This time of churning is bound to bring us challenges. Sometimes, in frustration, we might wish that they would go away. But in our work, the challenges we face are not a barrier to our job, they are our job: resolving them is what we are paid to do. And in our personal lives, the challenges we face are not a barrier to our growth, they are exactly the situations we can currently gain the most from learning to handle: they are our most important next step for personal growth.
Every skill we have today has come from challenges we faced in the past. So the first step to addressing any new challenge is always to ask ourselves, “What are the opportunities this so-called ‘problem’ is bringing me?“
Simply interpreting our challenges in this way will make us more likely to create the outcomes we want. And as we look closer we will find that there are ten types of opportunity in any situation.
We then get to choose which of those opportunities we pursue. We get to choose how we respond. And when we do that, we get to choose which skills and abilities we develop, which outcomes we learn to create, and who we choose to become. And as Steve Jobs showed us, the bigger the challenge, the bigger the opportunity.
For all these reasons, learning to realise that the challenges we face are actually opportunities is yet another step to becoming antifragile.
What challenges are you currently facing? Do you see them as ‘problems’ you wish would go away — or opportunities that are helping you to become the person you most want to become?
Adapted from The Churning, Inner Leadership: a framework and a set of tools for building inspiration in times of change.
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