You know those times when you are blamed for something you haven’t done? Or your colleagues are passive aggressive with you? Or when you don’t get picked for a job? Or you get rejected by that one person that you deeply sincerely love?
I am not going to argue with you about that. Those times suck.
But let’s be honest for a while, do you prefer to remain stuck and unable to do anything to deal with those bad times? Or you prefer to get out of it and get back to live your life? We live only once, and each second lost will never come back.
I think the choice will be clear for that question. You need to get rid of those rough times.
The only way to do will be to take out all the suckiness. Harder to do than to say…
I usually just lay on bed and watch some funny shows (like Friends, HIMYM, New girl..etc), but this doesn’t really work all the time. I get to laugh during these shows (especially during Friends episodes. I don’t think it’s possible to not laugh) but when it’s over I get back to the hard reality I was trying to escape from and so I get back to my bad mood and spent my time doing nothing except feeling bad and sad.
Hopefully, TED talks exist! Many years ago I was not a big fan of them, it’s just lately that I realized their big impact and importance.
Every inspiring -and also poignant sometimes- talk always brings back my faith in the humanity, gets me out of my bad mood, and pushes me to get to do whatever what I have to do -either it’s work or study- so I could too have a good impact on people.
So today, I gathered for you 15 powerful Ted Talks to watch when you are having a bad time. 15 is too much? Don’t worry I classified them according to each bad feeling they relate to.
1.If you’re feeling stressed: How to make stress your friend.
Life is getting harder and harder. The harder it gets the more we get under the pressure of deadlines, overwhelming responsibilities, overloaded schedules, financial troubles, crises, social conflicts, and they never seem to have an end. So we get more and more stressed. And stress is a terrible chaotic mood killer.
Luckily, Kelly McGonigal who is a health psychologist, has a life-changing solution for us: To not deal with stress and avoid it but rather to embrace it and make it your friend. I know that it sounds pretty weird to say so, but just watch the talk and try to apply her pieces of advice.
You wouldn’t be able to tell me you don’t feel better after it.
2.If you’re feeling negative: The surprising science of happiness
Happiness. That feeling everybody wants to feel for the longest time possible but yet is too hard to understand and get. Fortunately, the psychologist and “human happiness expert” Dan Gilbert is here to show us that there is two kind of happiness: “synthesized happiness” and “natural happiness”, and he will show how can we synthesize it.
He gives many examples of people who went through some life experience and events that can be perceived as tragic, but yet managed to be happy. Like a man who spent 37 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, and called the experience “glorious”.
Personally, I am sure I am not capable of that level of positivity, but Dan Gilbert’s lesson is a great one to put you on the track of happiness.
3.If you’re feeling sorry for yourself: Living Beyond Limits.
Amy Purdy loved to skateboard, snowboard and travel. Unfortunately, pursuing her passions became way more difficult when she unexpectedly lost both of her legs below the knee.
Amy Purdy’s life after the amputation is very impactful and amazing. I loved the way she started to notice some good things after the incident and make even jokes of it and I also loved too much how she managed to get back with her life and do all the passions she loves.
This is a great amazing woman with a great amazing story that you certainly don’t want to miss. Just watch her speech, and you are going to start getting your life together!
4. If you’re feeling down: Nature. Beauty. Gratitude.
In this presentation, you are going to get some visuals that are certainly going to cheer you up and make you feel better. Access to Louie Shwartzberg’s jaw-dropping time-lapse photography alongside with wise words, and you will have reasons to be grateful every day.
This video is captivating and uplifting. Just watch it and tell me about it.
5.If you’re feeling sad: The 3 A’s of Awesome
During 2008 and 2009, Neil Pasricha, had tough times. His wife declared to him ” I don’t love you anymore”. It was the most painful thing he heard in his life, but it was not over. Just some time later, he heard that his best friend committed a suicide.
Neil Pasricha was devasted as anyone would be. He started a blog “1000 Awesome Things” in order to start to appreciate all the little awesome things in life. His website became popular and even won a Webby!
During all this lifetime experience he went through, Neil has found a way to appreciate life, and he is sharing with you his ideology so you could live a life that is truly awesome!
6.If you have objectively many good things in your life but you can’t feel happy: Want to be happy? Be grateful
Some people do have everything to be happy, yet they are not. In the other hand, we all know many people who have many misfortunes, misfortunes that we wouldn’t want to ourselves, but yet they are deeply happy.
You might wonder why? How they do that? Well, according to David Steindl-Rast the secrets is in gratefulness
So it’s definitely gratefulness that lead to happiness and not the opposite way. But what does it mean really to be “grateful” and how does it work?
David Steindl-Rast gives a powerful talk that will let you know how to be grateful, not only from time to time but to live a grateful life so you can have a happy life.
7.If you’re feeling uncreative and drained: Your elusive creative genius.
This talk is just perfect for anyone who is feeling creatively challenged. Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of the best-seller Eat, Pray, Love, shows the struggle and pressure she faced after her best-seller and why we shouldn’t think of people as “geniuses”. Instead, we should think of them as containers of geniuses.
She is perfectly explaining it. So just give yourself the pleasure of watching her and let her make you feel optimistic about your skills, abilities and work.
8. If you’re feeling you can’t achieve your goals: Keep your goals to yourself
We always set to ourselves goals, but we barely reach just a few of them. Usually, it’s because we get discouraged by people of our entourage and we become unable to pursue our goals with the determination and dedication needed. But what if it’s not always the case?
According to Derek Sivers, just telling people about your goals can raise your chances to not succeed.
You need to keep your goals to yourself if you really want to achieve them.
Just watch how Derek explains it and you will get the importance of the idea.
9. If you’re feeling unattractive: Looks aren’t everything. Believe me, I’m a model.
Cameron Russel has been a model for the past 10 years. She tells you all what being a model is really. It’s certainly far away of what you might think of.
For Cameron, the looks don’t matter at all. There are so many more important things in life that are worth way more than to be just a “model”.
I appreciated the fact that one successful model shows that being a model is not as great as medias want us to think.
This talk will make you feel comfortable acknowledging the power of image and you will realize that a “look” doesn’t matter all this much.
10. If you’re feeling rejected & unloved: “True Colors”
You might feel unloved and rejected sometimes. The song “True colors” is deeply capable of cheering you up and make you feel that you are a person that is worth it.
Just listen to John Legend performing this song. You will feel relaxed, relieved of this world that turns us crazy and most importantly, you will deeply realize withing yourself that you are worth of love.
One day, the right person will certainly notice that on you.
11. If you’re feeling vulnerable: The power of Vulnerability
There are those times when we feel terribly vulnerable and literally anything, any word any act, might destroy us.
But being vulnerable is not supposed to be this dramatic. Being vulnerable is not a weakness it’s a strength!
Just listen to the experience of Brene Brown and you will realize that your vulnerability might a big strength that you have been underestimating for so long.
12.If you’re feeling your life is worthless: Measuring what makes life worthwhile
Chip Conley gives an inspirational talk that will remind you what does really count in life. He shows one of the points that has been so neglected by people is that we are all “human” and we have “human needs” and not all human needs are tangible. The metrics we have don’t cover all the human needs we have.
He reminds us of the following quote:
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” – Albert Einstein
But yet, it matters. So we need to start counting what really matters in life. We need new metrics that will help to measure how much our lives are meaningful and worth it.
We count numbers, and we count on people. We need to start taking people into our counts so we could define and notice what is making our lives worth it.
Just try it, you’ll be glad you done it.
13. If you’re feeling like a corporate robot and you’re not giving anything back to the society: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA
Ron Finley is definitely and undoubtedly a good person. He is helping the society in a very unlikely way. He and his crew turned all the abandoned lots, traffic medians, and curbside spaces into “urban gardens”.
After hearing his story, you will not only feel better, you will certainly also want to change your own grass to something better.
14. If you’re feeling lack of focus: All it takes is 10 mindful minutes
“When was the list time you spend some time doing nothing? Like literally nothing. Not thinking not daydreaming, just sitting and doing exactly “nothing”.”
Yeah, It sounds weird! That what I though when I first heard it.
But Andy Puddicombe has a proof that taking your time, reorganizing your thoughts and ideas, can definitely helps you to manage your life more effectively and be able to focus the right way.
15. If you’re feeling overwhelmed: Simplifying complexity
Sometimes we get too overwhelmed by all what is happening in our lives. The more we get overwhelmed the more it’s getting harder to deal with and sometimes we can’t support it anymore.
There are a tons of situations when we can get overwhelmed, if it hasn’t happened to you yet, it might happen anytime soon. You need to know how to deal with it.
Eric Berlow shows that overwhelming situations are complex a lot. But he reminds us that being complex doesn’t mean it’s difficult.
Don’t get tricked by complexity, and learn how to manage it.
The list of the 15 powerful Ted Talks to watch when you are having a bad time is over.
I hope that at least one of these Ted talks can help you to get through the bad time you are having.
Let me know if there is a specific Ted Talk, not mentioned in this list, that you watch and makes you feel good.