Challenges: Change Your Mindset

Wow! For the past week, I have been in the throes of grueling final exam preparation and last minute Flights of the Bumble Bee to finish personal and team papers, one of which, at the last minute, was discovered as having NO CONCLUSION!! How does that happen!? Talk about an intense level of anxiety! How timely that I stumbled upon these little golden nuggets of sage advice...

Here is one that particularly resonated:

Change Your Mindset
"Learn to view challenges or any setback as an opportunity for growth and personal development. See what society has taught us are negatives (stress! deadlines! unpleasant personalities!) and view them as positives. Relax into the discomfort and find the lessons."

Here's what I learned from that little pearl of wisdom:  

1: Do not take any challenge - criticism, inefficiencies in business, interpersonal challenges - personally (so tough for me!) 

2: View these challenges as opportunities to learn how to work harder or smarter and to better relate to my "audience" (whether a professor, teammate, client, etc.).

For example(s): Am I being concise in my term paper and injecting lingo and lessons that were emphasized in class to ensure that I am giving the professor what s/he wants in valuable and relevant manner? Was I an assertive, but effective and respectful communicator in group settings? How could I have helped our group avoid crafting a conclusion to a 15 page term paper two hours before the deadline? How can I better balance duties at work with duties at home, but still find time to do the things that I enjoy, like time with friends or going running?

In and of itself, it is a challenge to change the way we think about the challenges we face, but challenges are inevitable, and the only things we can genuinely control are our attitudes and our behavior.