You might have guessed that I've been leading up to something by sharing this story with you. The thing is, regardless, of who you are or what challenge you've chosen for yourself, there are going to be hassles along the way. No matter how well you plan things out, or THINK you do, there will always be unforeseen complications to deal with along the way as you grow and change.
The good news: this is a NORMAL part of the process of growth and change. Get used to it! Even when I'm quaking in my shoes, or frustrated by the detours, I know it's leading me somewhere. And my experience has been that I'm going to come away with a real feeling of accomplishment and an expanded sense of my own personal power by staying on course.
One of the things I teach people is a concept called Mental Toughness. I first came across this gem of wisdom when reading how sports psychologist Jim Loehr helped train Dan Jansen for the Olympics. Jim's techniques helped Dan build the mental toughness he needed to win a gold medal in speed skating at the Lillehammer Olympic games.
The idea behind Mental Toughness is being aware that we have to seek out healthy amounts of stress in order to grow. Whether you're an athlete, a business executive, a shy person, or a personal coach who wants to travel the back roads of foreign countries on her own...in order to reach our goals, we have to push ourselves to do things that are often uncomfortable. The idea is not to stress ourselves to exhaustion, but just to the point where we feel we're really challenging ourselves.
On the other side of seeking out healthy stress, we also must learn healthy ways to recover energy. So after the challenge, it's essential to find ways of nourishing yourself until you're ready to take on the next challenge. In this way, you learn to cope with goals at increasing levels of difficulty and become capable of taking on even greater challenges. The end result: you're building mental toughness! If you'd like to read more about this technique, it's outlined in Jim Loehr's book, Stress for Success.
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