How To Appreciate Your Challenges

Are you facing any challenges in your life or your business right now? These days, there are some real challenges facing many of us - slowing economy, high gas prices, housing market crash, lots of negativity and complaining around us (based on all of this stuff going on and more), and the myriad of personal issues related to family, health, money, relationships, and more that always tend to show up in life.

The challenges themselves, even the most difficult ones, aren't usually the real issue; it's our relationship to them that causes us the most difficulty and suffering. Think of what your life, your relationships, and your career would be like if you didn't complain about or resist challenges when they showed up? For most of us, this would make things very different.

Resisting, complaining about, or even feeling sorry for ourselves about the "bad" things that are happening is totally normal and what we're often encouraged to do by people around us and our culture in general - whether we do it out loud with others or just in our own heads. However, these things, while understandable, don't address the real issues, the genuine emotions we're experiencing, or make things better for us.

I'm not advocating that we pretend everything is "fine" when it isn't in some phony, Pollyanna way - that's denial, which won't help us either. However, the question in life isn't whether or not we'll face challenges, the question is what will we do and how will we respond in the face of the challenges that arise? Do we avoid really dealing with difficult things and learning from them by playing the role of the victim and not acknowledging our true feelings about them or do we face them directly, acknowledge our emotions, and choose to grow from the experience? It's always up to us.

On our path of life, growth, and success, we all encounter difficulties. Many of the most successful and fulfilled people who've ever walked the planet have faced incredible challenges. What if we actually appreciated our challenges? Remember, appreciating something doesn't necessarily mean we like or enjoy it. Appreciation means that we recognize the value of it.

Here's a list of some things we can appreciate when things get tough:

- Challenges often give us important feedback about where and who we are

- Challenges give us contrast and can help us appreciate things when they get easier

- Challenges can allow us to wake up and notice all the good things that are happening that we weren't paying attention to

- Challenges are always a great opportunity for learning, growth, and improvement

- Challenges give us an opportunity to get in touch with, take responsibility for, and express our real emotions

By learning to appreciate our challenges and see the opportunities in them, we take our power back from the situations and circumstances of our lives. Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage, gives us an important insight into who we really are and how to create success and fulfillment in a conscious and deliberate way.

Action: What You Can Do

Make a list of some of the biggest challenges in your life right now. What can you appreciate about each of these difficulties? What are you learning from them? What are you able to appreciate in yourself and your life because of these things?

If you look for it, you'll be able to find many things to appreciate about every one of your current challenges. Appreciating our challenges can allow us to accept them, learn from them, and ultimately take back our power from them. Doing this reminds us that we're the authors of our lives - not the circumstances we're facing.

Mike Robbins is a keynote speaker, coach, and the author of Focus on the Good Stuff (Hardcover, jossey-Bass) and the forthcoming book Be Yourself, Everyone Else is Already Taken (Hardcover, Jossey-Bass/Wiley, April 2009). More info - www.mike-robbins.com

Comments

[Lisa Earle McLeod - Huffpost Blogger]

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Ugh, must I?

Of course you're right, wouldn't it be fabulous if we could leap right past the challenges and move directly to enlightenment?

But alas, we humans rarely learn from the good times.

Can't wait to read your new book, Mike.

And if you've never heard Mike speak, check out www.mike-robbins.com for clips and his schedule. He tells it like it is in a way we can understand.

[communicatinghumanity]

Nice post Mike. Having a charmed life where everything goes your way may sound nice, but for me, I am grateful for the many challenges I've had to overcome. I totally agree with you - challenges can be blessings if you take them as such. And when you choose to do that, new possibilities for growth will open up that you may never have had the opportunity to run with otherwise. Productive solutions will arise too. And I concur - the more you approach challenges in this manner, you will gather increased strength and courage to not become disabled and powerless (and worse, cry victim) when the wind blows in your life.

[arunachala]

Great blog, awareness of the problem is the first step to solving it. i wish people could see that more, but they just go on complaining about it, instead of actually dealing with it efficiently.

[Mike Robbins - Huffpost Blogger]

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Thanks for reading my post and making this comment! Yes, our awareness and honesty are both key elements in our ability to deal with our challenges effectively. It's so much easier to blame others or the circumstances (especially when we get a lot of agreement for things being "bad" or "hard," like these days) than it is to really take responsibility for our lives, our reactions, and our honest emotions. Going deeper and coming at things from a place of vulnerability, responsibility, and authenticity gives us a chance to really learn, grow, and create our lives deliberately. - MR