Seeing Challenges as Opportunities !

"Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out a way to climb it, go through it, or work around it."

Michael Jordan

Today, Michael Jordan is a basketball legend, but success did not come easy to him. He was faced with seemingly unending obstacles; however, he built a career which many only dreams.

During his high school’s varsity team tryouts, Michael tried his hard but could not make the cut. He was disappointed, but he was determined to transform this situation. He worked hard, overcame his obstacles and by the following season he had gained a spot in the team. Not only did his determination took him to great heights, but he became the most dominant factor in the NBA arena for years to come.

Obstacles are present in daily life, be it a challenge that sets you back, pauses your progress, or derails the most thought after plans. They are indeed discouraging and ultimately causes us to lose precious time, but what purpose do obstacles serve, beyond frustration? This is what we

need to see.

“Obstacles are necessary for success. Each struggle, each defeat, sharpens your skills and strengths, your courage and your endurance, your ability and your confidence, and thus each obstacle is a comrade-in-arms forcing you to become better… or quit. Each rebuff is an opportunity to move forward; turn away from them, avoid them, and you throw away your future.”

Og Mandino

There is an old lore about a king who wanted to see if his people would come out of their comfort zone and soft environment, which he had created for them in his kingdom. He placed a large boulder in the middle of the main road, completely blocking entry into the city, and hid nearby to observe what the people would do!

Would they remove it single-handedly or together? Or, would they give up and return to their comforts ? With mounting disappointment, the king observed how men avoided the boulder, gave a halfhearted effort, curse the king or destiny for the roadblock, but none of them managed to do anything about it. The boulder lay there until a peasant came along who transformed this obstacle into an opportunity.

The peasant fetched a log and crafted it as a lever to remove the boulder from the road. He succeeded and upon the removal of the rock found a purse full of gold coins and a note from the king, which stated : The obstacle in the path becomes the path. Never forget, within every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our condition.

By leaning into your difficulties, you embrace life within your non-resistance. The obstacle shows vital lessons to recognize its significance. In daily life, we will be challenged every so often with critical decisions such as whether to take on a distinct challenge, like employment or commencing a new course. Taking on such predicaments is an essential part of maturing and developing as a person. The more we can question our limits and capabilities, the more we will discover ourselves. New challenges are possibilities for us.

However, we don’t perpetually see it like that. The issue is that when we take on new hurdles, we also have to face the likelihood of failure. Rather than recognizing the opportunity in the situation, we concentrate on what it will be like to collapse. As a result, beginning a new challenge can be terrifying. The fear of defeat can be too much to have.

So we circumvent the problem and carry on with the monotonous path we have been on and make some justification for ourselves so that we can sojourn in our comfort zone.

But the fact is that lingering in your comfort zone out of anxiety is not always accurately comfortable. By evading a challenge, we don’t have the chance to learn about us. We feel confined as if we were driving a life that is not accurate to ourselves. We are tormented by discomfort, stress, and the knowledge that things are not entirely right.

“There are going to be all types of obstacles placed in front of you during your lifetime. And you can determine the size of a person by the size of the problem that keeps them down. Successful people look at a problem and see the opportunity.”

Jeff Olson writes in The Slight Edge

To begin a whole life, we require to take on new tests that stretch us and give us more occasions to be us. It is not that the reliable person does not feel the same fear, but they are prepared to face their concern. Obstacles only have control over us if we neglect them, unaddressed, and unchallenged. By drawing them into the light, we are ready to face them, and these challenges succumb the power to control us. No matter what the conditions, or no matter how many hurdles we have in life, it is our choice to handle them in a precise manner, head on !