Don't wish it was easier, wish you were better

Monday quote:

Don't wish it was easier; wish you were better. Don't wish for less problems; wish for more skills. Don't wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom."

~ Jim Rohn

What will you wish for?

When times are tough, it's natural to wish they were easier.  Whether you're sending out countless resumes, dealing with a problematic relationship, facing business challenges, or struggling to pay the bills, it's easy to just wish those problems would go away, right?  Problems be gone!

Those wishes are natural.  But useful?  Not so much!

On the other hand, if you flip it around, and wish you were better, stronger, and more capable - that gives you something you can work with.  You can actually develop your skills, educate your mind, and build your strength.  Improving yourself in this way can help you get through the current set of problems, and also improve your ability to deal with other things after that.

Here are a few positive outcomes we can gain from our challenges:

Expand knowledge and learn practical skills. A friend of mine was laid off with hundreds of other high-tech professionals, when her company decided to outsource their IT.  She's using this time to take an intensive series of courses to get certified in a specific niche skill set.  It's hard to dedicate the time to this when you're working full time, so this is an ideal opportunity in that respect.  It also puts her in a stronger position in the job hunt, and is likely to provide long-term career benefits.

Develop new perspectives, lateral thinking, and creative solutions. When our standard approach isn't working, it forces us to search for alternatives.  This can lead to new perspectives and imaginative approaches we would never have thought of otherwise. An example I love is from Rory Sutherland's presentation at TED.  A group of engineers were given the task of improving the rail service between London and Paris. Their solution involved replacing all the tracks and shortening the trip by 40 minutes, for a cost of $6 billion. As Rory says, what an unimaginative solution!  For less than that cost, you could hire the world's top male and female supermodels to walk slowly through the train, serving everyone free champagne for the duration of the journey.  Happy customers, who wish their ride would last longer.

Continual growth. Challenges force us to grow and change, while a lack of challenges doesn't. If everything is peachy keen, we can get lazy, assuming that things will continue to run along fine the way they are.  How much progress would we make in our lives if we never had problems?  How much would we learn if everything we tried worked perfectly the first time?

Intangibles. Dealing with problems can teach us resiliency, flexibility, adaptability, self-reliance, and equanimity. The normal ways of dealing with things may not work any more, and trying to rigidly stick to the way we've always done things is not going to get us where we need to go. When you have to adapt, you do.

Confidence. It may seem odd that problems breed confidence, but it can work that way. Overcoming challenges gives us confidence that we will be able to overcome other challenges in the future.  The next time a similar situation occurs, we see it from a different perspective - "I've dealt with things like this before".  We know that we will get through this, we will survive, we will grow and learn from it, and we will be be happier and wiser in the future.

Viewed like this, we can be grateful for the problems that come our way.  Or if not really grateful, at least we can recognize the silver lining. We can use these challenges to develop our own strengths and abilities.  We can gain a long-term benefit from a short-term problem.

So don't wish for less challenges; wish for more wisdom.

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I'm currently working on our high-level business strategy for Adventurous Wench, and as I'm sure everyone knows, our current economic environment has plenty of challenges!  And thank goodness for that! 
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