How to Handle Adversity

This post is written by Kahuna Business Group CEO, Frank Lunn

I wrote this for myself at a time in my life when I desperately needed to believe it.

When I first put the words together on an index card, my confidence and belief in the statement was suspect at best. The training I received both in the military and in business, conditioned me to not retreat from problems and difficulties.

Instead, this training increased my desire to do the opposite; to boldly attack and remain on the offensive. How do you do this when your life gets turned upside down and you feel like quitting?

Every Life Will Have Difficulties
Each one of us will go through pain, difficulty and adversity in our lives. At one time or another, we will all feel a weight on us so heavy we can barely breathe. Avoiding this reality will not make it go away, nor will it allow us to grow.

Within each of the adversities we will face in our lives, whether simple ones like a clogged toilet or a babysitter that doesn’t show up, to more serious ones like loss of a career or loss of a loved one, that there is still value to find… If you know where and how to look.

A New Perspective Regarding Applied Practical Optimism
Some people are afraid of life and retreat from it thinking this will keep them from pain. Others take it head on, yet can’t handle setbacks and temporary defeats internalizing this as failure.

The Blessings In Adversity strategy is about taking life head on and then dealing with whatever feedback comes your way. It is about practical optimism as applied to your life and your situation. It is about opportunity awareness and initiative combined with personal responsibility.

Although you can’t control what happens to you, you have control in your response and in the action and attitude you take. This response as part of the opportunity and personal responsibility equation will ensure that no matter what happens in life, you are giving yourself and those you love the best opportunity to create a better situation for yourself down the road.

When your life gets tipped upside down by a situation or tragedy, you probably won’t feel resourceful or optimistic that the potential exists for good to ever come from it.

Blessings In Adversity, as a strategy, is looking at your life as a great suspense and mystery novel still in the early chapters. No matter what happens, there is a great possibility that six chapters later it will all make sense in a way you can’t possibly see now. Perhaps new characters will enter or new situations will unfold or something completely out of the blue will happen and this difficulty in your life will provide perspective or value for someone else.

All great novels have conflict and turmoil. Many include tragedy for added perspective and insight. This lets the reader create a vested interest to see how the characters develop in those opportunities specifically created for a ‘didn’t-see-it-coming’ surprise happy-ending. Like a great drama unfolding on TV or in a book, you don’t necessarily know what the future holds. You cannot see what new characters will enter your script or what new plot turns will happen.

All you have is now and your actions today.