How to solve life challenges and make the right decision
Use the traffic light metaphor to diagnose your life
I lived a significant part of my life without being able to distinguish between the moments when I felt great and those when I was worthless. The reality is it takes time to perceive the signals and understand when things are going well, when they could change in a blink of an eye, and when they are inevitable. This process is part of our growth, and all of us might find different hints to predict or prevent our future. Still, to do that effectively, you need to have clarity on where you stand and where you are in the present.
The different situations we could live in are infinite, but we can divide them into three big groups: moments of failure, moments of stillness, and moments of success.
Using a metaphor, we can think about those groups as the colors of a traffic light:
Red
This is the group of moments that block you. The situation is grim, not salvable, so you have to reinvent yourself. What you did earlier brought you to the wrong places, and now there is nothing you could do to solve the problem.
Your brain will try to decode the situation but, most times, the only thing you can do is stop trying. Those are the moments in which you wish you could go back in time and say something different or act differently, but the sooner you realize there’s no time machine, the sooner you can move on from your failure and try to climb back to success.
Yellow
This is the group of moments in which some kind of result doesn’t depend on you anymore. You are waiting for an answer, a sign, or anything to help you go ahead with your life, but you did all you could, and now the result depends on someone or something else. Think about a work appliance you sent or a test you took at school — once you did your part, it is up to the employer or the teacher to give you a result.
Green
This is the group of successful moments in your life, those in which you did great, and you deserve the credits. Still, in those moments, you are also most likely to drop the ball and stop working as hard as you did before.
Also, there are two types of green light in our lives, those running with battery power and those connected to the electrical plug. The first type needs more attention since it could run out of energy, so they require daily maintenance, while the second has more secure power so you can worry less about it.
How to deal with Red Lights: When You Can’t Move
When a red light appears, it means that something went wrong, and it ended unexpectedly, so you didn’t have the time to prepare for it. Red lights are signs of a most needed change, which probably you won’t feel comfortable with, but you have to go through it.
People usually perceive red lights as a problem, so they try to avoid them, but you need to think of them as opportunities for a new life. If you learn to catch the message they bring, you could evolve before a temporary red light becomes a permanent one.
It doesn’t mean you have to throw yourself under the bus and search for a change with all your heart, but if you take any chances with a positive attitude, you could reach unimaginable heights.
As Rudyard Kipling said in his poem, triumph and disaster are the two sides of the same coin — they don’t exist by themselves since they have a meaning only when both of them are palpable.
Failing to win a sports competition you have been preparing for several years, for example, or being unable to get a well-deserved promotion, can devastate you, but you have to cope with it. Years later, you will realize these events defined a positive change in your life — they were opportunities to improve, do things better, and leave behind draining experiences to find better places.
When the red light flashes in your eyes, accept your feelings and learn to recognize your emotions without neglecting them. If you don’t consider what is in your heart, you won’t extract any meaningful information from the failure, risking seeing the story repeat itself.
Also, another big mistake is to blame yourself when something goes wrong and beat yourself up too much. Taking responsibility gives you the power to regain control over the situation, but blaming yourself empties you of that power and transforms it into an unwillingness to change. So recognize your fault, but only take care of what you can do better to improve future experiences.
How to deal with Yellow Lights: When You Need to Wait
Dealing with the yellow light must be the hardest thing to do since it splits us between the chaos of hundreds of scenarios. Having the security of a successful event or a total failure is a relief — whatever happened, at least you are sure about the result of your actions. But waiting is cruel, and it fills your mind with what-ifs you can hardly stop.
Most of the future scenarios you imagine are pessimistic, and very few are constructive. This behavior triggers your anxiety, frustration, and stress until it becomes impossible to deal with it. So what should we do to prevent it?
The most efficient way to release stress is to refresh and reactivate your senses, which means to give them a firm input. Examples of that are interactions with hot or cold water, extra salty or sweet food, or even exhausting exercises. When you interact with something that stimulates your senses, you stop living in your mind and worry about the outcomes, so you focus on the present.
Another helpful exercise that helps to deal with insecurity is self-reassurance. It mostly helps when you cannot release stress using external inputs, so you have to work in your mind. The exercise requires repeating in your mind reassuring sentences, and that can help you regain control over the situation.
- “I am strong. I deserve to…”
- “I have done well. I will succeed.”
- “I believe in my abilities.”
- “Whatever happens, I will accept it and treat it as a victory.”
These are all splendid examples of self-reassuring sentences, and repeating them will make your mind self-influenced.
Still, the most effective anxiety-reliever is the coexistence between the analysis of thoughts, and the ability to ignore them, which means mindfulness. This tool helped me the most in dealing with waiting, and I still use it occasionally when I am waiting for an important email or work result. Mindfulness helps you clear your mind, and a brain with fewer thoughts is healthier and more effective.
How to deal with Green Lights: When You Need to Be Careful
Green lights may seem like the easiest of the signals your life is throwing at you, but it is not. They are moments in life when everything is prominent, but they are also moments in which most probably you will stop doing the work. You will stop performing the activities that brought you to the result.
If you were working hard to conquer a position at work, suddenly you relax thinking you reached your goal, but that was the reason you got the job. Or maybe you are in a new relationship, and everything is fascinating because you both act mindfully, and you make the other person feel great in every moment you stay together. Then you stop listening, you stop caring that much, and become lazy, so the two of you fall apart.
The green light has this grim power of making you lazy, but you can fight it. When you see the green light in your life, never become satisfied. Whatever you accomplished, no matter what goal or life-changing event, you shall keep working hard to get even more.
Of course, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take some time to celebrate and feel more secure about your future but never settle. If you keep working, in the worst case, you will remain in the same position. But in the best scenario, you will advance again to other green lights and other successes.
Be persistent, take the extra mile every day, and never stop achieving results.
A Metropolis of Lights
The traffic light of life may seem like a simple concept, based on three simple groups of situations, but it is more intricate than you imagine.
The traffic light is easy to understand, but if combined with all the fields of your life, it becomes more complex, and instead of three simple lights, a metropolis of flares and colors will flash your eyes.
In this metropolis, your work-life could flash a bright green light, and you should be happy with the heights you reached. But your love relationship could end, resulting in a blurry red light of insecurity. Meanwhile, you could also wait for the results of a medical exam you had to take one week ago, and you feel exhausted.
Picture this situation in your life. Can you identify any lights?
Of course not!
For some people, work may be more important than love. For others, it might be the opposite. So it would be hard to pick one color to describe the overall situation.
You are a metropolis, and every little street and corner of your life is full of different traffic lights. Sometimes you may find yourself on an avenue where all lights are red, some other times on a minor road with little green lights. Still, wherever you are, the only thing you can do is to proceed on that street.
Wait for the traffic light to become green again, or rush down the street, but never stop moving on. Keep influencing people, keep learning, growing, or whatever you are doing.
Don’t let the others decide for you, don’t fight in the back-line, but always in the front. Be the one who leaves or stays, who moves on or turns back, who is in charge, or who takes sideways.
Just don’t stop.
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