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Look back on your greatest struggles
Yahallo, Upstarts!
Today, when I asked myself what I wanted to do today, I thought of something strange about work and success.
When we’re working for a goal, we hate all of the things in our way.
We hate the team member who just doesn’t do their work. We hate the deadline that’s so close, it feels impossible to overcome. We hate that one situation that really sets everything in your plan back, especially when you were really depending on it.
There’s a lot of things to hate.
But after we’ve succeeded, our view of it shifts a little.
Today’s agenda is designed to:
✔ Introduce a different and more objective view to obstacles
✔ Shift the instinctive response when faced with obstacles through cognitive reframing
✔ Get you started. Now.
You will still hate obstacles.
We still hate that team member. We still hate that deadline. and we definitely still hate everything that destroys our perfectly crafted plans.
But first, a little disclaimer. I AM NOT saying that you should be happy and accepting of obstacles. Obstacles suck and feel bad for a reason. Your emotions are valid. Your reasons are valid.
We all have reasons to hate them.
What I AM saying is that obstacles are probably not as bad as you think.
Obstacles aren’t the end of everything.
I was always the type of student who never really studied.
Sorry not sorry.
I would always go home, play games all night, waste my life away, and then go to school the next day acing the exam. My school life was a cycle of degeneracy that I still struggle to grow out of to this day.
And it continued until I literally couldn’t.
I started struggling with quizzes, getting lower and lower grades, until I was no longer the top. I started middling, being average in grades. And then I failed an exam.
For someone like me, who identified as an honor student (which, I know, sounds stupid when it comes after my admission of being a degenerate type of student, but I really was one), it felt like the end of the world. I felt like a failure, like I’d fail the subject and not graduate. I felt like I let everybody down. I felt like I let down my own image of myself.
I tried going through that obstacle. I actually started doing my best to study, which is wow, amazing, considering I never did that. But it wasn’t doing anything. I still failed the exams.
But you know what? Eventually, I still passed the subject after acing the project with a bit more effort. Eventually, I went ahead and graduated.
So I failed some exams. So what?
You don’t have to be one of those storybook heroes who get a surprise powerup, deus ex machina style, to get past those obstacles.
You can choose between going through obstacles or going around them.
There is always a way forward. It’s just that sometimes, you’ll need to do a bit of backtracking to find the right way to progress.
The item on this week’s agenda
This week, we’ll try to shorten the emotional distance between encountering an obstacle and going around it.
We’ll work with the thought, and then the emotion, it will be a quick 5 minute rodeo. This technique is called cognitive reframing, and it’s a special technique. By actively noticing undesirable thoughts and changing them to more helpful, more desirable thoughts, we are attempting to change how you react to it.
Here, we’re trying to get you to immediately find ways around the obstacle instead of giving up when you see it. If it’s hard to do, pretend that I’m staring over your shoulder. You can do it.
Buckle up and ready your fingers to type into the reply box of this email. You’ll benefit a lot from typing down your response and doing the work, it’ll be great.
MISSION DESCRIPTION First, write down your goal. Always have your goal in mind. Second, write down your biggest obstacle to achieving that goal. Third and finally, write down three ways you can get around, not through, that big obstacle, rank them from easiest to hardest. | EXAMPLE “My goal is to make a newsletter with a consistent and reliable posting schedule for at least a year!” |
Obstacles are just moments of triumph from another perspective.
Obstacles are rough. Sometimes, they seem insurmountable, like nothing we do can get past them. They can be frustrating in every way imaginable.
But after we’ve succeeded, when we look back at those moments, they become moments of triumph instead. Moments of great suppression, in the end, become memories where you triumphed over a great annoyance.
When you’re struggling with some great setback, some incredibly upsetting person or situation, just remember that eventually it’ll be over. And when it’s over, you can look back on the situation as an enemy you’ve faced and conquered.
At least, that’s what I’ll tell myself to help me sleep tonight. And maybe it’ll help you sleep tonight too.
Let me know how it goes in the replies below!
Upstart tangents…
🧠 Listen and learn: HealthyGamerGG talks about existentialism and proposes cognitive reframing.
🤓 I’ve been studying: I’ve started reading on the basics of fashion in an attempt to wear something other than basic clothes. You’re not the only one starting a new venture!
You’re an upstart with an agenda…
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