You can only pull someone out of a swamp if you're standing on solid ground yourself. Here's how I keep myself resourceful.
Let me say upfront: not everyone will like my approach, and it won’t work for everyone. It works for me — and if it resonates, you can try it in your own life.
My logic is very simple. I believe we live in an astonishingly good time. The internet has given every person opportunities that the richest people on the planet didn’t have 100 years ago. We have access to information and technology that radically improve our quality of life. A century ago you could die from an illness that penicillin now cures.
I wouldn’t want to live in any other period on this earth, and I wouldn’t trade Ukraine for any other country in the world. Ukraine is the direct heir of Kyivan Rus, unbelievably beautiful nature, incredibly resourceful people who can survive anything, and the lowest tax rate for entrepreneurs (5%). I could keep going, but the short version is: we live in a remarkable time.
That’s my mindset and my baseline state. I keep myself resourceful through sport, good food, good sleep, investing in my body and my brain, dancing to loud music for a couple of minutes a day at home, reading books I love, and quality time with the people close to me.
Why do I need that energy and inner resource? Because only in that state can I roll up my sleeves and deal with:
- protecting my emotional health
- building relationships with the people close to me and with my team
- blackouts
- growing my business
- my parents’ health
- setting up my home
- setting up the office
- my volunteer work (not public yet, for a number of reasons)
and plenty of other things.
To solve hard problems and improve your quality of life (which later lets you take care of the people around you), you need a lot of strength and energy.
Where is that supposed to come from if you’re constantly scrolling social feeds and reading news in Telegram? All you’ll get is depression and helplessness. I remember at the start of the full-scale war I subscribed to one news channel for two weeks. I sank into such a depressive state that I had to unsubscribe and never went back to reading the news. Trust me, you’ll still know about everything that matters. You just won’t traumatize yourself for no reason.
What we feed our brain determines what kind of solutions our brain can produce.
I know perfectly well how hard the situation in the country is and how many people are suffering right now. But I won’t help them at all if I become one more person who’s suffering.
You can only pull someone out of a swamp if you’re standing on solid ground yourself. You can only give another person what you actually have.
So I make the effort to stay in a proactive position: to create something new, to help people in consultations, to run courses, to make a lot of free educational content, to pay taxes, to give other people work, to emotionally support anyone who needs it (even through posts like this one).
That kind of life is far better than just cursing the government, hating everyone and everything, and being resentful at the whole world.
God doesn’t put us in certain circumstances by accident. He’s teaching us something, and the lessons can repeat until we learn them. Life is like school. It will happily hold you back a year with the problems you don’t want to look at.
If you’re in a very dark place right now, try turning to God in prayer, in your own words. He can give you answers to questions that feel impossible, and your heart can fill with His peace even in the middle of a serious storm.
Many psychologists and coaches teach clients to build support on themselves. That’s probably better than leaning on other people. But I’m convinced it doesn’t compare to the life we get when we lean on God and trust Him.
And if you need to talk to a person about what you’re going through, call the free psychological support line — 0 800 50 77 50
How do you get through a crisis? How do you handle the hard stretches of the road?