Do you love a challenge?
Your perception around a challenge can determine what you do
with it. What kind of attitude do you have towards the challenges around your
life? If you ask many of us, they would rather live a life devoid of
challenges. But is it possible or even worthwhile? The truth is it is
impossible to live minus challenges. They are the fuel of life. It is also a
mundane existence if there are no curveballs that need us to apply the best of
ourselves.
Challenges create necessity. And necessity is the mother of
all invention. There would be zero need for invention and innovation if there
were no challenges. We advance as a race because of the constant need to deal
with emerging challenges quickly enough.
Somebody had to encounter the challenge of moving swiftly
from one place to another to be inspired to come up with the locomotive, the
automobile and the aeroplane. Imagine what it would be like to still be travelling
on foot over thousands of kilometers. Some other people thought about how
inconveniencing it was to have to be in a fixed position to make calls across
the world. This is how the world of cell phones came about. But that was not
enough. We realized that there is a lot that we can do with a hand held device
rather than just calling and texting. The need to do more with our hand held
devices brought about the smartphone. The one thing that cuts across all these
advancements is the presence of a challenge to be solved, a need to be met.
The best thing you can do for yourself is to fall in love
with challenges. It guarantees that you will have an exciting, thrilling life.
There is no greater thrill than to know you have worked on a challenge and put
it to bed once and for all. Challenges make you constantly improve on your best
self. Success is a journey of overcoming challenges and not just the final
destination.
A life devoid of challenges is uninspiring and not something
you want to constantly have. It has the potential to make you lethargic or
numb. You run the risk to have a robotic experience of life which is the result
of predictability. Such a life kills your imagination and creativity and leaves
you high and dry. Cowards want to live where everything has been figured out
for them. What kind of life is that?
Challenges do not have to be negative. Some challenges can
be very positive in nature. You can create challenges for yourself for the
purpose of pushing yourself to the next level. We must get into the habit of
placing ourselves in situations where we crack our brains to come out of where
we are stuck. Dr. Benjamin Hardy has an interesting way of looking at this. He
calls them forcing functions. You need to start creating forcing functions all
around you to push you further down the road. Not al your challenges need to be
external and catch you by surprise. You need to get to the point where you are
creating challenges for yourself and figuring them out in order to make good
progress.
Think about things like making public commitments to get something
done. The fact that the public is watching will spur you into doing the very
best because you do not want your failure to be in the public domain. Another
example of a forcing function is to get started down a road of no return. There
are certain things you can do like jumping into the water which will force you
to learn how to swim for survival. Many of us are capable of so much more in
life but because there is no life or death situation facing us, we move at a
leisurely pace. A little instability can help us adjust our pace and accomplish
much more.
Challenges have a way of building our muscles. The more you
encounter what you are unfamiliar with, the stronger you become both
physically, mentally and psychologically. There is no shortcut to stronger
muscles. The only way to strengthen is to engage in endurance training. David
Goggins the renowned ex-NAVY SEAL says that our bodies start to shut down when
we are only at 40 percent of their capacity in a bid to preserve themselves.
The secret is to push through that resistance until you get to the other side. Once
you overcome this initial resistance, you realize that you can go much further
down the road.
Question? What forcing functions are you going to apply on
yourself going forward? What challenges have you been sidestepping that you are
going to face going forward? I would like to hear your thoughts in the comments
in this regard.
Challenges are not to be feared but embraced because in
embracing your challenges, you embrace your future. Why would you run away from
a better future? Your perception is much more important than the degree of
challenge you are facing. If you see it as a way to grow and progress, that is
exactly what it will be. If you see it as something to be avoided at all cost,
then be ready for a mediocre existence at best. I am sure no one would choose a
mediocre existence willingly but anytime you run away from challenges, you are
slowly but surely drifting towards a mediocre life.
Would you like to learn more about being at home with challenges and how to make them work for you instead of against you? Hit me up on asenasam@gmail.com and let's talk.
Feel free to also order a copy of my book Blessed to be a Blessing and learn more about why your experiences both good and bad, including pain are gold which you should embrace and extract value from.
