Having difficulty overcoming adversity? This week’s video explains what you may be missing and offers a different approach to dealing with challenges.
How do you overcome adversity? Great question this week from Gregg, which we’ll answer from Scottsdale, Arizona.
When it comes to overcoming adversity, here’s the truth. You never really do. You can’t remove all difficulty from life. Adversity shapes us and gives life meaning. So instead of overcoming it, let’s intentionally align to undergoing adversity.
First, from over to under. Getting over adversity suggests you reach an end or a superior position where you’re totally on top of the challenges. But if we say we’re undergoing, we recognize we are in a subordinate position to adversity. You don’t subdue the challenges, but you can use them to stretch you.
And this makes sense. Adversity requires you to do things you wouldn’t voluntarily do. Show up. Endure pain and difficulty. Rethink your life and decisions. Ask for help. Do the work. When you’re under adversity, you are strengthened, tested, and changed. When you selectively invite adversity and submit yourself to it, you undergo transformation.
Now let’s move from coming to going. It’s not about the coming adversity you anticipate and dread. It’s about what’s happening now and what you’re going to do. Keep going, moving, and acting with purpose. From here to there, deliberately. Overcoming adversity suggests improvement is in the future. Undergoing owns the fact that struggle brings growth, and it’s going on all the time.
So, instead of staking your happiness on overcoming adversity, just stick with the process. Undergo the challenges, doing what’s necessary, because it matters.
Keep those great questions coming, my friends and until next week, stay Off Balance On Purpose.