In life, your problems and negative experiences do not have to just be something you endure or move past. These troubling circumstances and events can be learning tools for you that can help to design a better life moving forward. The problems in your life can be helpful and informative to help you determine how best to create your future.
Learning from negative experiences improves your future decisions. Setbacks and failures are learning opportunities, and you can apply this to your next attempt or future goals. Problems provide you with the skills and knowledge you did not have previously and improve how you decide to pursue things in the future.
“Focus on the solution, not on the problem.” Jim Rohn
The negative experiences in your life often point to areas in your skills, knowledge, or self-knowledge that need improvement. Even when the circumstances were completely random and beyond your control, you can still learn a lot about yourself, including areas for improvement.
You should use problems to help you navigate a better life design for you.
How To Use Problems to Redesign Your Life
Designing your life means choosing between many possible futures, and then making a choice to do the work necessary to accomplish your goals. These choices define who you are and what you will become.
“Identify your problems but give your power and energy to solutions.” Anonymous
Designing your life means choosing between many possible futures, and then making a choice to do the work necessary to accomplish your goals. These choices define who you are and what you will become.
For each of these problems, then, you need to determine the source or type of your difficulties. Is it a minor screw-up that was easily fixable? If so, have you acknowledged this problem and either apologized if needed or otherwise moved on? These types of problems shouldn’t necessarily inform your design process, but they can tell you where you need to focus more attention in your daily life.
“Impossible only means that you haven’t found the solution yet.” Anonymous
Remember, avoidance is a choice, too. Not all problems require a solution. Some just need to not be repeated.
Become Immune to Failure
When you see your problems and failures as learning opportunities, and when you realize that designing your own life means you can’t fail, you will become immune to worry and anxiety about your problems and fears.
Your problems are what help you develop perseverance or what some call grit. When you see your problems and failures as growth experiences, instead of roadblocks, you build grit and are able to accept that life is a process, not an outcome.
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking that created them.”
There is no winning or losing when you choose to design your own life because the process means you get to keep designing and changing in pursuit of happiness.
“If you define the problem correctly, you almost have the solution.” Steve Jobs
Your problems are just the raw material for your dreams. We all have problems and make mistakes, but learning from these is what makes you a stronger, more confident person who is ready to pursue any dream you choose.
