumatic. It taxes us to our limits. However, it also forces us to make changes.

Life demands change, and we often resist it when things are going well. Adversity pushes us out of our comfort zone, often leading to the exact changes we need to grow and become better versions of ourselves.

What Is Post-Traumatic Growth?

Post-traumatic growth is a psychological concept where people emerge from stressful situations in different ways. Some are broken by the experience. Others find that adversity becomes a catalyst for positive transformation.

When your computer crashes, you have to reboot it again. So when your life is in adversity, this is a tremendous opportunity for you to reevaluate everything, to eliminate those things that no longer serve you, and to embrace new practices, and new ways of living.

From adversity, you can build resilience, courage, and creativity. You can develop new insights that allow you to reset and reboot your life, to turn negativity into something positive.

Making the Most of Your Current Crisis

There’s an old saying: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.”

When faced with adversity, you have a choice. You can let it defeat you, or you can use it as an opportunity to step up, show up, and make necessary changes. This is your chance to reevaluate everything, eliminate what no longer serves you, and embrace new practices and ways of living.

You don’t want to look back years from now and say to yourself, “Oh my God, I wasted that crisis. I let it defeat me. I wasn’t creative, I didn’t make the changes.”

Instead, you want to look back and say, “Wow, I really stepped up, didn’t I? I took on new skills, got my creativity working, and became my best self.”