"Don't give up in times of difficulty. Persevere on as there will be an end to these."

Faith is a way of waiting—never quite knowing, never quite hearing or seeing, because in the darkness we are all but a little lost. There is doubt hard on the heels of every belief, fear hard on the heels of every hope, and many holy things lie in ruins because the world has ruined them and we have ruined them. But faith waits even so, delivered at least from that final despair which gives up waiting altogether because it sees nothing left worth waiting for.”

- Frederick Buckner, Secrets in the Dark

So, what does perseverance mean? It means that one possesses persistence, tenacity, determination, and staying power. This in turn means, when applied to a problem or issue that needs to be resolved, that the individual never gives up, never quits and never sees defeat until the problem, challenge, project, obstacle is resolved to a satisfactory level." One day someone is going to come to you and ask how you did it. Because you were creative, because you persevered, because you persisted through the resistance, you will be able to hold your chin up and help someone else overcome." The secret is a simple one that we can all do if we put our mind to it. The secret - it is perseverance." "When we choose faith over fear, trusting that God can make a way where there is no way, we can persevere through the changing seasons of life...

"For those who actually researched leaders, the inventors, the financially successful, there is one secret found within them all. Don't be disappointed.

Stick with it!”“Be resilient!”

“Never give up!”

I see a lot of stuff about resilience, persistence and grit. What I don’t see is a lot of legitimate info on how to actually increase those qualities.

How can we be more resilient? How can we shrug off huge challenges in life, persist and — in the end — succeed?

So I looked at the most difficult scenarios for insight. (Who needs resilience in easy situations, right?)

When life and death is on the line, what do the winners do that the losers don’t?

Turns out surviving the most dangerous situations have some good lessons we can use to learn how to be resilient in everyday life.

Whether it’s dealing with problems, a difficult job, or personal tragedies, here are insights that can help.

 1) Perceive and Believe

“The company already had two rounds of layoffs this year but I never thought they would let me go.”

“Yeah, the argument was getting a little heated but I didn’t think he was going to hit me.”

The first thing to do when facing difficulty is to make sure you recognize it as soon as possible.

Sounds obvious but we’ve all been in denial at one point or another. What do people who survive life-threatening situations have in common?

They move through those “stages of grief” from denial to acceptance faster:

 

They immediately begin to recognize, acknowledge, and even accept the reality of their situation… They move through denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance very rapidly.

What’s that thing doctors say when they’re able to successfully treat a medical problem? “Good thing we caught it early.”

 

When you stay oblivious or live in denial, things get worse — often in a hurry. When you know you’re in trouble you can act.

Nobody is saying paranoia is good but research shows a little worrying is correlated with living a longer life.

Okay, like they say in AA, you admitted you have a problem. What’s the next thing the most resilient people do?

 

2) Manage Your Emotions

Sometimes when SCUBA divers drown they still have air in their oxygen tanks. Seriously.

How is this possible? Something goes wrong; they panic, and instinctively pull the regulator out of their mouth.

M. Ephimia Morphew, a psychologist and founder of the Society for Human Performance in Extreme Environments, told me of a series of accidents she’d been studying in which scuba divers were found dead with air in their tanks and perfectly functional regulators. “Only they had pulled the regulators out of their mouths and drowned. It took a long time for researchers to figure out what was going on.” It appears that certain people suffer an intense feeling of suffocation when their mouths are covered. That led to an overpowering impulse to uncover the mouth and nose. The victims had followed an emotional response that was in general a good one for the organism, to get air. But it was the wrong response under the special, non-natural, circumstances of scuba diving.

When you’re having trouble breathing what’s more natural than to clear an obstruction from your mouth?

 

Now just a brief second of clear thinking tells you this is a very bad idea while diving — but when you panic, you can’t think clearly.

Rash decision making rarely delivers optimal results in everyday life either.

Resilient people acknowledge difficult situations, keep calm and evaluate things rationally so they can make a plan and act.

Al Siebert, in his book The Survivor Personality, writes that “The best survivors spend almost no time, especially in emergencies, getting upset about what has been lost, or feeling distressed about things going badly…. For this reason they don’t usually take themselves too seriously and are therefore hard to threaten.”

So you know you’re in trouble but you’re keeping your cool. Might there be a simple way to sidestep all these problems? Yeah.

 

3) Be a Quitter

Many of you might be a little confused right now: “A secret to resilience is quitting? That doesn’t make any sense.”

What do we see when we look at people who survive life and death situations? Many of them were smart enough to bail early.

“…It’s a matter of looking at yourself and assessing your own abilities and where you are mentally, and then realizing that it’s better to turn back and get a chance to do it again than to go for it and not come back at all.” We are a society of high achievers, but in the wilderness, such motivation can be deadly…

The best way to take a punch from a UFA fighter and to survive a hurricane is the same: “Don’t be there when it hits.”

You quit baseball when you were 10 and quit playing the piano after just 2 lessons. Nobody sticks with everything. You can’t.

When the company starts laying people off, there’s always one guy smart enough to immediately jump ship and preemptively get a new job.

And some people are smart enough to realize, “I am never going to be a great Tango dancer and should double my efforts at playing poker.”

And you know what results this type of quitting has? It makes you happier, reduces stress and increases health.

Wrosch found that people who quit their unattainable goals saw physical and psychological benefits. “They have, for example, less depressive symptoms, less negative affect over time,” he says. “They also have lower cortisol levels, and they have lower levels of systemic inflammation, which is a marker of immune functioning. And they develop fewer physical health problems over time.”

You can do anything — when you stop trying to do everything.

Okay, so maybe you can’t bail and really do need to be resilient. What does the research say you can do to have more grit? It sounds crazy…

 

4) Be Delusional

Marshall Goldsmith did a study of incredibly successful people. After assembling all the data he realized the thing they all had in common.

And then he shouted: “These successful people are all delusional!”

“This is not to be misinterpreted as a bad thing. In fact, being delusional helps we become more effective. By definition, these delusions don’t have to be accurate. If they were totally accurate, your goals would be too low.” Goldsmith noticed that although illusions of control expose people to risk of failure, they do something else that is very interesting: they motivate people to keep trying even when they’ve failed… “Successful people fail a lot, but they try a lot, too. When things don’t work, they move on until an idea does work. Survivors and great entrepreneurs have this in common.”

Crazy successful people and people who survive tough situations are all overconfident. Very overconfident.

Some of you may be scratching your head: “Isn’t step one all about not being in denial? About facing reality?”

You need to make a distinction between denial about the situation and overconfidence in your abilities.

The first one is very bad, but the second one can be surprisingly good. See the world accurately — but believe you are a rock star.

Denying or distorting a bad situation may be comforting in the short term, but it’s potentially harmful in the long run because it will be almost impossible to solve a problem unless you first admit you have one. In contrast, having an especially strong belief in one’s personal capabilities, even if that belief is somewhat illusory, probably helps you to solve problems… A useful, if somewhat simplistic, mathematical formula might be: a realistic view of the situation + a strong view of one’s ability to control one’s destiny through one’s efforts = grounded hope.

So this is how superheroes must feel: there’s definitely trouble, but you’re calm and you feel like you’re awesome enough to handle this.

But we need to move past feelings. What actions are going to see you through this mess?

 5) Prepare… Even If It’s Too Late for Preparation

Folks, I firmly believe there is no such thing as a “pretty good” alligator wrestler.

Who survives life threatening situations? People who have done it before. People who have prepared.

Now even if you can’t truly prepare for a layoff or a divorce, you can work to have good productive habits and eliminate wasteful ones.

Good habits don’t tax your willpower as much as deliberate actions and will help you be more resilient.

How do you survive a WW2 shipwreck and shark attacks? Keep preparing for the future, even when you’re in the midst of trouble.

 

As the days went by, he continued to concentrate on strategies for survival. At one point, a rubber life belt floated by and he grabbed it. He had heard that the Japanese would use aircraft to strafe shipwrecked Americans. The life belt could be blown up through a rubber tube. He cut the tube off and kept it, reasoning that if the Japanese spotted them, he could slip under water and breathe through the tube. He was planning ahead. He had a future in his mind, and good survivors always concentrate on the present but plan for the future. Thus, taking it day by day, hour by hour, and sometimes minute by minute, did Don McCall endure?

One caveat: as learning expert Dan Coyle recommends, make sure any prep you do is as close to the real scenario as possible.

Bad training can be worse than no training. When police practice disarming criminals they often conclude by handing the gun to their partner.

One officer trained this so perfectly that in the field he took a gun from a criminal — and instinctively handed it right back.

Johnson recounts how officers are trained to take a gun from an assailant at close quarters, a maneuver they practice by role-playing with a fellow officer. It requires speed and deftness: striking an assailant’s wrist with one hand to break his grip while simultaneously wresting the gun free with the other. It’s a move that officers had been in the habit of honing through repetition, taking the gun, handing it back, taking it again. Until one of their officers, on a call in the field, took the gun from an assailant and handed it right back again.

You’re expecting the best but prepared for the worst. Perfect. Is now the time to De-stress? Heck, no.

 

6) Stay Busy, Busy, and Busy

What’s the best way to survive and keep your emotions in check when things are hard? “Work, work, work.”

Remember the saying “Get organized or die.” In the wake of trauma, “Work, work, work,” as Richard Majolica wrote. He is a psychiatrist at Harvard who studies trauma. “This is the single most important goal of traumatized people throughout the world.” The hands force order on the mind.

When things go bad, people get sad or scared, retreat and distract themselves. That can quell the emotions, but it doesn’t get you out of this mess.

 

Resilient people know that staying busy not only gets you closer to your goals but it’s also the best way to stay calm.

And believe it or not, we’re all happier when we’re busy.

You’re hustling’. That’s good. But it’s hard to keep that can-do attitude when things aren’t going well. What’s another secret to hanging in there?

 

7) Make It a Game

In his book “Touching the Void,” Joe Simpson tells the harrowing story of how he broke his leg 19,000 feet up while climbing a mountain.

Actually he didn’t break his leg… he shattered it. Like marbles in a sock. His calf bone driven through his knee joint.

He and his climbing partner assumed he was a dead man. But he survived.

One of his secrets was making his slow, painful descent into a game.

Simpson was learning what it means to be playful in such circumstances: “A pattern of movements developed after my initial wobbly hops and I meticulously repeated the pattern. Each pattern made up one step across the slope and I began to feel detached from everything around me. I thought of nothing but the patterns.” His struggle had become a dance, and the dance freed him from the terror of what he had to do.

How does this work? Its neurosciences. Patterned activities stimulate the same reward center cocaine does.

And tellingly, a structure within the basal ganglia is activated during feelings of safety, reward, and simply feeling great. It’s called the striatum and drugs such as cocaine set it off, but so does the learning of a new habit or skill and the performance of organized, patterned activities…

Even boring things can be fun if you turn them into a game with stakes, challenges and little rewards.

 

And we can use this same system for everyday problems: How many resumes can you send out today? Can you beat yesterday?

Celebrating “small wins” is something survivors have in common.

Survivors take great joy from even their smallest successes. That is an important step in creating an ongoing feeling of motivation and preventing the descent into hopelessness. It also provides relief from the unspeakable stress of a true survival situation.

You’re a machine. Making progress despite huge challenges. What’s the final way to take your resilience to the next level? Other people.

 

8) Get Help and Give Help

Getting help is good. That’s obvious. But sometimes we’re ashamed or embarrassed and fail to ask for it. Don’t let pride get in the way.

 

What’s more fascinating is that even in the worst of times, giving help can help you.

By taking on the role of caretaker we increase the feeling of meaning in our lives. This helps people in the worst situations succeed.

Leon Weliczker survived the Holocaust not only because of his resourcefulness — but also because he felt he had to protect his brother.

 

When his fifteen-year-old brother Aaron came in, Leon was suddenly filled with love and a feeling of responsibility for the two boys. He was shedding the cloak of the victim in favor of the role of the rescuer. Terrence Des Pres, in his book The Survivor, makes the point that in the journey of survival, helping someone else is as important as getting help.

Sometimes being selfless is the best way to be selfish. And the research shows that givers are among the most successful people and they live longer.

 

Helping someone else is the best way to ensure your own survival. It takes you out of yourself. It helps you to rise above your fears. Now you’re a rescuer, not a victim. And seeing how your leadership and skill buoy others up gives you more focus and energy to persevere. The cycle reinforces itself: You buoy them up, and their response buoys you up. Many people who survive alone report that they were doing it for someone else (a wife, boyfriend, mother, son) back home.

So once the threat is passed, once the dust has settled, can we have a normal life again? Actually, sometimes, life can be even better.

 So when life is daunting and we need resilience, keep in mind:

Perceive and Believe

Manage Your Emotions

Be a Quitter

Be Delusional

Prepare… Even If It’s Too Late for Preparation

Stay Busy, Busy, Busy

Make It a Game

Get Help and Give Help

 

To live full lives some amount of difficulty is essential.

Richard Tedeschi, a psychologist who treats post-traumatic stress, said that “to achieve the greatest psychological health, some kind of suffering is necessary.”

You can meet life’s challenges with resilience, competence and grace.

And when the troubles are over, science agrees: what does not kill you can in fact make you stronger.

In our personal lives as well as on a global scale, we face challenges that test our emotional mettle: injury, illness, unemployment, grief, divorce, death, or even a new venture with an unknown future.

9. Turn toward Reality

So often we turn away from life rather than toward it. We are masters of avoidance! But if we want to be present—to enjoy life and to be more effective in it—we must orient ourselves toward facing reality. When we are guided by the reality principle, we develop a deeper capacity to deal with life more effectively. What once was difficult is now easier. What once frightened us now feels familiar. Life becomes more manageable. And there’s something even deeper that we gain. Because we can see that we have grown stronger, we have greater confidence that we can grow even stronger still. This is the basis of feeling capable, which I think is the wellspring of a satisfying life.

10. Embrace Your Life as It Is Rather than as you Wish It to Be

The Buddha taught that the secret to life is to want what you have and to not want what you don’t have. Being present means being present to the life that you have right here, right now. There is freedom in taking life as it comes to us—the good with the bad, the wonderful with the tragic, the love with the loss, and the life with the death. When we embrace it all, then we have a real chance to enjoy life, to value our experiences, and to mine the treasures that are there for the taking. When we surrender to the reality of which we are, we give ourselves a chance to do what we can do.

11. Take Your Time

As the story of the tortoise and the hare tells us, slow and steady wins the race. By being in a hurry, we actually thwart our own success. We get ahead of ourselves. We make more mistakes. We cut corners and pay for them later. We may learn the easy way but not necessarily the best way. The old adage puts it like this: the slower you go, the sooner you get there. Slow, disciplined, incremental growth is the kind of approach that leads to lasting change.

12. Practice Gratitude

It is easy to count our troubles rather than our blessings, but such an attitude undermines our ability to draw from the good that we have been given and to see our lives fundamentally as a gift. A change in perspective can make all the difference. Recognizing the good and receiving it with gratitude is a recipe for emotional health and well-being. This attitude enlarges the possibility that we can make use of the good we have been given and even use it to cope with the difficulties that we inevitably have inherited.

13. Stay Close to Your Feelings, Even the Painful Ones

Often we find our feelings scary, heavy, and confusing, so we try to keep them at a distance. But we need our feelings in order to find satisfaction, meaning, and pleasure in life. Getting rid of feelings not only backfires but it also drains us of the psychological energy that makes life worth living. Feelings are the gas in the engine of our personalities. They are the source of motivation. They are the energy, the vitality, the juice of life. Without them, our lives wouldn’t have any personality or dimension or color. There wouldn’t be any joy or creativity or fun. There wouldn’t be you. There wouldn’t be me. Without our feelings, nothing would really matter.

14. Accept Success and Failure as Part of Life’s Journey

We are all learning. No one gets it right every time. A more compassionate attitude toward ourselves only helps us to stay in the game. The dynamic process of life—trying, succeeding, failing, and trying again—is the only way to develop lasting confidence in ourselves. We learn through experience that we can both succeed and recover from failure. We also learn to be humble and so develop a view of ourselves as limited creatures that will always need the help and support of others. No matter how mature or successful we become, the child within always will need mentors and friends who’ll see us through.

15. Tend to Your Loving Relationships

It is easy to neglect what matters the most: our relationships with those we love. These relationships don’t just happen magically; they grow and are sustained through attentive care and hard work. Mature love—whether in marriage, family relationships, or friendships—is a dynamic, living experience. It is something you choose every day. It is something that is earned every day. It requires commitment to keep it working. It involves a daily process of overcoming the distance and honoring the separateness between us. It accepts the reality that we will hurt one another and be hurt by one another. It is the nature of being human. These pains cannot be avoided. We can only devote ourselves to do what we can do to weather them and to mend them. So then, love essentially is repair work. We tend to the hurts. We try to heal them. We express our concern. We take responsibility for our mistakes; we learn to say we’re sorry. We try to make amends. We learn to forgive; we accept the forgiveness of another. As the monks do every day, we fall down and get up, fall down and get up again.

16. Change yourself.

There are times when things go wrong in life. Most of us try to escape it, denying the truth life presents to us. When a problem occurs, most of the time it occurs because something is not right — you got sick because you haven’t been eating right; you are in hefty debt because you didn’t live within your means; you got backstabbed because you’re too trusting; your partner wanted to break up with you because you’re too controlling — the list goes on and on.

Instead of looking at external circumstances and blame them for unfortunate life events, look at yourself first and see if there’s anything you can improve. Can you change the way you live so that your life situation can improve? Whether it is changing your habits, attitude, or outlook, you need to change in order to improve your life’s situation. Failing to accept the truth life presents to you, you will forever fall into the traps you can never seem to escape.

If you’re going to make a change... operate from a new belief that says life happens not to me but for me.

— Tony Robbins

Everything happens for a reason and that reason leads you to another destiny. Accept the fact that shit happened to teach you something, to push you to grow, and to encourage you to change. Use this as a drive to make successfully change you for the better.

Sometimes the uncomfortable things in life are there to teach us lessons because to go through a change of habit, we need to feel uncomfortable. — Mo Seetubtim—-

17. You can’t control life but you can control yourself.

There are circumstances in life that you can’t control, i.e., being born into a dysfunctional family, losing your family member at a young age, becoming a victim of an unforeseeable accident, or having a cancer.

When you go through life’s challenges, you have the choice to either fall apart and become a victim of the circumstances, or you can rise up high and above others.— Mo Seetubtim

Surrendering to life, you become weak and vulnerable. You become easily influenced especially by bad influences such as drugs and alcohol which you’re told could help you heal pain. You become friends with bad strangers. You become sad and emotionally unstable which leads to depression and beyond.

However, if you realize that you are in control of yourself no matter what happens, you will not ignore the unfortunate circumstances and use them as springboards for the better you. You bring yourself to a healthy environment. You build yourself a support system. You surround yourself with good influences. You build yourself skills and never stop improving yourself.

18. You can’t change the way things are but you can change the way you look at things.

You cannot control what happens to you, but you can control your attitude toward what happens to you, and in that, you will be mastering change rather than allowing it to master you.

— Brian Tracy

Going through life’s challenges require strength — a lot of strength — both mental and physical because they go hand in hand. You need to stay strong. You need support from family and friends. Most importantly, you need to change your outlook on life. You need to understand that you can’t change the way things are but you can change the way you look at things.

The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you. If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you. — Tony Robbins

Use pain to motivate yourself — to become more determined, work harder, and succeed.

19. You are actually a very strong person.

A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions. — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

As a result of 2 and 3, you become a stronger person who is not afraid of anything in life. You know that no matter what happens you will be just fine. The strength you have built up over the years has become one of the most valuable assets you have. You know you have the willpower to combat anything in life.

Knowing that you are a strong person is a blessing. Because the power of the mind is very powerful.

20. You are your own worst enemy and your own best friend.

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts — Buddha

Sometimes when life hits you with a brick, you just really hate yourself. You hate yourself for letting people who’ve done you wrong into your life. You hate yourself for not being more disciplined and doing the right thing. You hate yourself for what you did in the past which caused your life to go sideways. You just can’t forgive yourself. You feel sad, upset, and angry. You just keep thinking about this over and over.

However, having gone through a struggle, you realize that sometimes you can be your own worst enemy. You can choose to blame yourself for what’s gone wrong, or you can forgive yourself and move on. Dwelling on such thoughts can only create self-harm and delay healing. To be able to heal, you need to accept the circumstances, forgive yourself and your mistakes, and move on.

Time does not heal everything but acceptance will heal everything. -Buddha

Ask yourself “What would you say to your best friend if your best friend was in the situation?” Will you put her/him down? Will you blame him or her even more for what went wrong? No, you would cheer your best friend up and try every way you can to make him/her feel better. So why aren’t you doing this to yourself? You can choose to be your own worst enemy or your own best friend. Choose wisely.

22. You realize who your true friends are

When you are up in life your friends get to know who you are. When you are down in life you get to know who your friends are. There will be many people who will be great to be around when times are easy. Instead take note of the people who remain in your life when times are hard. The friends that are willing to sacrifice their time and the resources they have in their life to help improve yours. Those are your real friends. A real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks out.

These moments are crucial in life because it’s when you realize who matters and who doesn’t. Only true friends will stick by you through tough times, help you in every way they can, and are always there to listen to you.

Once you realize who your true friends are, cherish them. They are very hard to find.

23. You realize what matters and what doesn’t.

When you are in a good financial situation, you probably find joy through activities such as dining out, going to the pub, going to events, shopping, and traveling. However, when life gets tough, you cannot afford to do those things. If you spend time feeling sad about the situation and missing the things you used to get to do, then you’d be unhappy. But if you learn to enjoy the simple things in life, little by little, and appreciate what you have, then you would realize that life is not too bad after all.

Instead of dining out, you start cooking. Instead of going out clubbing, you invite your friends over or go to their house and enjoy the company that way. Instead of going shopping, you learn to be happy with what you already have. Over and over this becomes a habit — you start to adopt a minimal way of life and find joy and happiness from the simplest things.

24. Be Present

Do not underestimate the power of being present. If you make a practice of facing your challenges—even in failure—with full presence and awareness, you will find most challenges are not challenges at all. Instead life’s challenges become messages from the universe. Meditation can help you cultivate silent awareness and is a good tool to help bring that focus to yourself during difficult times.

You can ask yourself questions that help you better understand the problem and how it affects you.

• Why is this a challenge?
• Do I believe that I am capable of being successful at this challenge?
• What are the possible outcomes if I succeed?
• What is the outcome if I fail?

These questions are not meant to solve the problem, rather they are meant to help bring you into fuller awareness of the challenge itself and your emotional reaction to it.

25. Look to Your SELF for the Solution

Others can help you arrive at your own understanding, but no one ever solves your problems for you. Even in circumstances where someone else is acting as an authority or partner, only you can decide for yourself how you will process the situation. The longer you spend searching for guidance outside of yourself, the longer you spend ignoring the problem. Even those who appear to help are only acting as instruments in the greater process of love and grace that is the true nature of your relationship to the universe.

Stop looking for the easy way out or the wise words that will show you the way. Assess the situation, your resources, and your abilities, and then act. Your action may include enlisting help from others, but it will be your challenge to solve. The sooner you take up the challenge, the quicker it stops being a problem.

26. Know Yourself

There is a reason why certain challenges seem hard to you while others breeze right through the same situations. There’s a reason why you put off a task for weeks that can be done several times a day by someone else. It’s not because they have anything over you or are better than you. And it has nothing to do with a particular skill set or know-how. It’s all about consciousness. Those who face challenging tasks have found a way to avoid seeing those activities as challenges. 

Challenges are opportunities to grow. That growth takes place out of potentiality, your potentiality, which is infinite and highly active in every moment of life. Come to know yourself as that. You are pure potential experiencing life through what seems like limitation. Challenges are spikes in that imaginary limitation barrier that guide you to awareness.

You decide: Are you limited or are you an ever-expansive growth of consciousness and love? Choose the latter, and taking another look at that so-called challenge you’ve been facing. With your potential, you can turn a mountain of a challenge into a speck of dust—take that dreaded project and turn it into that thing you did before lunch today.

27. Detach From the Outcome

Stressing about the potential outcome is often what turns a molehill into a mountain. Once you shift your focus to the thing you’re actually doing, instead of the result, the most intimidating parts of the trial start to disappear.

When you attach emotions to the problem, it has power over you. If you simply perform the task at hand without worrying about the outcome, you have power over the situation.

Some challenges seem enormous and harsh, but if you remain centered and full of awareness, no challenge is too big to meet with power and grace.

HERE IS A List of Life Challenges

 

We are all our own worst enemies. We each have many life challenges that sabotage ourselves, limit our thinking, trigger negative responses and compromise ourselves.

Quickly scan the list below and watch for any items that grab your attention in some way. If you are open and receptive, your intuition will flag items that deserve your attention. Note the life challenges that 'resonate' with you,

Then logically pick out the top 7 for further exploration.

 Abandonment

Absentmindedness

Abuse

Accidents

Accusing

Acting the clown

Addictions

Aggression

Always being with people

Ambition

Analyzing

Anger

Anxiety

Arguing

Arrogance

Attachment

Avoidance

Being judgmental

Being opinionated

Being reactive

Being scattered

Being too emotional

Being ungrounded

Blaming

Blind devotion

Boredom

Bossiness

Busyness

Carelessness

Co-dependency

Complaining

Compromise

Compulsion

Conflict

Confusion

Control

Cowardice

Criticism

Cruelty

Cynicism

Deceitfulness

Deception

Defensiveness

Defiance

Denial

Dependency

Depression

Deviousness

Discounting

Dishonesty

Disorder

Disoriented

Dominance

Doubt

Drama

Dreaming

Egotism

Emotions

Envy

Escape

Exaggeration

Excessive focus on others

Excuses

Extremism

Failure

Fantasizing

Faulty beliefs

Fears

Feeling needy

Fixed ideas

Focusing on the past

Foolishness

Forgetfulness

Frustration

Futility

Future thinking

Glamour’s

Greed

Guilt

Hate

Hopelessness

Humourlessness

Humor

Ignorance

Ignoring

Illness

Illusions

Impatience

Impractical

Impulsiveness

Inaccuracy

Indecision

Indifference

Inertia

Inflexible character

Injury

Insecurity

Insensitivity

Intellectualization

Intolerance

Isolation

Jealousy

Judging

Justifying limitations

Lack of commitment

Lack of confidence

Lack of creativity

Lack of discipline

Lack of energy

Lack of purpose

Lack of trust

Laughing it off

Laziness

Living in the past

Loneliness

Low energy

Lying

Malnutrition

Manipulation

Martyrdom

 

 

 

Don’t let your dream die in the valley!

If you’re in a season of refining, lean in. Trust the loving hand of your precious Savior and know that He will lead you to the other side. Refuse a sense of entitlement and don’t demand to be understood.

Instead, humble yourself and seek to understand what the Lord is doing around you.

He will faithfully lead you and you will be strengthened as you go.

On the other side of this refining time is a fresh perspective and new mercies.

Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God; in due time you will be lifted up and honored before a watching world.

Here’s my question for you: Do you have a sense of how God is using your current circumstances to prepare you for a great calling?......POST YOUR REFLECTIONS....AWAITING...HERE...