The x-factor when it comes to real progress in life.
How many times has life caught you off-guard? And how many times, in those moments, have you feared the worst? One more question: Looking back, how many times did those curve balls lead you somewhere better?
Resilience is our ability to use challenges in life to pivot and grow. When things are tough, we are asking questions like, “What can I do to make this better? How can I get out of this?” Or, sometimes, when we’ve experienced a similar setback, we might ask “Why does this keep happening FOR me?”
How Does It Actually Work?
Today, I want to dig into something with you, and it has to do with resilience (shocker!), but also it has to do with tangible truths about how we grow in life. We’re always seeking, predicting, attempting, right? We want to be better, we want success, we want joy out of life. But we don’t always know how to pivot or how that growth happens. I’m sure we all have ideas about it, but in some way, we are always searching. For me, the truth that reigns supreme is simple: resilience is the x-factor. I’m the resilience guy because I truly believe the way we grow on the inside is based on the experiences we have on the outside, good or bad.
Action Happens When We’re Uncomfortable
I was a very successful lawyer. I had an entire life built before I decided to start building my life and taking ownership. And the only reason I got there was because I had faced so many challenges, so many sleepless nights, and I could not ignore the voice inside my head that was damn near screaming at me, that it was time to move on. Now, had life in law been downhill cruising, mostly joyful and easy, maybe I would have never pivoted, right? Maybe I would still be there, shushing that voice in my head, ignoring my purpose. It was because things got hard and continued to get harder, that I felt strong enough, overcoming those challenges, to take on life. Resilience is the x-factor.
A Hindu Monk by the name of Paramahansa Yogananda said this, “The season of failure is the best time for sowing the seeds of success.”
It’s In Our Nature
As human beings, we are designed to adapt. And resilience is how we have been doing this since the beginning of time. Our first ancestors learned to walk on two feet, gather food, make tools, and use fire for heat. Did they do this because life was a walk in the park? No way. There were challenges, there were predators, they dealt with their environment, and because of those challenges, they had a choice: grow or go extinct. And while we might not be facing extinction, what we are facing is whether or not we will survive or thrive, and this is a choice made through resilience.
Resilience is the X-factor we often overlook. This is the one thing that is always growing us, and creating space for us to use every element of our life experiences to be more. I’m the resilience guy because I truly believe the way we grow on the inside is based on the experiences we have on the outside, good or bad.
This article was inspired by a recent write-up in Thrive Global.
