Are You Up for the Challenge?
I have been talking a lot about resilience this year, exploring what makes one person press through a hard situation and another get lost in it. I have shared that resilience is based on three factors:
COMMITMENT
Being engaged and seeing most parts of your life as interesting and meaningful
CONTROL
Having a sense of self-efficacy and the belief that you can influence outcomes in your life
CHALLENGE
Seeing change and novelty as exciting and as an opportunity for learning and growth
Today, I want to share a bit about the challenge factor.
Challenge is about individuals who accept change as part of life and don’t expect it to be easy. Essentially, they believe that stress is a normal part of life and offers opportunities for growth. These people tend to welcome novel or stressful events in life, looking for hidden possibilities to develop new skills or make improvements. Instead of reacting to challenges with defensiveness or negativity, they mindfully respond to challenges. Adopting this attitude toward the inevitable challenges in life allows for healthy risk-taking, optimism, and motivation.
For the past couple years, I have been working with a team of leaders within a small organization. Due to funding, they have recently been told their program is ending. The organization has provided transparency, incredible support, and generous transition packages. Yet it remains a very tough situation and each leader is facing a job change. Their attitudes toward this “challenge” have been amazing to me. As leaders, in the midst of mourning their loss of employment, they continue to care about their teams and provide quality service until the last day of the program. What makes them act this way? Their view of the challenge. They did everything they could, and the change is coming whether they like it or not; resistance to the change is wasted energy.
What change are you currently facing in your professional or personal realms? What are the risks of not embracing change in these areas?
Now, let me share a few thoughts I have considered.
If I don’t embrace change in my business, I could: be swallowed by competitors; no longer be relevant in my industry; become obsolete; lose interest in my clients, stop being nimble; lack innovation; and become complacent in the old way of doing things
If I don’t embrace change in my personal life, I could: forget how to change; become complacent with life in general; stop pursuing anything other than what I know; not progress or advance in my career; never know my full potential or believe I have reached it already; fear the unknown and prefer being where I am; and I could stop developing my skills
Don’t get me wrong. Change is HARD. It often involves loss. Take the time to grieve those losses, yet when the time is right for you, set your sights on what’s to come and look for ways the change could be exciting or an opportunity to learn and grow.
Reflect on past challenges. How have you responded and what strategies could you use to cultivate resilience in the future?