Once you’ve precisely and correctly identified an issue, an event, or a problem as adversity, the instinct is often to look for a single decisive response – fight it, fix it, push through it.
In practice, dealing with adversity well is less about one heroic move and more about a sequence of smaller, deliberate ones.
Grab some perspective and stabilize first. Before solving anything, address what’s acutely threatened: sleep, safety, basic functioning, urgent obligations.
Adversity often arrives with an adrenaline surge that makes big decisions feel urgent when they aren’t.
Give yourself permission to triage – handle what truly can’t wait, and consciously postpone what can. Decisions made in the first 48 hours of a crisis are rarely your best ones.
Get accurate information. Adversity feeds on ambiguity. A vague sense that “everything is falling apart” is far heavier than a clear-eyed list of what’s actually true, what’s uncertain, and what’s simply feared. Write down what you know, separate from what you’re assuming.
This alone often shrinks the problem considerably, because imagination tends to be worse than reality.
Separate what’s controllable from what isn’t.
This is old advice for a reason – it works. Within any hard situation there’s usually a small circle of things you can actually influence (your effort, your choices, your responses) surrounded by a much larger field of things you can’t (other people’s decisions, timing, outcomes already in motion).
Spend your energy almost exclusively in the small circle. Trying to control the larger field is where most suffering during adversity actually comes from.
Build in structure. Adversity disrupts routine, and disrupted routine amplifies distress. Where possible, keep or rebuild small anchors – a consistent wake time, meals, some form of movement, some form of work.
These aren’t distractions from the problem; they’re what keeps you capable of addressing it.
Manage your exposure to the problem. You don’t need to think about the hard thing every waking hour to be taking it seriously. In fact, constant rumination usually degrades your ability to act.
Set boundaries: a specific time to think through the problem, plan, or make calls, and permission to set it down outside that window.
Expect a nonlinear process. Progress with real adversity rarely moves in a straight line. There will be days that feel like relapse.
This is normal and doesn’t mean your approach isn’t working – it means the process is real rather than a story you’re telling yourself for reassurance.
Reconnect, reach out, don’t isolate. Adversity narrows attention inward, and isolation feels protective but rarely is.
Maintaining even light contact with other people – not necessarily to discuss the crisis, just to stay tethered to normal life – preserves perspective and resources you’ll need.
None of this makes adversity easy. But it converts an overwhelming, undifferentiated mass into a series of manageable actions, which is usually the difference between being flattened by something and moving through it.
BEST in Small Doses:
Adversity is best viewed as a challenge. This is not always an easy perspective, but – when you are able to do so – it may very well bring out your best qualities.
