Reframe struggle as feedback, not failure. Research from the High Performance Institute shows how you perceive hardship shapes your stress, income, career advancement, and work quality. The key: when things get hard, seek resources and mentors instead of blaming yourself.
How you honored the struggle of the last two years directly correlates to your life satisfaction, to your stress levels, to your wealth and income, to your career advancement, to your own self reported quality of your own work. In doing the research in High Performance Institute, we have found over and over and over again this mindset of how you perceive struggle and challenge is the critical linchpin in whether or not you change. Honor the struggle. I teach it every year to honor the struggle. To know that struggle is part of the human narrative. You have it, I have it. Everyone you meet has it. We all must experience challenge and conflict and awfulness in our lives. We all will. How we meet, greet, adapt and grow from that struggle is the difference maker. And what I've studied of seeing people come out of complete poverty to wealth, studying people who had no skill in athletic endeavors, to literally me being on the Olympic track with them, the difference at some point came to how in those times of hardship, when they felt discouraged, when they failed, when they were judged, when they were struggling, how did they experience it, adapt from it and grow from it? And to me, those who made it, they honored that process as a learning journey and a chance to improve. They honored the process as a learning journey, a chance to improve. They didn't feel struggle. Listen, write this down for all you self haters out there. I love you because I've been there. They didn't take struggle as a verdict on their worthiness. They didn't take struggle as a verdict on their capabilities. They didn't sense struggle and quit and bemoan and hate themselves. They sense struggle and they go, this is hard. Of course it's hard. I've not done this before. I've not trained for this. I don't have the capabilities or skills yet. I don't have the peer group yet. I don't have the mentor yet. Guess it's my job to go get those things. They didn't take struggle. Listen please, this is like this will change everything for you. They didn't take struggle as a knock to their identity or their worthiness. Instead they took struggle as an indication to learn, to get better. They didn't hate themselves in it. Instead they engaged themselves with the process to get better. That was the difference maker. One you hate yourself, the other one you engage to get better. And honoring struggle as an opportunity to grow is the mindset. That's the mindset honoring struggle as an opportunity to grow. I always love this time of year. I meet so many people who tell me one of their intentions in health Is to run a marathon, which I think is amazing, you know? Now why would anyone want to struggle through a frigging marathon? Because they honor that process as something that will demand of them to get better. How cool is that? How cool is that? Think for about that. It's cool. It's the difference between stopping progress and getting progress. Whether or not we choose to honor the struggle, meaning we take the struggle as a reason for challenging ourselves. Struggle becomes a rationale, an indicator light to challenge ourselves to learn to get better. Or we take struggle as a stoplight to sit in our car on the side of the road and, and cry and bemoan ourselves and speak negatively about ourselves and diminish ourselves and to minimize ourselves. And if we do that, watch out. Because guess what that intention can become. Well, intention. I'm not worthy, I'm not capable. Why should I even try? A lot of people's intention, the way they actually show up week over week and month over month is their actual intention. Consciously and unconsciously is often why should I even try? That is the thought, that is the belief, that is the behavior. And it becomes an intention in life. Because see, from intention initiative flows or doesn't. We only take initiative because we have intention to. If you're not taking initiative in life is because your intention has been hijacked by negative thinking. Let me say it again. If you are not taking initiative, taking action in life, it's because your intentions have been hijacked by negative thinking. And so what we have to do is recognize, observe, be mindful of that. Like wow, every time I'm struggling or discouraged or feel fear, I shut down, I quit, I stop, I speak bad to myself. We have to recognize those, we have to see that, we have to honor that and understand that. And honoring the struggle often begins with honoring ourselves as capable. I honor myself as capable. I recognize I am able. I recognize I have worth. And I recognize that I am deserving of improving my life. So this struggle right here, this struggle might actually be well beyond my capabilities. This struggle might be the scariest, hardest, most difficult thing I have ever faced in my life. This struggle might scare the crap out of me. And this struggle might really make my life hard. But this struggle will not destroy me. This problem is not bigger than my personhood, nor my potential. And so we keep going. How you honored the struggle of the last two years directly correlates to your life satisfaction, to your stress levels, to your wealth and income, to your career advancement, to your own self reported quality of your own work in doing the research in High Performance Institute, we have found over and over and over again that this mindset of how you perceive struggle and challenge is the critical linchpin in whether or not you change.
