Mike Robbins

Infusing Life and Business with Authenticity and Appreciation

Archives for June 2021

Facing Challenges: How to Appreciate and Learn From Them

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Are you facing challenges in your life or your business right now? Most of us are, especially with everything we’ve been through this past year and half collectively.

Facing challenges is never easy, and these days, there are some real challenges many of us face – at work, at home, in relationships, with money, with family, in the world, and much more.

The challenges themselves, even the most difficult ones, aren’t usually the real issue.

The Real Issue Behind Facing Challenges

The real issue that we face when it comes to challenges is our relationship to them.

Our relationship with challenges is what can bring about the most difficulty and suffering. Think of what your life, your relationships, and your career would be like if you didn’t complain about or resist challenges when they showed up. For most of us, myself included, this would make things very different and much more enjoyable.

So why do we struggle so much when we’re facing challenges? How can we improve our relationship with challenges and learn how to overcome them in a healthy way?

Overcoming Resistance

Resisting, complaining about, or even feeling sorry for ourselves about the “bad” things that are happening is normal. We’re often encouraged to deal with challenges this way by the people around us and our culture in general – whether we do it out loud or just in our heads.

However, while understandable, these things don’t address the real issues, the genuine emotions we’re experiencing, or make things better for us.

I’m not advocating that we pretend everything is “fine” when it isn’t in some phony way – this can be denial or toxic positivity, neither of which will help.

When it comes to dealing with difficulty, the question in life isn’t whether or not we’ll face challenges. The question is, what will we do, and how will we respond when they arise?

Do we avoid dealing with difficult things and learning from them by playing the role of the victim and not acknowledging our true feelings about them, or do we face them directly, acknowledge our emotions, and choose to grow from the experience?

It’s always up to us.

On our path of life, growth, and success, we all encounter difficulties. The road to success is full of lessons from failure, making mistakes, and facing challenges.

You cannot succeed if you don’t experience failure. It’s how you deal with failure that determines how successful you can be.

Challenges can be amazing learning experiences – things that force you to grow and change.

Many of the most successful and fulfilled people who’ve ever walked the planet have faced incredible obstacles. But they learned how to get back up after they fell.

What if we appreciated these challenges? Remember, appreciating something doesn’t necessarily mean we like or enjoy it. Appreciation means that we recognize the value of it.

How Facing Challenges Can Help Us Grow

Here’s a list of some things we can appreciate when things get tough:

  • Challenges often give us important feedback about where and who we are
  • Challenges give us contrast and can help us appreciate things when they get easier
  • Challenges can allow us to wake up and notice all the good things that are happening that we weren’t paying attention to
  • Challenges are almost always an excellent opportunity for learning, growth, and improvement
  • Challenges allow us to get in touch with, take responsibility for, and express our real emotions

By learning to appreciate our challenges and see the opportunities in them, we take our power back from the situations and circumstances of our lives.

Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage gives us an important insight into who we are and how to create success and fulfillment consciously and deliberately.

Here’s What You Can Do

Make a list of some of the biggest challenges in your life right now. Answer these questions about them:

  • What can you appreciate about each of these difficulties?
  • What are you learning from them?
  • What are you able to appreciate in yourself and your life because of these things?

If you look for it, you’ll be able to find many things to appreciate about every one of them.

It’s time to get real about how we feel and to face our challenges head-on.

Appreciating these difficulties can allow us to accept them, learn from them, and ultimately take back our power from them. Doing this reminds us that we’re the authors of our lives – not the circumstances we’re facing.

Where in your life are you currently facing challenges? What do you appreciate about these specific challenges (i.e., what are you learning from them and what can you be grateful for about dealing with them)? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

Appreciate the Simple Things
The Importance of Flexibility
Life is Not a Competition

This article was published on February 10, 2011 and updated for 2021.

Get Back Up When You Fall Down: How to Overcome Failure

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With all that has been going on over the past year or so, many of us have been “falling down” in so many areas of life and business.

When you fall, do you get back up right away?

When you fail, do you learn from it and take it as an opportunity to grow?

Many of us, myself included, struggle at times with learning from our failures. We sometimes give up as soon as we fail, not realizing that what is necessary is to push a bit harder until we reach a breakthrough.

How to Get Back Up When You Fall

Have you ever seen a small child learn how to walk? If you have, you know what a remarkable experience it is.

I’d heard about this but had never witnessed it until Samantha, our now fifteen-year-old daughter, took her first steps when she was just over a year. She and I were playing in our family room one night, and although she’d taken a step or two here and there and could get around okay while holding onto an adult or a piece of furniture, she hadn’t really “walked” yet.

That night, I held her hands and pulled her across the room with me as she took some steps. I decided to let go to see what would happen. I did, and she took a step or two and then fell, face first, on the soft carpet. She was fine. She looked up at me, and although she couldn’t speak yet, she made it very clear that she wanted me to pick her up so she could try again. I did, and this time when I let go, she took about four or five actual steps and then fell. I screamed, “You did it!”, started clapping wildly and yelling for my wife Michelle to come into the room.

Michelle came running in. Samantha and I went to the far end of our family room. I held her hands to steady her, started walking with her across the floor, let go, and then it happened – she really walked – across the room, by herself. When she fell, Michelle and I were so delighted and moved, we both burst into tears and joyous laughter at the same time.

Samantha, so proud of herself, began to shriek with excitement and to clap her hands as she was lying there on the floor. And, of course, she wanted to get back up and go again.

Moving Through the Ups and Downs of Life

We all know how to do this – fall and get back up. Assuming we know how to walk, which most of us are fortunate enough to do, we went through this specific and miraculous experience ourselves when we were very small.

We’ve also gone through it in a figurative sense many other times as we move through the ups and downs of life, especially recently. The question isn’t whether or not we’ll fall; the question is will we be bold enough to get back up again?

Remember: it’s okay to do it wrong. Too often, sadly, we fall or make a mistake, and then decide we can’t get back up. Boldness is about having the courage, willingness, and commitment to get up when we fall – even if we’re scared or don’t think we can.

Resisting, complaining, or even feeling sorry for ourselves about the “bad” things that happen is normal and what we’re often encouraged to do by people around us and our culture in general – whether we do it out loud with others or just in our heads.

However, while understandable, these things don’t address the real issues, the emotions we’re experiencing, or make things better for us.

Let Your Challenges Become Opportunities for Growth

Facing difficulties in our life can be incredibly beneficial – if we choose to allow our challenges to be growth opportunities.

Below is a list of some things to appreciate when we “fall down” in life. Obstacles, failures, and challenges can:

  • Give us important feedback about where and who we are
  • Provide an opportunity for us to be courageous
  • Allow us to wake up and notice all the good things that are happening that we hadn’t been paying attention to
  • Give us an excellent opportunity for learning, growth, and improvement
  • Allow us to learn to appreciate ourselves, even when things don’t turn out exactly as we want them to
  • Give us an opportunity to get in touch with, take responsibility for, and express our real emotions in an authentic way
  • Challenge us to play bigger, make adjustments, or rethink our approach

By learning to see our challenges as opportunities, we take our power back from situations, circumstances, and outcomes in our life.

Our ability to appreciate difficulties, learn from them, and use them to our advantage, gives us an important insight into who we really are and how to create success and fulfillment in a conscious, deliberate, and authentic way.

Being bold, going for what we want, and living with authenticity doesn’t in any way mean we won’t fail, struggle, or fall short. If we aren’t failing or facing any challenges at all, it’s probably a good indication that we aren’t playing all that big in our lives.

Failure is a Key Part of Success

Failure isn’t the opposite of success, it’s a part of success. It teaches us about resilience, courage, growth, and support. Failure is a stepping stone to achieving all of our goals.

Every time you fail, there is a 100 % chance that it will teach you something. It is vital to use failure as a teaching tool to improve yourself and your skills, whether it be about decision-making, problem-solving, or more.

Many people associate failure with defeat, but it’s crucial to change your mindset about it. By learning and growing from our failures, we thrive, step outside of our comfort zone, and gain new perspectives.

Failure is ever-present in life – from the moment we take our first steps to our present life. It helps us grow and makes us stronger. It also allows us to learn from our weaknesses and develop our strengths.

Everyone fails, and everyone reacts to failure differently. We need to make peace with the fact that we will fall many times throughout our journey. However, when we commit ourselves to get back up, dust ourselves off, be honest about how we feel and what happened, and not let it stop us from being who we are and going for what we want – we tap into what true power, boldness, and authenticity are all about.

As Mark Twain reminds us in one of his many famous quotes,

“Dance like nobody’s watching; love like you’ve never been hurt. Sing like nobody’s listening; live like it’s heaven on earth.”

Where in your life have you recently fallen down? Have you gotten back up yet? If so, great – acknowledge yourself. If not, what will it take for you to get back up, learn from the experience, and appreciate yourself in the process? Share your thoughts, ideas, insights, actions, and more on my blog below.

I have written five books about the importance of trust, authenticity, appreciation, and more. I deliver keynotes and seminars (both in-person and virtually) to empower people, leaders, and teams to grow, connect, and perform their best. As an expert in teamwork, leadership, and emotional intelligence, I teach techniques that allow people and organizations to be more authentic and effective. Find out more about how I can help you and your team achieve your goals today. You can also listen to my podcast here.

Liked this post? Here are three more!

Appreciate the Simple Things
The Trap of Comparison
Are You Threatened By Other People’s Success?

This article was published on December 2, 2010, and has been updated for 2021.