It’s Not All Sunshine: What to Do When Life Gets Hard and You’re Off Your Game

Living a passionate life doesn’t mean living without problems. It means choosing, again and again, to focus on what lights you up, to hold onto your vision even when things feel heavy, and to stay the course when life throws you off track. Because it will. But passion isn’t about perfection, it’s about resilience.

In this episode, I open up about a real struggle I was facing today, one that left me feeling stuck, overwhelmed, and uncertain. But instead of staying in that place, I found my way through it. And I want to help you do the same.

Whether you’re in a low moment now or just want tools for when life inevitably gets hard, you’ll walk away with 6 powerful strategies to shift your energy, reconnect to your purpose, and move forward—even when it feels impossible.

You'll be reminded that:

• Everyone struggles (you’re not alone)
• You don’t have to wait to feel good to take action
• Your “why” is the compass that will carry you through the storms

Let this episode be a reminder: You’re stronger than you think. And your dream is still worth it.

To subscribe, leave a review, or ask a question, visit www.donnyraus.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Most people spend their entire life stressed without ever giving a single thought as to what it is they really want and what's important to them. See, I'm here to cope through all the noise connecting you to yourself and the life that you were meant to live. I used to live away the copper job and I hated it. But I broke through the social noise and took too much happy. As a result, I own my own coffee company. I'm just supposed to come in, and I get this problem. You too can live a life that you want. But it starts within clear that you want. It starts within this. I'm your host, Donnie Rouse. You are listening to the podcast. One life. The reason for this episode here was because of some of the emotions that I was going through earlier today. And the my intention behind coming here now and and doing this live, it is about nine o'clock at night. I typically don't show up this late at night because my brain has a hard time completing sentences. But the reason I'm here is because I want to share an experience because I know if I'm going through this, likely you are. And we tend to have a negativity bias towards ourselves, meaning when we look out into the world, we tend to think that everyone else is doing amazing. There's no problems whatsoever. But then when we look into the mirror, we look at our own lives, we feel like there's something wrong with us. Like there is a there is a problem and we feel deficient or that we are lacking in some way. So this one is for you to for you to realize that you do not lack anything, that this is just part of the course. And so what I'll do is I'm gonna give you kind of five ways to, whenever you're feeling that, five ways or strategies to step outside of that. But before I go there, uh let's first touch upon exactly that. We tend to think that everyone else has it easy. And then when we look into the mirror and we look at the problems in our life, we tend to wonder why. Like, why is it so tough? Why do things happen? Why are there so many challenges? Why doesn't this just go right? And we create a negativity bias for our towards ourselves, not realizing that everybody goes through very similar challenges. If you don't believe me, just whatever you're getting challenged with, do a post online, make it make it uh make it social or bring it, put it out in the public, and see how many people respond. If you're vulnerable, I guarantee you that people will say, Yeah, you know what, I I feel that too. I don't really share it, but yeah, that's me. And they'll raise their hand and they'll support you. The problem is when you don't share, you tend to isolate and you tend to go deeper and deeper. So the the in the again, it's point I want to point to the negativity bias, the the bias that makes you think that everything else around you is going well and while you and you're doing horrible inside. That's just not the case. I was having a conversation with a friend, and when I would share some of the things that I was having a hard time with, she would respond, like, you, Donnie, really you? And it would annoy me because I'm like, Well, yeah, I'm human, right? And what I want you to realize is that this is all part of the journey. And the most important thing is how you respond, despite or in spite of the challenge that you are facing. So earlier today, I woke up and I had been feeling a little, I'd been feeling off. Uh, and the reason I had been feeling off, well, many things. Concern for concern for, you know, for some loved ones, things with my business in terms of how I was gonna move forward, that's gonna require some big steps. And as a result, there is some uncertainty there. So it's gonna, you know, because I don't know what the future is gonna be. I have to take these steps in faith. So I've been waking up with feeling in this funk. And then earlier today, I had a call with one of the uh one of the labs that I would be working on my formulation with. So we're going through the entire phone call, and this is not, you know, the price tag is not a small price tag. It's it's fairly big, probably one of the basic biggest expenses that I've had in my business up until this point. Although I would shouldn't say have yet, because I haven't signed that contract. But during the call with this, uh with this person, we were talking about it and we're going through the proposal and what with what the offers were with the uh a la carte services, and I quickly realized after I hung up the phone, I'm like, um, I mean, I guess I'm paying for to use their facility, but I mean, the per the where I would be producing the product, like I'm really I'm doing the research, I'm gonna be the one determining that. Uh, the the formulation, how the product's composed, like they were like, you know, you should request all the samples, otherwise we charge X, Y, and Z. I'm like, well, so all right, so I'm doing that. What am I really paying them for? And all of a sudden I was confronted and I started to get feel overwhelmed because this was, I mean, I've been doing this coffee beverage for the last 15 years of my life. And this is not the first time that I've looked to formulate it so this way I could produce it on a larger scale. I've been doing this since I started, right? So all of a sudden now I'm like, holy shit, here we go, like oh, uh all over again. And I started to doubt, I started to spiral. And then I'm standing in my room and I just felt like I wanted to leave the house, but I had a hard time leaving because I would like the moment I would try to leave, somewhere, some way, or how, or I would find myself back in my rooms, cleaning, doing something other than leaving the environment I was in just to change my change my physiology, move my body. So that this feeling, it was just I felt defeated. I felt like things aren't going my way. I and that they would never go my way. To add to the like fuel to the fire, I was online, I was importing, uh, I was importing my contacts from my Rouse Coffee mailing list over to my DonnyRouse.com mailing list. If you're part of the Rouse Coffee mailing list, why am I doing that? The reason I'm doing that is because of the overarching theme of savoring life, right? DonnyRouse.com is about savoring life. Rouse coffee is about savoring the moment. Keyword savor. So in that in the process of importing those contacts, it wasn't working. It was taking so long, like I couldn't figure out why the import wasn't happening. Like it wasn't when I exported the contacts, it just wasn't happening. I'm like, what the frig is going on? I hate you, active campaign. And I do really dislike that platform, and I'm saying it very nicely here right now. And and then I went to do my journaling, and uh the growth day app that I use for for doing my journaling, it froze, like it completely died. And I couldn't read, like I didn't have my glasses on, right? Because there was a notice that popped up that said something about a service, um service error, or um there was a problem, right? Uh the announcement came up. I couldn't even see it because I didn't have, I wasn't wearing my glasses, so it was hard for me to read the small font on the screen, right? So all of a sudden I noticed myself creating a story in my mind. And I'm thinking to myself, why is this happening to me? Have you ever had that problem? Or have you ever found yourself saying that? That is the problem, is that you find yourself saying, Why is this happening to you? But what I quickly realized was like, and I snapped out of it right when I said right when I heard myself say that, I'm like, What why is it happening to me? That's it's not happening to me. It happened, right? The uh the loss of service on the whatever the cloud services are for this, for the for the journaling app, the extra time is taken to import or export these contacts, it's not happening to me. Right? The the the fault is thinking that life is throwing you like throwing you something that uh that you don't want when really it's just it's just it's just happening, it's just life. So if you're doing that, number one, realize that nothing is happening, it's just the story that you're putting on it. So when you are feeling this, what do you do? Like, how do you uh get out of it? How do you change course and and start to to go on the up and up, uh, lifting yourself from that from that bottom pit that you were just in? And I'm gonna give you um I'm gonna give you some ideas and strategies for how I you how I uh got out of this today. The number one was finding the gifts. Like I dabbled in this, but then I also needed my coach to help me get some mindset on it. And so I would say, well, what are the gifts here, right? What are the gifts? And it happened right after I hung up the call. I'm like, what are the gifts? I asked myself. And I'm like, well, I mean, the good thing is, is like, all right, again, I I have control over the entire process. I mean, that's great. Uh, what else are the gifts? Well, I if I'm, you know, if if if I'm doing all this work, then that is these are things and services that I don't have to pay for, so it's a lower, uh, a lower, I don't have to spend as much. And I I was looking for the gifts, but yet I wasn't allowing myself to really, really integrate and feel what those benefits were because I was still in a shitty state. And then we'll go to the next part is uh asking for help. So I got a reframe by asking my coach, you know, like this is what I'm dealing with. Like, I don't know how to handle this. I feel like crap right now. They helped me reframe my mindset to find the the gold in it, how I was benefiting and how it was serving me. Again, I had done that before, but I needed someone to help me get out of that. Shortly after, I called a couple friends, had conversations, and I asked for help, but I didn't really ask for help. So if you've ever done this, um, I'm saying this for a reason. I contacted two of my friends, and one of my friends I had just mentioned to I said, Hey, blah, blah, blah and I just kind of told them what had happened in my day, but I didn't really go into how I was feeling emotionally and like how hard of a day I was having. And then one of my other really good friends. And I just kind of briefly touched upon it, and she's oh, all right, well, yeah, that stinks. All right, and then hung up the phone. And I felt like my needs weren't met. And at first I was like, Well, you mean she could ask a few more questions, but then I could have been more honest and open and vulnerable with how I was feeling inside. So I want that to be the lesson for you is that you need to seek help. And when seeking help, don't sugarcoat it, don't call the person and be like, Hey, how are you? When you know that you're calling because you need support. I have another friend of mine who loves to do that. And so I call her out, and I'm like, all right, what's going on? I know something's wrong. Tell me. And then she's she spills her guts and she lets it all out. And like, don't you feel better now? I could take a page out of that book. And so, all right, so we we covered ask for help. We covered find the gifts, and then this was one of the things that I I done immediately after. And it and I'm not gonna I'm saying this, but it doesn't mean that it was easy or that I that I didn't still like dwell on those negative feelings. I asked what my heart was calling me to do. I was on my way to the gym and I was like, all right, well, what am I feeling inside? Like, I know I have these feelings around growing the the beverage and moving it forward, and what I think that is going to entail. I'm like, oh my God, I don't want to do this, I don't want to do this. But then I check in, I'm well, what is my heart calling me to do? What do I feel is the right decision? And then my heart's like, keep going, keep going. And like, okay, well, I have no other choice but to keep going. So always check in your heart because your heart is going to guide you in the right direction, where your mind is just gonna kind of spin you out in all circles, have you go in all different directions, and it's just because it you're it's trying to keep you safe and in that comfort zone. When reality, the only way to expand and get the thing you want is to step into that fear, is to do the uncomfortable thing, right? Everything you want requires you to step through that discomfort. So when you approach fear, realize that that fear is the direction to go because you wouldn't, if you didn't fear it, you it wouldn't mean it let me over how think how to phrase this. If you didn't value it, you wouldn't fear it. This saying this, that it doesn't mean like you're like, oh, you know, I should jump off this bridge. Uh well, I'm afraid to do it, therefore you should know. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying if you didn't think that something was right for your life, you you wouldn't pay any attention to it. But the fact that it challenged you to become more, and there is a possibility of maybe failure, maybe it not coming true, there that's where fear tends to creep in. So let's check that one off, all your heart. Now let's talk about getting out of your environment. And the last two are kind of one and the same: getting out of your environment and moving your body. Let's talk about getting out of the environment first. I stepped outside, and immediately once I'm outside, I'm like, oh my god, fresh air. Sometimes I feel like I am like sequestered in my room. Like I that I don't get to move. I'm doing work. I mean, I may go outside, I'll go for a walk, but then I'm back in my room doing work. And I'm like, well, why don't you go work somewhere else, Donnie? Because I do better work when I'm alone and it's quiet, right? So, but but there's a balance to it. So I needed to get outside of my environment. So, in in order to get out of the side of the environment, I said, All right, let me just go to the gym. After I made uh little side note, I had got a new espresso machine, a lever espresso machine. So I pulled a bunch of shots of espresso, had about four shots in the afternoon. Hopefully, hopefully I'll sleep tonight. And the show that was actually one of the highlights of the day because I get excited doing something that I'm passionate about, which I'll make that a sixth point. But back to the environment, back to moving your body. So I got into my car and I started driving and just looking at the surroundings. The day was beautiful, it was warm, the clouds were kind of like shifting across the sky very, very fast, and you can see him moving. And then there was, you know, the light was shining through. So it was just it was just beautiful, and you could see blue skies beyond the clouds, and that alone changed my state. But then I went to the gym, and at the gym, I pushed myself hard and I got nice and pumped up. And uh by pushing that, by changing the way I was using my body, of course, it changes the way I feel. And as a result of that, I felt great. I felt powerful, I felt strong. I came back home and I felt uh that I was in a better state. Hence, while why I am here right now, if I was still in that crappy state, I had a hard time coming on here, deciding to come on here because I'm like, I feel like crap right now. Like, I don't want to come in here. And how am I supposed to lift people up if I feel like this? But then I realize if I feel like this, that is the exact time that I need to come on here because people want what is real, right? Like, I'm not if if I'm not sharing the hard times, then I'm just I'm not being honest and truthful and sharing what the real journey is because people struggle with uh, you know, the same way I'm doing it here. And sometimes they give up. So if I could come on here, share my experience to remind people as to why they are going after whatever it is they're going after, and then trusting that life has their best interest, then that is using this hardship to for for something good. Um, so again, so that was the body. And the last thing was connecting with your passions, right? Um throughout the day, like knowing that I was kind of feeling a little off, Allegario, I need to do something to change the way I feel. What do you do when you want to change the way you feel? You focus on something that makes you feel good. Uh, I just gave you one of the hints, one of the things I love to do is I love to pull shots of espresso, even if I'm not gonna drink the 50 that I pull. I pull them, I dump them, I pull them, I dump them, I pull them, I dump them. And uh so I was doing that, and on this new machine I got, I was oh, so freaking delicious. I mean, it was like just chocolatey, like nice tobacco notes, everything I love in an espresso. This new machine did that job. So I had a double shot of espresso, and then just before that, what I was doing was I was looking at my upcoming trip and looking at the hostels that I would be booking at the beginning of that trip, and also responding to um to the government of Sri Lanka as to when I was gonna fly into the country so I could approve my visa. So all of these things start to paint a different picture. And as a result of that, it it's actually that is what I did, like that and the coffee is what I did right before I went to the gym. Otherwise, you know what? I may have even just kind of stayed in that down state, and then maybe I'd gotten to my gym. I probably wouldn't have had as good of a workout that I did if I allowed myself to stay in that state. But I know that when I am feeling in that state, I know that I have to put my mind in a place that I am gonna start to feel better because you can't think better than you feel.

unknown 18:34

Right?

SPEAKER_00 18:35

That's why they say never ever ever make a decision when you're in a crappy mood or make a decision when you're in fear, because you can't think better than that emotion when you're in that state. You have to get beyond that. When you're in a great mood, what is possible? Everything is possible. You start to open yourself up to possibility. So you have to, if it's an important decision, you do not make that decision until you have separation from whatever the event is, until you can put yourself in a positive state. So that is what I've got I've given you today, guys, today. And again, I'll I'll recover, recover, I'll go over those six strategies that I just gave you. So one of them was look for the gifts. There's gifts in everything. As long as you're willing to look it, look for it, you will find it. Secondly, follow your heart. I always make it a point to tune in, to follow my heart and to see where it's guiding me, to make sure that I am on the right path. Three, ask for help. Get a coach, join a community, talk to a friend, but don't just talk to a friend. When you speak to that friend, tell them you need help and you need their attention. Otherwise, like the case of my friend, they're gonna gloss right over it and not know that you are really giving them a cry for help. Fourthly, get into your body, move your body in a way that is not the same as what you were doing previously, meaning, like, I mean, you could just like jump up and down, pluck like a chicken, and I promise you it is gonna put you in a different state than you were just moments earlier. Move that body and move it for a good amount of time, enough to have allow that shift to happen. And then uh get into a different environment. If you've been staring at your screen the entire time and you're like, you feel like you're going crazy, you're getting up, you're circling around your room only to sit back down in that chair, leave the house. Sometimes that can be challenging. Do it anyways. I don't care if you have to circle around your room another 20 times. I've done it too. Do it anyways. Just get outside, move your body, go for a walk, look at the trees, the sky, you know, put your attention to the details around you, and it will, as a result of putting your focus there, it's gonna change how you feel. And then lastly, the last point I had made that what I was intending on doing was connect with your passions. Because as a result of putting yourself in a passionate state, all of a sudden now it's gonna color everything else. You put yourself in a passionate state, now it's gonna color all the problems in the canvas, or you're gonna be painting your problems on the canvas of your passion, which means it's not that bad. Now you're you know you're focusing on good things, so there's some some difficult things come up, you're like, yeah, well, it's just difficult things. I still have this I'm looking at, so I feel good. Uh so that is it for you. I hope this helped. Uh, I hope this really just really, really helped you. If you're in a hard place, you feel like life is challenging you, and you feel like defeated, like you can't move on. Stay strong. Keep on going. Because that is the way of the one lifer, or whatever you want to call it. Like, I this is how you live your one life. This is How you create something that is beautiful is that when it gets tough, you stay with it and you keep on moving forward. That is it for you guys. And again, remember it is always take the time to do the things that really, really bring you joy, do the things that really matter because not a single day is taken, not a single day is to be taken for granted because none of us knows when our time is up. So live now, and that means doing the things that bring you joy, putting yourself around the people you love and make you feel good, and just taking a moment every single day to just savor the gift of being alive. I hope you enjoyed this episode here. If you did, please hit that subscribe button and share with somebody whom you feel needs to hear this message. And uh if you have any questions, you could feel free to reach out to me via my website at donnierouse.com. That is d-o-n-n-y r-a-us.com. And what kind of person would I be if I didn't tell you and share my amazing coffee? So check out rousecoffee.com, R A-U-Scoffee.com, and get some great coffee. Start your morning with that because your day starts with that morning ritual of your cup of coffee, and just start making something beautiful at the beginning of your day. And I promise it'll carry over. So that is all I've got for you guys today. Thank you so much for tuning in. Remember, you only get one life live fully, live passionately, and most of all, live now. God bless you guys, and I will see you again soon.