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Today’s show is another take on one of my fav positivity hacks. The reframe. 

Today let’s chat about:

Turning Adversity Into Your Advantage.

I’m gong to tackle this subject in 3 parts.

The Little Daily potential Drag You Down.

The Medium potential Put You On Pause.

The Large potential Destroy You.

Now that’s a lil bit of a doom and gloom start – however you know I’ll be focusing on the positives soon, so please bare with me!

Let’s get rolling…

One: The Little Daily potential Drag You Down. 

We all have them. We also all have the choice to dwell and wallow or conversely, to Drive On.

So it’s when you miss the bus. Or have a last minute meeting / client cancel. Perhaps it’s an altercation you know you could’ve handled better or a difficult phone call.

In short: to get Dragged Down or to Drive On is your choice. In the overall scheme of things at this stage I’ll often ask myself: Is it really worth the energy? 

Given it’s likely going to eat more emery to fixate on the worst then why not not reframe to the best? 

Equally as enticing, is the fact that each time you reframe something potentially rubbish for the better you build your skill at hunting out the best in a situation. Like the frustrating phone call – that, could be proof of just what a rubbish day it’s turning out to be. How unlucky and hard done by you are. Or alternatively, if could be an opportunity to build your tolerance muscle and get your inner patience on!

It’s absolutely a more fun way to live.

Because you’ve met that person who’ll get dragged down by even the smallest thing right? They’ll suck away your energy too. They’ve almost turned focusing on the worst into an exhausting, ugly, messy art form and they’re not even aware they do it.

Two: The Medium potential Put You On Pause.

In the body gain game one of the major determining factors of your success will be how quickly and creatively you respond to adversity.

You can allow that stumbling block to put you on pause or conversely, to make you Malleable. 

This might be the injury. Or the non life threatening illness. Perhaps it’s the project deadline or new extended work hours that could give you reason to claim insufficient meal prep and exercising time?

When an adversity is new and overwhelming the temptation is to freeze. To put everything else on pause. The thing I’m learning is this is exactly the time when you still want other things in your life besides just the thing that is currently highly UNfun. It’s tough though right?

In my previous potential put you on pause situations the uncertainty of the adverse situation has been super stuck worthy. If you can relate then here’s a tactic I hope will help. When you’re feeling an abundance of uncertainty in one aspect of your life, even it out by embracing certainty in another area of your life. We all have reliable certainties to turn to. For some it might be the ironing or cleaning or cooking.

For me it’s exercise. When I can’t control something business, financial or otherwise… I know I can always control exercise.

Of course I can’t lunge or deadlift my way out of a hulking adversity however I find maintaining some aspect of calm and certain in my life gives me the breathing space to be more malleable as I consider the options and opportunities. The question to consider at this stage is: What am I here to learn today?

Three: The Large potential Destroy You.

As fab as it’d be to cruise through life major adversity free… it’s simply not going to be anyone’s reality.

Like everything, adversity is subjective however the fact remains when you encounter a really large adversity it can either Destroy or Define You.

I’m sure you can bring to mind, either from your own experience or perhaps from someone else’s, that really hugely step up or lie down adversity which in hindsight either destroyed or defined you.

To dig in with the define angle first, possibly we rationalize our massive adversities as necessary to get us to where we are today because that’s the only way to continue. It’s not about the right belief.

It’s about the effective belief.

The define and continue belief or interpretation or reframe rather than the destroy and give up belief.

I was chatting with my mum about this on the weekend. How isn’t it curious-Frustrating-SAD that some of us will take a life event and make it mean so much. For better or very often for worse.

The relationship that ended really bad means all guys are bastards and cannot be trusted. I’ll own that one.

Or that something that happened in your childhood had the hugest impact on you and yet your brothers and sister barely even registered that event let alone got hung up on it and let it dictate future relationships and experiences.

As I said there’s not a right or wrong belief or meaning to assign an event or adversity. However there 100% absolutely is a most effective choice so far as what you (and I) make something mean! I guess the question to consider at this stage is: What can I make this mean so it does not destroy me yet rather defines the type of person I want to be?

I don’t have a specific time of the actionable for today. I see this subject more as something to marinate on (as one of my dear clients would say!).

To recap though. Each of us will inevitably encounter:

Little daily adversities to Drive on through.

Medium adversities to make us Malleable.

And Large adversities to Define us.

To finish today’s show I’d like to share a couple of my all time favourite quotes from Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist and Auschwitz survivor Viktor E. Frankl:

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

That’s it for me today. I’ll be back on Friday, I hope you can join me.

If you liked this you’ll also like: Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do.

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.