The Art of Perspective: Seeing Challenges as Opportunities

In an increasingly uncertain world, new challenges are popping up everywhere, and this includes in our everyday lives. Perhaps you are aiming to pursue a doctorate in counseling online to deepen both your clinical insight and leadership skills, which enables you to become a professional who helps others reframe their challenges and build resilience.

From being faced with important decisions about new undertakings, whether that be to apply for a new job or start a new course, to standing at a crossroads of life, these instances are, in fact, the best times to see them as opportunities for your personal growth and evolution.

The Need to See Challenges as Opportunities

It's a hard pill to swallow, and even more difficult to practice, but any adversity, loss, whether that be a loss of a job, the passing of a loved one, a foreclosure, a difficult education course, or a need to move away somewhere completely foreign to you, can be turned into a chance for self-reflection and change – that is, choosing growth over despair.

A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor, and life is never all smooth sailing. Challenges are an inevitable part of our journeys, and they can be daunting and even overbearing, and downright scary sometimes. But it is important to recognize that these challenges are ripe with potential and sources of imminent personal growth and change.

Whenever we confront these challenges, we are forced to come out of our bubbles and comfort zones. We enter a space where we learn new skills, develop adaptive skills, and even discover the strengths we never realized we had. It is only in these moments, where we might have been pushed to the corner, that we truly evolve and blossom out of these same fetters or stumbling blocks.

Having these views unlocks and opens us up to learning and improving. Instead of just retracting when encountering a problem, each hurdle is turned into a sort of stepping stone towards the path of becoming our best selves.

See Everything as Temporary

When you understand that everything is temporary, including any challenges that come your way, you learn to embrace what happens without letting it own you. Letting these temporary circumstances consume you entirely is what leads you to become frozen in them. By remembering that all obstacles, setbacks, and difficulties are only temporary, you're able to meet challenges with more confidence and empowerment.

Contrarily, while it is absolutely normal to want things to always be fun, engaging, and enjoyable, you must also accept that even these times are temporary. Having this worldview ensures that you will not only develop a greater appreciation of the good moments but also be better equipped to combat the bad ones as well.

Research shows that resilient people are not immune to stress – they are, however, faster adapters. Emotional flexibility (the ability to quickly shift in how we think or respond to challenges) is one of the most important predictors for fast recovery.

See A Pivot

Every effective strategy leaves wiggle room to pivot and adjust. If you have a plan and are willing to learn and be adaptive to things as you go, you will be able to enter a flow state where you can tackle anything coming at you. The right time to pivot is when you feel like you are making the most effort but going in circles.

Making pivots can pave the way for you to see other parts of yourself that you perhaps did not realize. They are necessary for the mind, body, and spirit, especially when in an unhealthy, unhappy, or difficult situation, and can be a profound step in rebuilding the confidence you have in yourself.

Make No Excuses

Making excuses has become part of human nature. When things don't go right, we may look for something or someone to blame, rather than taking accountability for ourselves. The greatest people take ownership of whatever results they yield and conscientiously choose the next step to respond to that result.

Moreover, excuses not only harm your progress, they also slow and stunt your growth in the long-term as well. They are self-limiting beliefs that can easily spiral into a bad habit of constantly positioning yourself in a state of victimization and powerlessness. While you may make excuses to seek forgiveness from others, self-forgiveness, or to mitigate personal responsibility, it can come off as an attempt to manipulate the emotions of others or even yourself.

The greatest people strike a balance of not being too hard on themselves while also not wallowing in self-pity and shutting down thinking they are not good enough or deserving enough. There is a Goldilocks zone of having self-compassion and self-criticism, to learn, improve, and adjust as the next step is taken.

Make Effort

Growth rarely takes place when you are in a slump – and that's okay. If you feel like you want to have a sabbatical, take it as an opportunity to rest. But it is also important to learn when to persevere and push through.

In fact, using your rest as an opportunity to self-reflect, to see what has gone right and what has gone wrong, can help you make a plan on how to move forward. Effort is foundational because it is the precise element that facilitates us to achieve our goals and make tangible progress towards our objectives or goals.

A 2022 study reveals the explicit links between effort and more efficient learning from positive outcomes and less efficient learning from negative outcomes. This is indicative of how to use the pain of where you are and the outcome you wish to realize to stay motivated to do your best, while also being kind to yourself and taking a break when you have to.

Mind the Mindset

Finally, your mindset and the intentions you set for yourself cannot be ignored. If you think a problem is going to be hard, it most likely will be, so it is important to have a sense of intentionality when approaching things. Having a growth mindset means you are ready to face challenges head-on, turning them into opportunities for learning and improvement – the challenge turns into something exciting rather than threatening. And most importantly, the flames of your motivation are fanned, pushing you to overcome any barriers.