Last week I wrote a lot about perseverance. We all face challenging situations that require us to persevere, but it can be hard, exhausting and demoralising. Having a clear understanding of WHY, plus motivation and courage to keep practicing are key. And more than that, having raving fans to persevere alongside us. Trusted folk who will believe with us that there is always a way through.
The number of links within last week’s blog indicate how often I have written about these subjects before, over these last 6 years.
Why?
Because these are some of the root issues of life.
Deepening relationships….Communication….Shared experiences….Trust and empathy….Kindness….Vision and clear goals….Resilience, practice and not giving up…..Personal growth through self reflection….Self care, honesty and knowing our limits….Seeking to be a good example.
I doubt there will ever be a time in my life when I am not learning and growing in all these areas.
Sometimes when the situation before us seems entrenched or we have been battling for a while, it might feel like there IS no way forward. We are running out of resilience and our persevering is not getting us anywhere because it seems like the way forward is blocked.
But there is always a way.
Trawling back through my early blogs, and I find one on the Mona Lisa trick. This is about perspective. When a problem seems insurmountable and that there is no way through, perhaps we need to stop and step back and look at it in a completely different light.
An early art class for one of my Nearest-and-Dearest had her copying a painting but upside down. It happened to be the Mona Lisa. But the point is that when we are so used to seeing something in a certain way – a problem, relationship, situation – we can get stuck in that perspective. Finding new creative solutions to challenges and ways forward through difficulties requires us to look at things differently.
On our own, this can often be difficult because the situation is SO familiar and we are hampered by all the associated emotions.
That is where life coaching can be so powerful. Having someone objective listen, help you explore options without judgment or assessment, and recast vision for what is most important can often enable us to get back to the roots of the issue.
And getting our heads out of the problem and using our creative brains not our problem solving ones is often what brings the breakthrough –
– there is another option. There is a way through.
When you are stuck and there seems no way forward, questions that can help gain clarity might be:
- what would I do if I knew I COULDN’T FAIL?
- if there were NO LIMITS to what I could achieve, what would I do?
- what would be the BEST possible outcome here?
- if I woke up tomorrow and this problem/situation was successfully resolved, what would that mean? How would things be different?
- what FEARS or inner drives are influencing your decision here? If those fears were removed, what would you do?
- what would those who are most INVESTED IN you say about this? What would they do and why?
- who do you most want to BE at the end of this process? What would best line up with that?
- what do you NEED to get past this that you don’t have at present? How could you take a sideways step to address that before moving on?
As always, this is food for thought. But sometimes we need to look at a situation completely differently to see that there really is always a way through.
Not giving up, persevering, and being resilient are crucial elements of our character that we want to model to others. Sometimes road blocks can come our way that seem impossible. Who is around you who could help you look at this situation differently? To restore your hope that there is always a way?