Challenges!!

Challenges are a part of everyday life. They make us stronger, and without them life becomes somewhat meaningless, because we would have nothing to compare the good times to.

These challenges come in many forms. It is all about how we take them. But regardless of the challenge, facing up to it is the key. Doing so makes you feel like you can take care of yourself, and it makes you understand the value of what you already have.

Facing challenges and living through them gives us the experiences that make up our life.

Two things you need

The important thing is to have a positive outlook and confidence. With those two, nothing can stop you.

I would add a third now, because I have watched positivity and confidence on their own carry people straight into a wall: you also need to be willing to look at the thing honestly.

Optimism that refuses to look at the actual size of the problem is not optimism. It is avoidance with better branding. The people who come through difficult stretches best are not the ones who insisted everything was fine. They are the ones who said this is genuinely bad, and I am going to handle it anyway. That sentence contains both halves. Most of us can only manage one at a time.

But it is important to remember that whatever the problem, there is almost always a solution. You just need patience and a willingness to keep looking for it.

Facing challenges is a way to push ourselves and see what we are actually capable of.

Look back at the last one

You should always be proud of how you dealt with the challenges in your past, and remind yourself that life does get better.

This is more practical than it sounds, and it is the single most useful thing I know to do in the middle of something hard.

Think of the worst thing you got through three years ago. At the time you had no idea how you would survive it. You could not see the route. There was no plan and no guarantee.

And here you are. Not because you found the answer in advance, but because you kept going while it slowly became survivable.

You have already done the impossible thing at least once. That is not a motivational slogan. That is your own evidence, and it applies directly to whatever you are inside right now.

Not all of them are unpleasant

And challenges aren’t always unpleasant. Challenging yourself to score better on a test, run faster in a race, or learn something new can be genuinely enjoyable.

There is a real difference between a challenge you chose and one that arrived uninvited, and it is worth having some of the first kind on purpose. Something slightly too hard, that you picked yourself, where the stakes are low and failing costs nothing. An instrument. A language. A distance you cannot run yet.

They keep you in practice for the ones you did not choose. You build the muscle in easy conditions so it is there in hard ones.

Never forget what an amazing gift life really is. Our brain is wired to find the things we are looking for - if you are waiting for things to go wrong, your life will reflect that. Having a positive outlook, on the other hand, will bring you joy and hand you inspiration when you least expect it.

Choose the level

One final thought on choosing your own challenges, since the ones life sends never ask permission.

The useful ones are slightly beyond you. Not wildly - slightly. Something you can just about fail at.

Too easy and nothing changes. Too hard and you simply confirm what you already feared. The narrow band in between is where people actually improve, and it is a much smaller target than most of us aim at when we set goals.

Pick something a little too hard. Not a lot.

-kashish