How to Turn the Obstacles You Face into Positives

How to Turn the Obstacles You Face into Positives-Chispa Magazine
It’d be nice if life was the pleasant ride that everyone wishes it was, but every once in a while, obstacles will come up during your journey to self-realization. Not every obstacle will look alike, so it’s hard to know how to avoid them when they arise.

Obstacles take on many different forms, sometimes not even seeming like an issue at first. You could be facing difficulty at work, a stressful life at home or financial troubles. Even seemingly small ones, like having to go back to the grocery store after forgetting to get something, can impact you in bigger ways than you might think.

If you’ve found that you’re facing more obstacles than you’d like, read on for tips you can use to turn your obstacles into strengths moving forward. The natural instinct is to try to avoid problems, but what you should really do is learn to face and embrace them.

Change Your Perspective
Not many people think about this, but the way you approach certain repetitive situations in life has been created by a lifetime of perspectives. When something bad happens, the first thing you do is feel panicked or angry, resenting what’s happening because you’d rather have had a different outcome.

The first step to finding strength in difficulties is to change your perspective when you have no control. A good way to do that is to come up with a saying that will help you recognize when you have the wrong perspective.

Imagine setting a goal for yourself and then not reaching that goal. You’ll be tempted to think less of yourself, so stop yourself and say out loud, “Perspective is key.” Anything along those lines will help stop your negative mindset and remind you to look at what’s happening from a different point of view.

Never Stop Moving
Once you’ve recognized that you have the wrong perspective, keep going. Don’t stay stuck in an unmoving mental space. Being stuck is when you let negative energies surround your spirit and surrender to them.

You can’t surrender if your mind keeps moving forward. A good way to unstick negative emotions and banish them is to grasp for even a little bit of self-kindness. Remind yourself of your successes and what makes you proud to be you. The positivity will cause your spirit to lift, leading to more mental success when battling an obstacle.

Recognize Positive Failure
The last thing and perhaps the best thing you can do to find strength after running into an obstacle in life is to recognize positive failure. You can look for how bad can turn into good to keep yourself from creating negativity that will drag your spirit down.

Picture yourself in a situation where you’ve fallen back into a bad habit that you’ve been trying to break. Instead of focusing on failure, analyze what triggered it. What happened leading up to the event you don’t want to repeat? Tell yourself that this is a learning experience and that you’ll avoid doing the same things again. You’ll help yourself reach your goals without dwelling on failure as a negative experience.

There is always room for self-improvement, even when you’re facing obstacles in life. Things don’t have to always go well for you in order for you to become a stronger person. Sometimes people learn best when they encounter difficulties, because it challenges them to think differently and grow more.

Obstacles in life don’t have to worry you or cause panic when they happen. The key is to change your perspective, keep your spirit moving and look at the event as a way to learn. Learning something means you’re growing, so there can never be enough opportunity to embrace something new.

Change is difficult, and failure is hard to deal with, but obstacles are not the end of your journey. You can learn to navigate through or around them and come out the other side as a stronger person. It will take practice, but your efforts will pay off in the end.

Photo by Michael Heuser

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Kate Harveston

Kate Harveston

Kate Harveston is an online journalist from Pennsylvania. She enjoys writing about women's issues, career advice, and sociopolitical change. If you enjoy her writing, you can visit her at OnlySlightlyBiased.com.