The Struggle is Real and Necessary

SHOW NOTES:

On this show...we are talking about the struggle. The struggles we encounter in life, that we need to overcome, and the growth benefits from doing so. I’m not advocating looking for a good struggle or to purposely put yourself in the middle of a challenge but the fact is, they are inevitable, and the better you are equipped to handle them, the better the outcome. I would be remiss if we didn’t also talk about stepping back and letting those in our lives fight their own battles. Everyone needs to experience the process; challenge, fight, perseverance, success, or failure. Letting that happen naturally without your assistance maybe a whole other issue.

First things first, pick your battles! Have you ever been in the middle of a conflict when an enlightening thought enters your mind…”What are you doing?” “Why do you care and is this even your fight?” Drop the other end of that tug-o-war rope and get to a higher vantage point. Where do you want to exert your efforts?

Good for you for being passionate enough to want to help everyone around you but check your motives. Are you passionate about giving and seeing others succeed or do you want to be in control and right? We’ll come back to that to explore it deeper.

But before...let’s go a little deeper into this notion that great growth comes from adversity. Here are 7 ways from 7mindset.com

1-Stimulate your growth with a new perspective
2-See with greater clarity by letting the dust settle
3-Maintain composure through compartmentalizing
4-Give yourself a win by doing something productive
5-Exceed your individual potential by asking for help
6-Give yourself a fresh start with silence
7-Take the long view by elevating another perspective

I like to break out my life into sections, the years I bumped around like a rumba learning to go another direction from all the brick walls I smashed into and then years of enlightenment. You know when one more turn of the pick jar lid brought about a new and brilliant revelation. Why did it take so many years and so many failed attempts to realize something so simple?

Baby scientist, Dr. Vanessa LoBue gives us an idea of how children build resilience in her article; When the Going Gets Tough she wrote for pyscologytoday.com

So what happens when you are hell-bent on saving the world? Or at least it looks like that on the outside. For some reason, you are convinced that people (those in your family and those around you) can’t get through challenges without your assistance.

Even if we don’t dig too far into this deeply rooted compulsive behavior let’s establish this. It’s important for human growth and success that people be given time and space to figure things out. 

Helping others can become addictive. Annika Martins gives us her perspective on this idea in an article she wrote for tiny buddha.

Share your talents and resources. Generously give your time and attention. But you cannot pour a magical tonic on the wounds of every person walking the planet. It’s not your job. And if it were, it’d be a sucky job because you’d fail at it every single day.

Get back in your hula-hoop. A wise woman who was very influential in my own recovery gave me that visual and as a visual learner, it made sense. Imagine standing in the middle of a hula-hoop and having the space around you like your space to operate and a natural buffer to others, a healthy boundary. Snap your figure and you can be back to repeating old patterns, it’s a knee jerk and before you know it you are out of your hula-hoop and into someone else’s. Now it takes focus and consistency to keep your hula-hoop spinning so when you are hanging out in someone else’s - who’s manning yours? 

Ask yourself a couple of qualifying questions:

• Is this my problem?
• What am I forfeiting by redirecting my energy?
• What is the worst that could happen if they fail?
• How much could they gain by working this out on their own? 

 

CHALLENGE: Embrace a challenge with the confidence that you have the power to navigate your way through. Reach out when you need to consult expert advice and encouragement. Step back when your need to fix interrupts someone’s need to learn. 

 

I Know YOU Can Do It!