In their book Lifestorming Marshall Goldsmith and Alan Weiss give four ways to stay your course in turbulent times.

Have supports around you.

Many people fail because those around undermined them. You need people around you who can give you honest feedback, which may mean candid and frank discussions with people, being open to the truth. These people will help you find a path through the storm.

Life is more important than winning.

Focus on being gracious in winning and losing, rather trying to win by manipulation and deceit. By focusing on being gracious, generous and earning others respect and trust will over time become automatic to you. Think about it, who would like to hang with; someone who you respect and trust or someone who manipulates and is deceitful?

Seek excellence, not perfection.

The exhausting search for perfection will kill your chances of success, because you never achieve it. Nothing is perfect – there is faults in everything. But we hold out with this perfect thing which will never come. If your focus is on excellence, you will have more energy and be more productive as you stop trying to be or do what is impossible to do or be.

Know when to walk away or stay.

People with a gambling addiction think that they can reverse luck if they just keep playing and, when they’re ahead, they just keep playing. Some people endure bad bosses, abusive relationships, unruly children, saying yes to everyone and other must dos to the point of overwhelm. There comes a time when you cannot change things and you need to walk away from your predicament.

Use these four ways to find your way through turbulent times.

I wonder how the turbulent times in your life would have ended if you had these four ways as your guide?