Most often, a challenge bursts into our lives unannounced; it sweeps us off our feet and leaves us feeling unsettled. Challenge disguises itself as a “problem”, or a “difficulty”, or even worse; it comes bearing change.
That’s why I believe that it’s difficult for us to welcome challenges with arms open wide. Challenge brings with it the unwanted guest of change.
What we tend to neglect is that challenges sometimes can be a blessing! It can turn our lives upside down, teach us lessons that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives, and force us to adapt to positive changes.
We often tend to neglect the beauty that comes along with these challenges and forget that it may potentially shape us into better human beings.
Below are one of the biggest challenges you will face in your life.
1- Finding Forgiveness For Those Who’ve Wronged You
Unrealized apologies, unexplained behaviors, and unspoken words. At some point, we all needed to hear someone say that they’re sorry for the things they’ve done. At some point, we all needed to know that it wasn’t all in our heads and that we shouldn’t doubt our sanity!
We could spend a lifetime being resentful and waiting for the whole world to apologize to us; it might never happen. The fact is, most of us don’t get the apologies they need to move on with our lives. We suddenly wake up after a long slumber and find out that we forgot to live because we were blinded by resentment.
What we fail to understand is that resentment colors our hearts in blue; it leaves us feeling drained and all out of our elements. It leaves us lifeless!
Why don’t you instead write an apology letter and address it to yourself because you need it to move on! You need to grow out of this resentment and find forgiveness in your heart.
2- Not Realizing Your Self-Worth
One of the biggest challenges that I personally had to face was not realizing my self-worth. I wish that I had loved myself when I should have. It made me give love to the wrong people. It made me water dead relationships. It pushed me to waste energy on fruitless conversations. It pushed me to waste energy on unworthy hopes and aspirations.
Not realizing your self-worth will constantly make you want to please others and put their needs before yours. Not realizing what you’re made of will allow others to treat you poorly because even you can’t treat yourself right! You can’t even take care of yourself!
Realizing your worth requires you to fall in love with yourself and cherish your body and soul. Loving yourself can look like taking a rest when your body needs it, feeding your soul with healthy foods, moving your muscles intentionally, cutting off negative people, protecting your energy, and cleaning your space!
3- Being Okay With Failure
We’re not wired to accept failure; it rocks our boats and shakes us greatly. We let failure define us and don’t understand that it’s an essential part of every journey we take.
If you don’t ever fail then you’re doing it all wrong; you’re not moving forward; you’re standing still! If you’re not failing then you’re never going to learn something new, you’re not going to live novel experiences, you’re never going to experience the beauty of new beginnings.
Failing does NOT mean that you’re a loser, it only means that you should try doing this once again. It means that you tried doing something instead of saying “what if”. Failure opens your eyes to new horizons and inspires you to think of things differently.
4- Expecting Someone To Love You
Unrequited love is one of the harshest challenges anyone could come across. Expecting someone to fall in love with you if you love them hard enough is probably one of the toughest lessons we’ll have to learn as humans. This kind of love is painful because it makes us feel rejected and unloved.
Unrequited love requires you to challenge your own thoughts and beliefs that this person may never love you back! It requires you to quit when you actually need to quit. It demands that you wake up and open your eyes to the harsh reality. Don’t make your life revolve around someone who doesn’t even think of you in the same way you think of them!
5- Accepting Your Own Mistakes
We’re often blind to our own mistakes; it’s rather much easier to blame someone else for the mistakes we’ve made. It’s easier for us to shift the blame and make the whole world claim responsibility for what we’ve done.
For instance, it would be much easier for someone to blame the whole world for being unfair because they quit grad school. It’s not someone else’s fault that you can’t manage your time correctly, and it’s definitely not someone else’s fault that you can’t focus on your studies!
We have to understand that owning up to our own faults is not a sign of weakness; it is rather an indicator of strength and confidence!
6- Moving On From Past Experiences
As humans, we’re unconsciously programmed to get attached to things, experiences, and people. It’s not uncommon to find it difficult to let go of something or someone that no longer serves us. It’s difficult to move on from past experiences; it makes us feel like we’re leaving a part of our soul behind because we were once a part of this something or someone.
We hold on to moments like a mother would hold her newborn. We romanticize the little things and find it difficult to say goodbye. Moving on involves change and change scares us because it involves uncertainty. Uncertainty makes us feel insecure, vulnerable and often leaves us feeling unsettled.