The more you can view life’s challenges as catalysts for growth, the better prepared you’ll be to sail through them.
“It’s your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself, that determines how your life’s story will develop.” — Dieter F. Uchtdorf
When times are tough, and the last year since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly tough for many people, it is challenging to stay focused on your goals and aspirations. This may lead you to spend much time focusing on when the hardships in your life will go away instead of taking action to achieve your goals. The hard truth is that life’s hardships never truly fade away. You can use this to your advantage by viewing these challenges as opportunities to move out of your comfort zone.
Take these points to heart, and you’ll soon be on your way to navigating life’s most tumultuous seas:
1. Pain can push you forward.
Pain — whether physical or mental — indicates that something, somewhere, is not right. People are taught from birth that pain is a negative force meant to torment us, but this is not always the case.
Often, psychological pain is the result of unresolved issues that are smouldering beneath the surface. Only by confronting these issues, by bringing them to the surface, can you move beyond them.
Everything has an opposite, and pain is the opposite of joy. Without pain, we would not understand joy as a state of being. Don’t run from pain. Instead, face it head-on and ask yourself, “What is the cause of my pain?” The answer can lead you to joy if you are willing to address the source of your pain.
2. Your mindset determines your outcomes. How you react to hardship often determines how much you will experience.
Your reactions have immediate and lasting effects on both your body and mind, and choosing to act instead of react can free you from habitual behaviour that might be causing challenges in the first place.
Life’s ups and downs are part of the nature of the universe. You must face both with equal vigour.
When you swim in a lake or ocean, you know perfectly well that the crash of one wave leads to the cresting of another. Life operates in the same way, so expect each swell to bring with it its own challenge. Avoid letting negativity colour your perceptions.
If you expect pain, you will react in pain. And if you react in pain — whether the threat is real or not — you will miss out on any opportunities hidden within the challenge itself.
3. Most fears are not representative of reality. You must differentiate between fears that stem from physical threats and fears that arise in the mind.
The brain often creates the latter as it runs various scenarios deep within your subconscious. When you dream, you become aware of this process. These mental fears are meant to keep you from taking unnecessary risks.
To succeed in today’s high-tech and interconnected world, you must face these fears head-on. This is the only way to convince your subconscious that the perceived threats are not real.
Only with repeated exposure to discomfort can you convince your subconscious mind that it has nothing to fear from these non-physical threats.
You can overcome fear every single time if you’re willing to force yourself through the discomfort it generates. Typically, this discomfort will melt away when you dive into the task or situation you dread.
Taking action with these concepts in mind will help you find solutions for many of your challenges. When you can manage the present, the future will take care of itself.
Remember: opportunity only exists in the present moment. And to build toward your ideal tomorrow, you have to deal effectively with the life you have today.
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