Why Struggling Is Good For You

The only person that can change your life is you. You have the full capability to turn your life around in any area and start creating a better future today. You're probably thinking... Right... If that were true, do you think I would choose to be out of shape, in debt, or in a bad relationship? No, I don't think anybody would deliberately choose those things. But what we do choose is how we react to those challenges; and then how we react or take action creates the results that we receive. So is your current reaction helping to fuel the problem or the solution?

Challenges and adversity are good. They make us grow, learn, change, and ultimately become a different or better version of ourselves. If we never had any resistance to our lives, we wouldn't have the qualities that make us proud to be who we are. When a challenge is placed in front of us, we learn valuable lessons. We learn who we want to be, who we don't want to be, and who we are.

I always had a hard time accepting the fact that I would struggle. Struggling used to be in direct correlation with being a failure. I would think, if it was something that challenged me then I was probably doing something wrong. I could not have been more wrong... When you try something new and get all excited you'll likely experience what is called "beginners luck." Opportunities or people will line up perfectly almost like magic. Then challenges will be put in your way. This is the worlds way of testing you to see how bad you actually want it. If you are willing to push through a little resistance, then the reward will be yours. If you give up, the universe will take that as you didn't want it, and you'll never get it. But it will always, always, always be up to you on what the outcome will be.

You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be anything other than you and who you are right now. Struggle will turn you into the person you are dreaming about becoming. Take a step back and look at the beauty within struggle. Start to replace the word struggle with change. Here is an example of what I mean. You told yourself that this year you want to be fit, healthy, and feel good. So you start running, taking up yoga classes, maybe you ate a salad instead of fries for lunch, and all of a sudden the excitement just isn't there anymore. It starts to become hard. (Side note, being healthy doesn't have to be boring or simply eating salads. There are plenty of delicious healthy options which is why I created the "meals" tab). When this change to eating and being healthy starts to become hard you say, "Man, I'm really struggling sticking to my plan of going to the gym." When you replace struggle with change, what you tell yourself then becomes, "Man, this is a really big change sticking to my plan of going to the gym." It starts to re-frame the situation and put that challenge in a more positive light. The main take away here is to not give up when it starts to get hard, because that is when you and your body are changing. That is when you are becoming who you decided you wanted to be. It is the worlds way of giving you what you asked for, so don't resist it.

Start to replace the word "struggle" with "change."