Friends, bad news is all around us. Seriously, we are overloaded with it. Turn on the TV, or open a newspaper, and there it is. Scroll down your Facebook page, you’ll get more of it. Check into Twitter, and even more bad news overwhelms.
Meet up with your friends for coffee, and you’ll likely be bombarded by endless complaints about the crime rate, petrol price, water rationing, traffic jams and dire predictions of post-GST price increases.
Bad news, bad news and more bad news about the global economy, political tensions, civil war, global warming, famine, infectious disease epidemics…sigh…it’s never-ending.
So, what’s the problem with bad news?
Well, not so much the news itself, but more how the news makes us feel. The truth is, it doesn’t make us feel good at all. In fact, prolonged exposure to bad news makes us feel bad, depressed, disappointed and frustrated.
Paying attention to it day in and day out clouds our outlook. Worst of all it makes us feel helpless. Because in reality, there is nothing we can do to change any of it. You find yourself getting more and more angry and frustrated about things you can’t change and problems you can’t solve.
This is really not a good frame of mind to be in. Eventually, the internalised stress can end up negatively impacting your health.
But now and again, we do meet people who seem to be unaffected by everything around them. Regardless of what is going on in the world, in their country or even in their own lives, they seem to be positive, optimistic and upbeat.
What’s their secret and how can we emulate their behavior and also stay positive and focused even in an environment of uncertainty, fear and worry?
Try some of these easy tips.
1. Embrace the fact that bad news does exist. Terrible and terrifying things do happen and are happening, both near to us and far away. We can’t pretend that such things are not happening, or deny their existence. Instead, let’s accept that bad things happen in our world. Just as there is good in the world, there is also evil.
It is a reality of our existence on Planet Earth. Once we accept that fact, we find that we are able to deal with the barrage of bad news in a more understanding, empathic and holistic way.
2. Don’t give bad news your energy or your focus. Your outlook, attitude and internal happiness levels are within your control. Don’t let the endless stream of negative news on the media, affect you.
Make a decision to acknowledge it but not to internalise it. Don’t spend time worrying about it, stressing about it, complaining about it to family, friends and co-workers. The more you focus on it, the more it negatively affects you.
3. Limit your exposure to negative news. Instead of spending all day checking online news sites, watching news channels, reading about everyone’s dramas and pet peeves on Facebook and Twitter, or listening to rumours and inflammatory statements circulated on WhatsApp, be disciplined about limiting your exposure to media to a certain number of hours per day and switch off when time is up.
4. Turn bad news into an opportunity to grow and to excel. An interesting thing about bad news and challenges is that they serve as excellent opportunities to test your problem solving skills, build resilience, consolidate mental toughness and increase resourcefulness.
Inspire yourself to rise to the challenge of dealing with difficult news, adapting, adjusting, finding creative ways to cope with and ultimately overcome, the negative effects of bad news.
5. Be positive, be optimistic, have faith and patience. Sometimes, the most beneficial thing you can do in the face of bad news is to stay positive and optimistic. This does not mean living in a “dream” world and pretending not to notice bad things around you.
Neither does it mean denying the existence of negative information. Such behavior borders on delusional behavior which would be kind of worrying from a mental health perspective! ?. It just means that when conversations take a turn for the negative amongst family, friends and co-workers, you could consciously opt to take a different approach instead of joining in the conversations of doom and gloom.
6. Come up with a plan to do something positive to offset the negative situation. Instead of feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, channel your energy and time into more positive actions such as picking up the phone to call someone, sending a supportive or congratulatory email, or volunteering to support a charitable cause. Think about what you can do in your own family, workplace and community, to make a difference. Start small and aim for the achievable.
The choice is really yours. You are in control of your responses to bad news. Following the crowd and adopting a herd mentality, brings no benefits in the long run. Instead, make a decision to remain happy, successful, abundant and yet, accepting of the flaws and things that are not right, around you.
Make the conscious choice to be positive, optimistic, encouraging and resourceful instead.
