Lesson #3 – Difficult times will reveal the true you (good or bad)!

This is one lesson that taught me so much about myself and continues to do so. Struggling through a difficult time in life will reveal your true self. Difficult times bring up many different emotions and questions. I spent quite a bit of time feeling unclear and worrying about the future, but I kept telling myself I needed to take it one day at a time. This mantra kept me from dwelling on potential problems or events that hadn’t even happened yet, instead of focusing on what was happening in the present. So how do difficult times reveal the true you?

Because when faced with tough decisions, how you react to them will reveal your true self. And later, when you have the time and energy to reflect on your reaction(s) you will have the perfect opportunity to experience personal growth.  

What I Learned About Myself

It’s not always easy learning about yourself because sometimes you see things you don’t like. The great part about learning about yourself is you can do something about those things. Here are a couple of big things I learned about myself and what I did about it.

• I was trying to do things alone and that wasn’t healthy. It’s somewhat ironic because in business I am always advising others not to do everything by yourself and that you need support. So why was I trying to do things in my personal life alone? I don’t have a clear answer to that question, I’d say it was a combination of many things. The important thing is that I started asking for help and that was very hard for me to do. The more I asked for help the easier it got and the better I felt! What did I do to ask for help? I asked a family member for financial help, I asked friends to help pick up or watch my son at various times, and I asked a client about books on a specific topic that I knew would help me cope.  
• I thought I wasn’t good enough! I call myself a recovering perfectionist. Even though I knew I had those tendencies I continued to tell myself nothing I did was good enough. It didn’t matter what it was, I was never reaching my very unrealistic expectations for myself. This led to constant disappointment in myself and a sense of failure. To turn this around I started to ask myself the question “what if” and thinking about how that felt. For example, let’s say I had a client meeting I needed to reschedule, my first instinct was “no I can’t do that, it’s not professional and what if the client gets upset”. Then I would stop and ask myself “what if I did move it, what’s the worst that could happen and how would that feel”. As I started to ask myself these questions, I realized it wasn’t so bad after all and it took away so much unnecessary pressure I was putting on myself.

And if this provided any clarity for you, or you are dealing with a difficult time in your business and found a way to deal with it I would love to hear from you. Click here to contact me!