Someday you’ll look back on all the progress you made and be so glad that you didn’t give up.
We all get stuck from time to time, but if we keep chipping away at our goals, one day we’ll look back at what was once difficult and realize how far we’ve come since then.
When we’re making slow and steady progress, we may not realize how much we’ve improved. But take a moment to look back. Reflect on how far you’ve come already and keep that in mind when you feel like giving up on today’s tough task.
Don’t give up. Never stop trying to improve yourself. Always keep learning, growing, developing new skills, and enhancing old ones.
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” – Albert Einstein.
Albert Einstein has been attributed with saying, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” I don’t know the context in which he was speaking, but that’s almost irrelevant, as the statement applies to nearly every situation.
Whenever you encounter difficulties/challenges/obstacles/hardships, whenever you are frustrated by something, there is an opportunity for you to improve yourself or to improve the situation. It’s like when you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up. Sure, most people aren’t at rock bottom, so the situation could possibly get worse as well, but if you are cognizant of your surroundings, your mindset, and the actions you are taking (or not taking), you can usually find a way to make things better.
Another way to think of it (especially when it comes to frustration at work) is that if it was easy to correct, everyone would do it and the solution would be devalued. Your worth to an employer would decrease, because if they could pay a teenage kid with no education in that specific field to do it at a cheaper cost, they would. Or if the data could be plugged into an algorithm and a robot could use artificial intelligence to solve the problem, you would be out of a job. So, the next time you get irritated by your work not going as smoothly as you want, follow these simple steps…
First, try to figure out what went wrong then stop doing that. Where did things go south? Was it something within your control? Then do something different. Was it something someone else did? See if you can walk alongside them and work through the issue with them so it doesn’t happen again.
Second, develop systems/standard operating procedures so next time a situation like that occurs, there is a manual for you (or someone on your team) to refer to without wasting too much brain power. Tweak this as you get more information and follow the results.
Third, be thankful that your work can be challenging. Humans need to overcome challenges to feel satisfied. If it wasn’t challenging and you were bored out of your mind every day, you would eventually hate your job. And remember, if your job doesn’t require skill, you are expendable to the next cheapest laborer.
To summarize, use challenges as a learning experience of how to NOT do something, or if it causes enough pain/frustration to you and others, then work to capitalize on that by creating a better answer. Solve the problem to not only help yourself, but to help others too. The more people you help, the more you will be compensated. (This is what Matthew McConaughey recently discussed on The Tim Ferriss Show and The Joe Rogan Experience, referring to it as the egotistical utilitarian…Why shouldn’t you aim to do something that gets you what you want, but also helps others? That’s a win-win scenario.)
Whether things are going well or going poorly, reflect as to what you could have done differently and how that might have improved your situation.
You can always improve. It’s up to you to decide how much you want to put into something and if it’s worth the effort, time, energy, money, etc.
Whatever your decision is, it’s not necessarily right for everyone. It just has to be right for you. Your situation is different from theirs. Don’t judge how others live their lives – just focus on what you can do to improve yours.
