Using Adversity as the First Step to Self-Improvement

“Once you say you’re going to settle for second, that’s what happens to you in life.”
- John F. Kennedy

Throughout our lives, there are times when we amble through our days in a fog of indifference and perceived comfort. These periods are usually caused by a relationship we take for granted, a job that no longer has any meaning or challenge to us, or loss of belief in our own capabilities. We settle for what we have because a deep lethargy has settled over us, and to strive for more is a dangerous proposition because we fear to fail. We would rather be comfortable now, than risk taking any chances and losing what we have come to believe is an ideal situation; our lot in life.

Deep into these periods something usually crumbles.

Just because we are comfortable in the relationship doesn’t mean our partner is. Though we coast through days in our job, those around us, and those who decide if we’re worth our pay-cheque, notice that there is no longer any ambition, eagerness, or pride to our work.

It’s at this point someone else in your life takes the decision away from you, and informs you that things can no longer go on the way they are, completely destroying the comfort zone you have been existing in. They make a decision that gives you no option but to stop, take stock of your life, and hopefully make you realise how unfullfilling and joyless your life had become.

When All Comfort is Gone

When this change is forced on you an initial sense of panic sets in. The safe and comfortable world you had been blindly wandering through has become unfamiliar and hostile, and in that panic you strive to regain that sense of that normalcy.

When you realise it can’t be regained, and that even if you could return to the status quo the doubts that it could all fall apart again would gnaw at you, you begin to ask yourself questions filled with fear and self-doubt. What if you aren’t capable of recovering from this setback? What if those moments were the best you could do? What if you lose even more? What if? What if? What if?

As long as you ask these questions of yourself you remain locked in this cycle of fear and inaction. Each person is different, each person comes to the same realisation in his or her own time but each, and every, person eventually comes to it.

The Realisation

The day you stop asking “What if?” and begin deciding what’s next, is the day everything begins to change. You come to a point where you have to stop looking backwards, because all you see is the indifference and lethargy that lead you into this situation.

Looking forward you begin to see the possibilities that are out there waiting for you to grasp; the opportunities you had been missing because of the fog you were walking in. You realise that most are not some far away dream that would always be unattainable to you, but are in fact very achievable if the correct steps are taken. The world has re-awoken for you all because of that one moment of adversity. You find that spark deep within yourself that drove you so far in the past being reignited, and is slowly beginning to shine. You look at your life as a whole and find where things require repairing, replacing, and improving.

You realise that being stuck in a comfort zone is a terrible place to be. You should never settle for what you have, but strive to improve it. You can always make a great relationship better, you can always push your boundaries at work, and you can always, always improve yourself. All it takes is to truly look at yourself, faults and all, and decide what you actually want from life.

Fear and indifference are the worst of you, push them aside and look for what brings the joy into your life. Frequently adversity is the driving force behind us taking that first step, but it doesn’t need to be.

“Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson