“Challenges will come to all of us. How we choose to see and handle them will determine how we go through them and learn or just endure them.” – Kris Barney
There are many ways for us to look at challenges. I love this quote; “Challenges are what make life interesting. Overcoming them is what makes it meaningful.” Having gone through many of life’s most difficult challenges myself with my family, I have lead a “Most Interesting & Meaningful Life!” One that most people cannot believe, with the challenges we have had to face, and the amount of challenges we are currently facing at any given time. It makes sense to me, why I do what I do now! It is definitely interesting and above all, meaningful! Believe it or not, everyone has garbage in our lives. I am not referring to literal garbage, but in the “baggage and
challenges” that we face in life. They become our garbage and then we must choose how we view it, how long we hang on to it and how we feel about it. It does really come down to a choice, a decision and finding what we can learn from it.
Many of our Challenges are extremely difficult. They leave us with pain and hurt. That is when we must choose whether they become garbage that we drag with us for long periods of time, or if we learn from it quickly and find the Gift within the trial. I have not always had the view I have now. There have been times when I wondered ‘Why us’, ‘Not again’, ‘How can we get through this’, or ‘Are You Kidding Me?’ When I have been in that kind of mindset, one I see as inward focused, overwhelmed, frustrated, depressed and negative; I have NEVER been able to see a meaningful outcome. All I could see during that time was pity, sadness, despair and pain.
Gifts are the lessons that we learn and the knowledge that we gain because of having to go through a particular trial or challenge. I can tell you from experience, that the more quickly we learn the lesson and move forward, the less time we must stay in that trial. That sounds almost too easy. It never seems easy when we are faced with a tremendous trial, but the more we focus on what we are learning and what we are gaining from it, the faster we “pass that test”! The sooner we can move forward and have a different focus in our life. You have heard, “The way we handle anything is the way we handle everything!” Guess what, it’s true! To have our lives become what we want them to become, we must start doing things differently. That starts with how we see our challenges, our trials and our hardships. Our lives are abundantly blessed. But for most of us we are so focused on the “baggage or garbage” that we start to not even see or recognize the gifts. We do not learn the lesson and then we are faced with that same lesson in a different challenge. Our purpose in this life is not to be miserable….it is to be happy and joyous, to gain knowledge and learn. The only way to do that is to have things that challenge us and push our buttons to create the best YOU possible! When we choose to see the lesson, and learn it more quickly, the challenge becomes easier or in many cases, goes away. When we choose to find the joy, the lesson and the benefit in what we are going through blesses others and our selves. We are all given challenges in order to learn and grow…let’s do it as fast as possible and move on! Onward and Upward, right?
Watch today to see how you can recognize the gifts in your challenges. They will assist you to become a better you! When we honestly take a look inside of ourselves, we can evaluate, make a few consistent adjustments and create positive change. It does not have to be a major overhaul to make important shifts in who we are and how we are viewing our own lives. Watch this week’s episode to see how to really find the Gifts in Your Garbage. It is possible to see things differently and to actually treasure the challenge that taught you the lesson. This is a step by step, hands on 30 minute training where you focus on your garbage and the gifts you have learned!