Everyone struggles. Individuals struggle with their fierce inner critic. Relationships struggle through issues of trust. Executives struggle with their burgeoning to-do lists. Businesses struggle to be profitable. Nations struggle to keep their citizens safe.
Your professional life is riddled with struggle. Look back at landing that first job and the ones that followed. All have been a blend of initial excitement and then great learning—about yourself, others, and your industry.
While experiencing many successes and perhaps failures along the way, you also experienced struggle – struggle in dealing with people, your own insecurities, deciding to stay and work harder or leave and find something with greater possibilities.
Next, you become a leader whose days are filled with struggles that you couldn’t have imagined. All eyes are on you expecting excellence. Your workday never ends. You set high standards for yourself and everyone around you. Few live up to your expectations. You wonder if it’s all worth it.
If struggling is a fact of life, why do we otherwise brilliant individuals try to avoid, ignore, and deny it?
Anyone who has come out on the other side of a major life struggle knows that the benefits far outweigh costs. Losses could be financial, relationships, ego. Gains can be financial, relationships, piece of mine and a new, stronger you
One stops lying to oneself through the process of a struggle. You have no choice but to face the facts of your current situation.
Struggle invites you to ask the question:
“Is this merely tolerable or is it time to make a change?”
Struggle forces you to think, to dream, and to look for new ways of organizing yourself, your relationships, goals, behaviors and your life.
Coming out on the other side of a struggle, you feel accomplished, stronger, wiser and more confident. In many ways you feel like a new person.
You’ve likely created new relationships with yourself and others. You’ve found new friends, mentors, or coaches who helped you gain new insights moving forward,
One is never the same after coming through on the other side of a struggle. It’s like stretching a rubber band—once stretched it takes on a new form; or, like the butterfly that never looks back at the cocoon left behind. The results can be exhilarating.
There are no shortcuts. You have to go through the steps and stages to get there.
I find the standard journalist questions make understanding a struggle a tad easier. Ask yourself:
What. What is creating the struggle? What specifically do I want to change? What can I imagine? What is my greatest fear? What is holding me back?
Why. Not, why am I in this situation. Rather, why do I want to make a change? Why is this important to me? Why am I standing still in this struggle rather than moving forward?
Who. Who can I call upon to provide perspective, answers, guidance? Who can introduce me to the people, jobs, opportunities that will open my world?
Where. Where do I need to be as I work through this? Do I need to escape to the mountain, a lake, river or ocean to figure this out? Where do I want to land? New office, city, country?
How. How will I move forward? How will I find the strength and determination and courage to move forward?
When. Timing is everything. When is the best time to make the move? Do I cut the Gordian Knot or plan a slow, strategic move?
Sometimes struggle is thrust upon us as in losing a job or important relationship. Other times it’s our choice to leave an unhealthy situation. And then there are the times that we are in struggle without knowing it.
Either way, coming out of a struggle provides invaluable insight on where we’ve been, what’s now possible for us, who we are and the talents and strength that we possess.
Is the struggle worth it? I’d absolutely say “Yes.” If you are in struggle, I challenge you to pick up the pace in facing it head on. If you know someone in struggle give them the gift of this article. It may just be their ticket out.
Master Executive & Leadership Coach Ann Golden Eglé, MCC, has steered highly-successful individuals to greater results since 1998. President of Golden Visions & Associates, LLC, Ann can be reached at 541-385-8887 or subscribe to her newsletter at www.GVAsuccess.com.
