Challenges as Opportunities to Grow
To be honest, my immediate reaction when I hear that something is going to be a challenge is to hate it – I don’t immediately see challenges as opportunities. It sounds to me like sugar coating of a very bitter pill that soon I will have to swallow! In fact, according to the dictionary, the word ‘challenge’ refers to a competition, when an assumption is questioned, or a difficult task, a problem, a bother. Certainly not something I wish to come across.
After experiencing quite a few struggles in recent years, I have come to understand that they are nothing I can control – challenges and difficulties will continue to appear on their own. But I’ve also learned that I wouldn’t give up any of the things that are truly dear to me, just because I encountered difficulties on the way. Sometimes, I would even say, the bumpy road and the energy I invested in going through the difficulty just made whatever I was trying to achieve, more precious.
My Personal Challenge
If I look at the challenges I encountered in my life, some of them were chosen and I dove into them with all my energy and will, but some came completely unexpected, confusing the image I had of myself, of my life and of everyone that was involved. Yet other times, I jumped happily into what I thought would be an exciting adventure, but that proved to be more difficult than I could have imagined.
Emigrating from Israel to Germany for example, was one of those miscalculated adventures. I came to Berlin thinking about how to achieve goals I had in mind. My main goal was to open a new activities and personal development center and build for myself a place where I would feel at home. However, it all took much longer than I had anticipated. Coming from a small place where people often know each other and personal communication is fast and expressive, people were slightly intimidated when I would talk to them in a straight forward manner, or make eye contact in the street. I felt as if I was stripped of my knowledge of how to be – how to communicate with people as if there is no result to my actions. In some moments, I just wanted to pack up everything and run back home.
Slowly, I found out how to communicate in a new language, discovered where I wanted to adjust things and where I preferred to stay closer to my origins. My most important step was to stop constantly comparing my new environment to my homeland and to accept that overcoming obstacles in life was part of the transition. Even still once in a while, I am confronted by another aspect of not being a native, in the place that I live and am bringing up my son.
Our Challenges as Opportunities
Looking backwards, it might have been the best way to do it – excited, happy and a bit blind to the size of the step that was going to be needed from me. And then, though I went through highs and lows, doubts and happy moments, I gained much more than a place to live as a result. I learned to listen more and observe, I overcame my embarrassment many times to approach different people, learning to be more confident in the process. I learned about persistence as well as flexibility and most of all, I found my own way to be with people. A way that does not come from my past and is not what I thought I should be, but is natural to me.
And this is exactly the thing – when we go through a challenge, we are pushed out of our comfort zone and are required to obtain new knowledge, new traits and behaviours. We are demanded upon to focus on what is really important to us and persist in pursuit of that. Then our strengths and the other qualities that we were often not aware of, come to the surface and find their expression. It is then that we can see our challenges as opportunities to grow and widen our range of experiences and abilities.
Our Approach Matters
Whether we walk towards a challenge with our eyes open or it jumps out at us uninvited, what we can affect is who we are in that process. We can decide who we want to be while facing them and owning the difficulties as much as the successes. This helps us to save our energy for what we want and need the most and cultivate trust and self-confidence.