Don’t wish it was easier wish you were better. Don’t wish for less problems wish for more skills. Don’t wish for less challenges wish for more wisdom.
— Jim Rohn
If you are like most people, you have a natural resistance to change. Almost everyone prefers the known to the unknown, the familiar to the foreign, the manageable to the chaotic.
“Hold on a minute, I’m not boring! I like change and variety and new experiences,” you might be saying. Of course you do. The natural tendency to resist change is not the same thing as avoiding novelty. The change I am referring to is real, significant change. The kind you don’t ask for and that makes you uncomfortable. Change like losing a job, having a significant medical challenge, or other major life events. These are the changes that arrive in your life unexpectedly and flip everything upside down.
Often when these changes occur, we can find ourselves shaking our fists at the heavens and asking why this is happening to us. We fear the unknown and long for the comfort that we felt before the changes occurred. When we have such feelings we should know that they are natural, but there is a better way.
The major challenges we encounter in life are our biggest opportunities to learn and grow. When such challenges show up — as they inevitably will — we can look to grow and become better, wiser and more capable. Instead of wishing that our life never changed, we can learn to thrive amid the challenges we face.
To do this we need to look for the opportunity in the challenge and then take positive steps forward to learn. These don’t need to be giant leaps, just consistent learning and growing will do. When we do this, our challenges can become our greatest assets and we will always be the better for having been pushed out of our comfort zones.
Think of a challenge in your life that is causing you frustration. How can you use that challenge as an opportunity to grow?