Becoming Stronger From Challenges
When I was in junior secondary school, during our fine art class, we were taught about modeling with clay, which we practicalized. I noticed that after we had made the clay vessel, our teacher would demand that we should pass it through fire. At that point, I did not know the reason, so I had to ask. She told us that by passing the clay vessel through the extreme heat of the furnace, it will become stronger. Years later, I started relating her words into other life's situations. Indeed, when life presents with challenges, it is so that you will emerge from it stronger and of course better - just like the case of the clay that passes through the fire and becomes hardened, stronger and better.
If you have been to the gym and have watched bodybuilders work and build up their muscles, you will discover that they carry large amounts of weight and pass through some hard physical labour. To the others, it might look like a torture and heavily challenging, but to them, they see it as the necessary challenge that is required to help build them up to be better. Each time you see yourself in a challenging situation, you have to know that it is an opportunity for you to grow and become better. Without passing through the hardness of the world, you may not fully realise your potentials.
Before gold and many other precious metals will emerge in their shiny, attractive and highly valuable form, they will have to pass through fires. In fact, some go through intense hammering, heating, etc, but this is only the processes of refining the metals to unleash their true potential. In the same way, whenever you see yourself faced with some rough situations, just know that you are actually doing something good and you are in your process of getting better, so face it with a positive attitude. Winners are not those who withdraw themselves from challenges but those who face them with open mind and then put in all it takes to make it work.
The challenges you face are not meant to get you beaten and broken, rather to sharpen you and make you better. However, there are things you need to know and have in order to leverage on your challenges. The first one is that you need to build up your mental capacity. The way you think is a determinant of how you will relate with life. More so, if your mind cannot welcome the challenges with positivity, then you may never be able to overcome it. In order to build up your mental capacity, you need to keep reading, learning, interact constructively with knowledgeable people, think positively and most importantly, think solution even in the midst of problem.
Another way to leverage on your challenges to be better is to follow the footsteps of those who have some proven results in life. Someone has successfully overcome what you are passing through - so learn from them. The reason why a gym has an instructor is so that he can guide you through the thick-and-thins of the gym processes. In life, you will discover that it is easier to pass through challenges if you have someone guiding you. Before a pilot can qualify to fly, even during the flying processes, he will need to take instructions from both the instructors and from the control tower. This shows that you will definitely need people at each point in your life. If you think you can scale through life alone without anybody's input, then you will be ready to meet so much struggles.
The last way that we will look at, to leverage on your challenges in order to become better, is by never quitting even after failing. Failing does not mean that all hope is lost, neither does it signify that you are a failure. You may have tried a couple of times to hit your target and you did not get it, but it does not make you a failure. If only you can keep at it with singleness of purpose without losing sight of your target, you will hit it. Do not allow the sight of a repeated challenge to make you look like a failure, rather let it make you to be more determined to make it. Always have in mind that as long as you are doing something right, you cannot run away from challenges but they are part of the springboard to success.
Thanks for reading
