Difficult roads lead to beautiful destinations

Think about it. Every challenge or difficulty you face offers you an opportunity to shape and change yourself, often times forcing fresh perspectives that were long overdue. I know it’s not easy but how can you start viewing your current challenges as teachers, as blessings that showed up in your life for a reason? What are they teaching you? How are they helping you to see your life differently?

Tama Kieves, one of my master teachers, talks about how it’s impossible to live an inspired life without obstacles. In fact, she goes as far as to say that obstacles are supposed to come up when you’re living an inspired life because this is what helps you to grow and expand and become the person you’re here to be. Without them, you’d continue live the status quo which is unlikely to get you anywhere amazing and/or anywhere you truly want to go.

Start thinking about difficulties as opportunities to build your creative and perseverance muscles. Similar to going to the gym to build physical muscles, these difficulties allow you to build up your mental and spiritual muscles, often times forcing you to call on parts of yourself that you didn’t even know existed, allowing you to play bigger in your life than ever before. And, yes, it’s not an easy thing to do but nothing that causes you to grow and become stronger is easy.

Believe it or not, after some of my most difficult times, in retrospect I discovered that they were the best thing that could have happened. They made me stronger, more confident (making realize I can handle just about anything) and more determined to go after my dreams. They also helped me to step out of my comfort zone (since I was shoved out of it anyway) and take chances that I probably wouldn’t have made otherwise.

To help you during whatever difficulty you’re facing, ask yourself the following (and be truthful):

• What is this difficulty teaching you?
• How can you view this difficulty as a blessing?
• Where do you think this difficulty is taking you (a positive perspective)?
• Why do you think this difficulty showed up (again – a positive perspective)?
• Ten years from now, how do you think you’ll view this difficulty?
• How is this difficulty pushing you to go after what you really want in life?
• How is this difficulty shifting your perspective?
• What are you hoping to learn from this difficulty?
• What is this difficulty showing you (a positive perspective)?
• How is this difficulty helping you to see life differently?

Seriously take the time to write out your answers to all of these questions. There’s magic in writing things down. It often times gets thoughts out of your head that you didn’t even know were hiding in there. If you need to, start by venting why you hate this difficulty, what you’re losing as a result of it, but then quickly shift into the more positive perspective around it by answering the above questions. But sometimes you need to get the negative out first before you can start focusing on the positive. This is what I did when I used these questions to work through a current difficulty I’m facing. And believe me, it works.

I’d love to hear how you’re working through your current difficulty and/or how you worked through difficulties in the past. Sharing is powerful and I’d love to hear from you.

PLEASE NOTE: I am not a medical professional and did not write this blog post to offer medical or mental health advice. If you’re experiencing depression and/or anxiety or anything that you’re not able to handle on your own, please seek out professional help. Sometimes our bodies do weird things chemically and reaching out for medical help is the best way to feel better. Also, If you or someone you know is considering suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).