What to do When Facing Hard Times
Have you ever wondered what to do when facing hard times in your business and life?
I'm sure I'm the only one who has ever faced challenges, and just in case there are a few odd ones out there like me, this is for all us misfits.
First, we have to define the idea of hard times. Essentially, this is a situation you're facing that doesn't align with your goals or life.
Simple right?
Maybe its financial. Maybe it is work related. Maybe health. Maybe you're dealing with some relationship challenges.
It doesn't matter what the "it" is.
What matters is how you face the challenge.
How do you show up?
I believe I've faced a great deal of challenges in my life.
At 49 years old, I've had a few. Age 11 - parents divorced. Age 12-14 - Bullied severely at school and abuse in home life. Age 13-16 - depression with suicidal tendencies. Age 16 - gave 11 month old nephew CPR and lost him. Age 17 - mom filed bankruptcy. Age 18 - sent home from Navy (my career choice by the way).
Age 25-28 - first 3 years of marriage nearly ended in divorce. Age 35-38 - recession led to foreclosure and bankruptcy. Age 44 - received dream opportunity. Age 45 - fired from dream opportunity. Age 48 - lost $100k in biggest real estate deal to date (borrowed money...ouch).
It sounds like an awful life, and in reality, we've been incredibly blessed in our lives. My wife and I have been married happily for 24 years. My two daughters have given us 2 grand children. We are healthy and vibrant in our lives. We're very grateful for the many opportunities in life as well as the challenges.
I learned this lesson in 2010 while facing economic ruin when the mortgage industry collapsed. I was emotionally immature. I made excuses and blamed everyone around me for the collapse. It paralyzed me and I lost everything as a result.
My greatest fears compounded daily as I focused and dwelled on all the worst case scenarios that were happening around me. The more I worried, the worse it got.
Then in late 2010, I met a man named Brian Klemmer who had a personal development training program that some of my friends went through. I signed up against my better judgement and it changed the course of my life.
Adversity is where champions are born, wielded and exposed. Champions may seem like they live a charmed life. The reality is that Champions put themselves in situations to push and stretch them.
Each stretch comes with some sort of adversity. In order to become better, you have to learn how to work through the adversity. Success is on the other side of it.
The other thing I learned is that success is a series of problems to be solved. Adversity certainly provides us with plenty of problems. To be successful and to overcome hard times in your life, you must become a master problem solver.
When a failure mindset is faced with a problem, they complain and blame. When a success oriented mindset is faced with a problem, they immediately start looking for solutions to the problem. Overcoming hard times is all about the mindset we adopt.
Life is a series of violent actions set against us from birth. Just the birth process alone is an amazing testimony to your success mindset. The world is not set up to help us achieve, but rather society is dogmatic in programing us to fail.
Ancient biblical wisdom states that we should guard our hearts as they are the wellspring of life. In ancient Hebrew beliefs, the heart is where all of our deepest beliefs are stored and held. We MUST guard our Mindset and feed it with success rather than failure.
Your Action for today is to start recording all the things you make excuses about and learn how to reframe those thoughts into a success oriented mindset. An example is when you've invested a lot of money and someone else does something that leads to a cascading domino effect until you lose the money.
Do you blame the other people involved? or Do you take responsibility for knowing the risk going in? One will paralyze and the other will empower you.
The choice is yours.
Please remember to like and share this article.
