Trust The Process

When we’re no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves. -Viktor Frankl

Having a strong sense of purpose can massively strengthen your courage & inner strength. Finding positive meaning in challenging times allows you to rise above the challenge.

The Stoics spoke of only focusing on what you can control. There will always be things that are outside of your control. The weather, the financial markets, other people’s moods. What’s within your control is how you choose to respond to these situations. All we can ever control is our attitude, effort and focus. And that’s all we really need to control.

So how can you find meaning in adversity?

What can I learn from this? What’s the lesson?

When you can find a lesson in the midst of adversity then it makes it all worthwhile. And there’s always a lesson that can be learnt when we look for it. Asking what the lesson is encourages you to think about the future. It prompts you to what you’ll do differently when you face a similar challenge.

How do you know it’s bad?

How do you really know what’s best for you? We’re so quick to judge things from a limited time perspective. Think of all those challenges that you thought were bad for you. Many of them they turned out to be some of your greatest gifts. Not that you want to go through them again. But without them, you wouldn’t have grown to become the person you are. You wouldn’t have tapped into your hidden strengths. You wouldn’t have learnt patience, wisdom and courage.

Something feeling bad and being bad for you are not the same thing. It might just be the old way of operating breaking down so that a new & better way can take its place.

Now, how do you know beyond a reasonable doubt that this is all true? You don’t. But guess what? Challenges are a lot easier to get through when you adopt this belief.

Love Everything That Happens

The Stoics called this Amor Fati – the love of fate. Accept everything that happens rather than fight against reality.

Resisting what we can not change is an economy class ticket to a victim mentality. The journey is going to suck and the destination is going to suck a lot worse. Remember, we can’t control what happens but we can control our perception of it. Rather than judge it.

Love what is – everything that happens is the best thing otherwise it wouldn’t have happened. That’s not to say that what happened was right or fun. It might be downright unfair and unjust.

Trust the process. Trust that life & challenges are happening for you, rather than against you. And that they serve a greater reason and purpose. That sense of meaning will guide you to the best version of yourself.