Welcome to the Stop Sabotaging Your Success Podcast, episode forty-seven. I’m your host, Cindy Esliger. This is the podcast focusing on what we can do today to take control of our careers and overcome the inevitable barriers to success that we encounter along the way. 

What do you do when you are feeling afraid, doubtful, and uninspired? Do you take that as a sign that this isn’t the right path for you or do you show up and do the work? Overcoming adversity is a necessary part of achieving our goals. It may surprise you to realize that we need those obstacles in order to create our own roadmap to success. We want there to be challenges. The bigger the goal, the more obstacles we’ll encounter, which will then enable more growth. 

In this episode, we’ll look at how adversity can be just what you need to truly understand what you’re capable of. When you face the challenges and find ways of overcoming those obstacles, you will develop your self-confidence, which will allow you to recognize those limiting beliefs that are holding you back, and change them into more empowering thoughts that will propel you forward. You will become a different person in the process. 

Adversity is inevitable, so plan for it. We learn so much about who we are and what we’re capable of by what we face in our lives. We get to see just how strong we are by what we create for ourselves and the challenges we face in the process. 

Many of us struggle with adversity and we have the desire to somehow eliminate it so things will be easier. But all those things that get in our way, that hold us back from having the life we want, are all part of the process in achieving our goals. It’s dealing with the chaos, the uncertainty, and the worry, and those challenging situations that sometimes arise in our relationships and our careers. 

Dealing with adversity is an inside job. It’s about understanding what is possible for us when we’re willing to put in the effort necessary. So many of us have been taught to downscale our dreams, right size our ambitions, play small, and be realistic. We’ve been brought up to avoid adversity at all costs. 

Our brains are programmed for survival and when we’re in survival mode, trying to stay alive is the primary focus, where our best decision is to avoid adversity and do whatever we can to escape from it. That tends to keep us alive longer than if we were to seek out adversity. But we’ve evolved and now we live in a much safer world, and yet we tend to create adversity where there is none. So we end up avoiding going after the things that we want. We’re not living up to our potential. We’re not seeing the possibilities. It’s time we learn how to deal with adversity and turn it into something that helps us create the incredible life that we want for ourselves. 

What is it that you want for yourself? 

I want you to take a minute and give this some thought. Really stretch yourself to imagine the possibilities. Think beyond the ordinary, beyond the reasonable, and beyond the realistic. The only reason it’s extraordinary is because other people aren’t doing it, not because you have to be superhuman in order to make it happen. You can develop the skills to make anything possible. It’s available for all those who are willing to learn to do things differently. 

Start to see adversity as necessary. That means things won’t always go as planned. You will encounter resistance and roadblocks will be put in your way, and that just helps you better understand who you are, what really matters to you, and how you can still come out of this stronger.

There are three types of adversity that we face. The first one is things from our past. This is the adversity that’s already happened, the misfortune you’ve already faced but haven’t dealt with productively. It’s haunting you. You’re running from it or you’re resisting it. 

The second type are things that are all in your head. The internal, made-up adversity that hasn’t happened yet, but we worry that it could happen, fear or doubt that is made up in your own mind that causes us to procrastinate, self-sabotage, and not even give ourselves a chance at success. 

And the third type are the things that are actually happening in the world. These are the unexpected circumstances in your life, whether they’re emotional, financial, or relational, they appear to be clear and present danger. In order to deal with them, we have to make room for them and rise to the occasion. Then create a plan for how we’re going to handle them and use them to our benefit. 

In dealing with these three types of adversity, we experience four common pitfalls. 

The first one is not making enough decisions, where we’re hanging back and staying stuck in a decision because we don’t want to face any adversity. While instead, we could be recognizing that all our power comes from our ability and willingness to make decisions. 

The second pitfall is not taking the necessary actions, where we’re not managing our own behavior by doing things that are not in our best interest or doing nothing at all, because we don’t want to deal with any kind of adversity. While instead, we could be planning for challenges and embracing how we could use them to our advantage.

The third pitfall is not considering the possibilities, where we’re letting the adversity dictate what is possible in our lives, allowing others to decide what we can and can’t do. While instead, we could be deciding what we want to think as we face the challenges before us, and becoming stronger and more of who we are as a result. 

And the fourth pitfall is shutting down, where we’re avoiding, hiding, or escaping life, which tends to weaken us and make us want to hide even more, while beating ourselves up for checking out. While instead, we could be seeing it as an opportunity to build our skills and overcome it, and using adversity as inspiration for growth. 

There are three secrets to overcoming adversity:

1. expect adversity
2. turn it into an asset
3. learn how to use it to your benefit

So, back to number one. Expect adversity. Plan on it happening. Know that it’s part of life, so there’s no need to hide from it. It’s not that something has gone terribly wrong if you’re facing resistance, uncertainty, or doubt. While you might not have seen it coming, you’re ready for it. We want things to challenge us because then it feels so much more worthwhile when we achieve them. 

It’s like working out and lifting weights. We intentionally do hard things in order to get stronger. We do it on purpose to become more of who we are. 

We tend to have an idealized life in our minds, comparing the life we have to the life we think we should have. We tend to think that people should have behaved differently or treated us better. We’re thinking of how it should have been, rather than the way it is. 

We all have experienced trauma in our life, but we tend to think it shouldn’t have happened. Nobody ever has the perfect life. We all have challenges that we have to face. And remember, the things that go wrong, make the best memories. 

If you don’t have any challenges and everything is going smoothly, then maybe your goals aren’t big enough. Maybe you aren’t challenging yourself enough. Maybe you’re hiding from life. We want to be challenged. 

Think about your current life. What are you doing right now? There is a limit around what you are currently able to do, and then there’s your capacity for what you could be doing. Your capacity is so much bigger than your current ability. You may not even realize what you’re truly capable of because you haven’t pushed yourself to your limits. 

And why not? Why haven’t you pushed those boundaries? Why aren’t you trying to see if you could do more, be more, and have more? 

If I had to guess, I’d say your reason is that you’re avoiding adversity out of fear. We’re afraid to show up as ourselves. We’re afraid to be seen. We’re afraid of being judged, because we’re afraid we’re not good enough. We don’t put ourselves out in the world to challenge ourselves because we don’t want to face adversity. 

It’s time we learned exactly what we are capable of, by doing things to make us stronger, intentionally. We’re stronger than we think we are, far stronger and more capable than we give ourselves credit for. We tend to focus more on the negative. It’s that thing called the negativity bias. Where we spend our time wishing it weren’t there, hoping things will get easier. 

So we need to understand that adversity will always be there. It’s never going to go away. It’s there for a purpose. It’s always going to be the balance of good and bad, positive and negative. 

So ask yourself: 

• How do you want to deal with challenges? 
• What kind of person do you want to be when adversity comes along? 
• Are you the type to duck and cover and try to avoid adversity at all costs? 
• Who do you want to be when the going gets tough? 
• Who do you want to be right now? 
• And who do you want to be when it’s over?

Asking yourself these questions can help take the power away from the adversity, the worry, and the uncertainty you’re feeling. Allow yourself to reclaim your power. You can’t control what’s going on out there because what other people say and do are beyond your control. But you can decide how to think and how you’re going to show up. And most importantly, you get to decide to use this adverse situation to your benefit.

You can help yourself by problem solving to find solutions. This changes everything. Instead of feeling like a victim or being at the mercy of whatever is going on around you, you can expect to encounter adversity. This helps you deal with it, rather than being blindsided by it. You get to decide how you’re going to handle whatever life throws your way. 

The second secret to overcoming adversity is turning adversity into an asset. See it as an opportunity to get to know yourself more and practice processing your emotions. It’s a way of stacking the skills you’ve developed. We become more valuable to ourselves as we become better at dealing with the resistance because we become more capable of reaching our full potential. 

Take adversity and turn it into an asset in your life, instead of a liability. It’s much like balancing a profit and loss sheet. Some things have a cost to them while others produce for you. Assets produce and they add value to your life. But many of us tend to look at adversity as a liability, that it’s going to cost us something. 

Try looking at everything in your life as an opportunity to develop more skills. It will help you stop being afraid of the challenges and the roadblocks. So ask yourself, what is this meant to teach me? What am I supposed to learn from this? And how will I become stronger because of this? 

Be willing to go through the adversity because it will make you stronger. Turn it into an asset by being willing to experience the emotion and process that emotion all the way through. It’s all part of the growth we want and need.

Stop being afraid of emotions. We tend to try to avoid the negative emotions that are associated with the resistance we encounter. We’re reluctant to embrace them because we think that they will cause us pain, so we bury them, rather than moving toward them. We don’t want to feel the pain, so we hide from it. 

Part of developing self-confidence is not being afraid to feel what we are feeling. It’s not just about facing adversity, but embracing it, which requires us to stay aware of what’s going on for us and to think in a new way.

The third secret to overcoming adversity is learning how to use it to your benefit. Learn to respond consciously to adversity. Most of us aren’t planning on it, so we’re not thinking about it, and we’re certainly not considering how we could use it to our advantage.

The bigger your goals, the more adversity you’re going to have to face. There’s no way around it. Reframe how you’re thinking about that resistance, that you want to experience it because you want to get stronger. Start by creating a bigger goal that’s more of a challenge. You want to become stronger, and in order to do that, you have to create more challenges that must be overcome. Sometimes you will get beat up in the process, but overcoming these barriers will make you stronger. 

We tend to make up stories about how life is unfair, how this is too hard, how this is unnecessary, and how we’re not getting the support we need. Try living into that emotional struggle on purpose because it’s all part of the process. Stop avoiding it. Stop trying to escape from it, and instead be in it. 

Recognize that when you’re experiencing adversity, you have more power than you realize. Explore this as a way to increase your capacity to grow. Decide consciously how to think about the challenges you will face and how to think about the gap between where you are now, and where you want to be. Recognize that the gap is supposed to be there, otherwise, your goal isn’t big enough. 

The things that have been the most challenging for me to achieve are the ones I am most proud of when I do accomplish them. When things are easy, it feels more like luck and that doesn’t help me grow or make me stronger. I’ve come to really appreciate the hard things. 

Going through adverse situations builds character. And sometimes we’re going to mess up and we’ll make a mistake. And that tends to be when we start to doubt ourselves and get really down on ourselves for not meeting our own expectations. 

Keep reminding yourself of this: I am strong and this will make me stronger. 

And that’s it for this episode of Stop Sabotaging Your Success. Remember to download your Guide for Determining Your Adversity Quotient at cindyesliger.com/podcast, episode forty-seven.

Thank you to our producer, Alex Hochhausen and everyone at Astronomic Audio. Get in touch, I’m on Instagram @cindyesliger and my email address is info@cindyesliger.com. And if you liked this show, please tell a friend. Subscribe, rate, and review. 

Until next week, I’m Cindy Esliger. Thanks for joining me.