Coping Strategies for When Bad Things Happen

Challenges can lead us toward meaningful thought and action if we know how to cope

When life presents a problem, we can deal with it using strategies that range from effective, to self-damaging. G-Stock Studio/Shutterstock

If you can’t control a difficult situation, how do you cope with it? Coping involves applying your mental and emotional energy to manage the strain associated with challenges.

Psychologists have identified three coping strategies people commonly rely on. But before we get to those, consider the order in which humans normally make things happen.

1. We self-motivate through thinking in an attempt to achieve our best performance.
2. This thought creates the emotional energy we need to move ahead and stay the course.
3. We take action in response to how we made ourselves feel and repeat steps 1 and 2 as necessary.

Problems arise when you get out of order; when you act without thinking first or allow the wrong emotions to get in your way. In either case, you'll later regret not thinking first to create the most appropriate emotion to help you.