In your life quest to go from good to great, you must learn to handle adversity more effectively.
What is Adversity? Adversity can be any type of hardship, difficulty, tough luck, or catastrophe. Your experience in every situation is different, based on your own experience, philosophy, and feelings around it.
You all face adversity in your life. There is no escaping it. In today’s world, there is a lot of sudden change, which causes unforeseen circumstances that can lead to more uncertainty. You may experience increased anxiety over your health, a job loss, financial concerns, and, consequently, increased chaos in personal relationships. One thing to note when dealing with adversity is that it’s always an inside job.
ost of my coaching clients are dealing with what I call “adversity perception”, which feels horrible, as though something has really gone wrong, but it isn’t a fact. Examples of adversity perception are:
- Adversity haunting you from your past – Rather than facing former adversity, you keep resisting and running from it, so it still affects you. Your past can’t be changed. You need to know what is currently going on in your mind, which is making the situation from the past feel adverse in the present.
- Current made-up adversity that is from your imagination – You all imagine this; adversity can look like fear, doubt, insecurity, self-sabotage, procrastination, or anxiety from your thoughts about your own capability or capacity (or a vast amount of similar negativity).
- Future projection adversity – This can be something that hasn’t even happened yet. You borrow trouble from the future. You are afraid that something could happen and you’re anticipating or creating it in your mind.
These adversity perceptions aren’t real present dangers; they are easily solved with compassion, self-awareness, and coaching.
What about actual situations? Losing a job or a loved one or dealing with an illness or an accident are adversities that we cannot control, and they can seem daunting.
We can decide how we are going to react in any situation by managing our thoughts and emotions, as follows:
- Don’t resist it, embrace it.
- Don’t add to the pain of adversity by judging yourself, allow yourself to feel it.
- Stop trying to make your life easier. It’s going through the things we think we can’t handle that make us stronger.
- Stop negative self-talk.
- Take responsibility for your life.
- Ask for help and draw courage from others.
- Refuse to give up.
- Find the silver lining – choose a positive mindset.
- Decide who you want to be in every situation.
- Accept that things happen that are out of our control.
- Don’t compare yourself with others, it’s your journey.
You can leverage adversity in your life if you are willing to face it, and you don’t need to face it alone. This potential growth enables you to be more resilient and empowered. What do you want your adversity quotient to be? I can help!
