Your problems have a purpose.
What a concept! Have you ever considered the possibility that your problems are there for a reason?
This is a belief I have chosen to accept as true and I suggest you do too.
Why?
Not because it’s an absolute truth that I can somehow prove, but because of the positive impact it has on your life.
Problems aren’t problems
Problems are really challenges. A challenge set before you to encourage you to grow.
Everything you can do and cope with now is within your comfort zone. Challenges, on the other hand, are outside this comfort zone. Therefore, in order to meet the challenge, you must expand yourself i.e. learn knew skills, improve your behavior, use creativity, forgive someone…whatever the case may be.
Let me illustrate it another way. Imagine your comfort zone is a circle. When a challenge is set before you, it lies somewhere outside that circle, otherwise it wouldn’t be challenging to you. In order for the challenge to be successfully dealt with, the circle must expand i.e. you must grow. Once you have expanded the comfort zone to take in this challenge, this particular problem never causes you as much bother again.
Lifelong Self-Improvement
It seems just intuitively wrong to me that we are supposed to enter life and leave it again and the same level. I see the main purpose of life as the growth/expansion/learning – the evolution of consciousness if you will. Challenges (problems) are therefore absolute necessities in facilitating this growth.
This doesn’t mean life therefore is unavoidably stressful, quite the opposite. This would be the case if you saw problems as random obstacles that keep popping up to frustrate you. From my viewpoint though, no challenge is insurmountable. In fact, life wouldn’t put the situation into your experience if it also didn’t provide the means to overcome it – your job is to find it, your growth then occurs in the process.
This website is an example itself. I have always been a non-technical person (with a capital NON). I knew I wanted a website and didn’t have the money to pay someone to do all the technical stuff for me. At the time I didn’t even know what the following terms meant:
- Blog
- RSS
- CSS
- HTML
- FTP
- Trackback
- SEO
- Tags
- Server
I was absolutely clueless. I’m not great at it now, but I’m much improved.
So what did I do? I didn’t moan that I didn’t have the skills or money, and that I’d have to leave it to people that were ‘luckier’ than I was. I bought book after book, read article after article and made many mistakes in order to facilitate my own growth. Now, in a sense you could say I am a ‘bigger’ person.
My advice is to never shy away from your problems. If you do, you’re missing the whole point. Grow and enjoy the process, the successful outcome is assured if you just persevere and learn the lesson life is trying to teach you. 🙂
And remember, it’s NEVER the size of your problem, it’s the size of YOU!
Your Buddy,
Mark McManus
image credit: Max Ackermann
Love those paint pictures 😉
And a great mindset too. This way, everythings just a challenge, a way for your to grow.
And to grow’ that’s the way to go!
hah, it’s all relative…i heard a great quote a long long time ago that i’ve never truly forgotten to the effect of, “if everybody in the world threw their problems into one giant pile, you’d be the first to run back and grab your own:
Exactly Alex, everything becomes and opportunity for growth.
@ Dave. Yes I’ve heard that before too. We tend to think that the grass is greener on the other side. Sometimes it takes us to go there to realize how good we had it in the first place.
Mark
Great, great post!!! Having the mentality to tackle challenges is key to having a fulfilling life. They provide meaning and engender growth. By the way, the diet is going great; it’s more of a hybrid between the the two diets you’ve discussed, I just don’t eat carbs past 2pm and they are all low glycemic. I just started a dual masters program and got hired to teach History at a local high school- this post is what I needed!!! Synchronicity is amazing, and seems to happen when the goals of your mind match the work of your body/behavior.
Thanks again and please keep up the good work!
Thanks Fabian,
Good to see you experimenting with nutrition, all the best with it.
Congrats on the job, big opportunity for growth and fulfillment there.
Well done,
Mark
Great post Mark– You are spot on that failure is good, that is where we learn and grow the most. In our heart, spirit, body, and mind.
Funny coincidence, I am a technical person and have a ton of experience working with websites, hosting, etc. but I am learning everything I can about nutrition and strength training– expanding my comfort zone. You have been a great resource and the MANS diet has been working great for me.
Thanks man,
Tim Symchych
Thanks Tim.
That’s cool. We specialize in different areas but are willing to grow and learn more, that’s the key. Congrats on the diet success.
Mark
Reminds me of gym. The best way to get really fit and strong, true balanced development, is concentrate on all the exercises you are weak in, and dread. I notice it regularly, ie, people with great chests, weak backs, focusing on chest, shunning back work, guys with great arms, weak legs, focusing on arms, minimum leg work, etc, etc, etc.
The irony is, when you focus on the exercises you are weak in, you soon become strong in them, and love them.
That isn’t to say you should ignore your strong points, but for a while it is extremely beneficial to put most focus on weak points. And the ‘horrible’ result? True, all round development, real, deep confidence. Nothing to hide.
The stumbling block is fear and ego.
So true. It’s the norm rather than the exception where I am for people to completely ignore their backs.
Mark
Right on the money!
I use a similar model created by the Fearless Living Institute. Comfort Zone is still in the middle, and the next three levels are stretch, risk, and die. Each greater movement one takes from the comfort zone becomes scarier to do – and yet that is where we want to move to. The less scary the outer zone is, the bigger our comfort zone becomes. It’s called the die zone because our old habits, behaviors, and thoughts begin to die.
Thanks Mark!
Joseph