Greetings Dear Friends,

Let me confess to you all. It’s always a pleasure writing every week despite the challenges I go through trying to meet the deadline. I will also like to appreciate the kind support of my editors and various media firms who have been very resourceful and supportive. As you may know, nothing in life is easy, despite publishing insightful and thought-provoking articles every week consistently, I can authoritatively tell you if not for passion and addiction, I wouldn’t have been able to overcome the pressures. This is because I need to deal with the pressure of daily work, personal commitments and life challenges in addition to having a sound mind in order to produce a good work. In all, I will say, God is the ultimate “source” because beside from him, I can do nothing!

I had to X-ray these challenges because you may be experiencing a peculiar or different challenge that might have defined or shaped you in one way or another. We all face different challenges relating to finance, family/relationship, business, academics, health, etc. The big questions now remain, how do you face and conquer your challenges. The aim of this article is to see how we can address the numerous challenges facing life, and how it can be overcome.

 Emotions:

The first step in handling any challenge is managing emotions. Your emotions play a critical role in stabilizing you in critical moments. This is because it’s extremely easy to act in anger, sadness or even frustration. As a way of advice, do or say nothing when you are angry because what you may say or do may be worst than the harm in question. Remember, words are like scars when you are hurt, the wound might heal, but the scar will still remain.  It’s just like our words, it can be used to make or mar our life and relationship. As human beings, most times we allow our emotions to take a big chunk of our life. However, being able to sit down and analyze the situation will be a great way to diffuse or addresses any situation you might be facing.  It’s worthy to note that only weak people act out impulsively. Strong people, however, see them as challenges and practice massive self-control.

It should be noted that your negative emotions are simply challenges. So take up the challenge and start to master your emotions. You’ll be stronger with this mindset if you master your emotions because it will enable you to study and learn human behavior.

Furthermore, It’s important to note that human beings are the most difficult people on earth to deal with.  Some can be happy to relate with while some can be toxic to deal with. Most times we have people who get to our nerves, for example, our friends, partners, arrogant boss or even family member, but because we need peace, love, and friendship, you try to remain calm and allow your peace of mind to control you. In that way, you’ll be able to diffuse the problem as opposed to reacting back which might escalate the problem.  

 Your Job

Your job is not exempted from the challenge of life. Dealing with the politics of the job can be a great way of facing the challenges of life. You can deal with it by being positive with each ugly incident you are not comfortable with. Dealing with your colleagues, bosses, supervisors, inferiors and administrative bottleneck can be a pain in your body, however, your attitude to each situation can be a remedy in fixing the issue at play.Whether you lose your job, an opportunity, or a relationship, you’ll be forced to face the associated challenges that come with it.  Regardless of how it happens, the loss is one of life’s biggest challenges in life. However, loss gives you the opportunity to reflect on what is truly important so that you to keep moving forward. We have all experienced a slow in progress, hindrance or delay on our journey. The challenge is understanding why the delay happened. What caused our progress to slow down. Setbacks are learning opportunities. Having a firm understanding of the types of things that slow your progress will allow you to both avoid and preempt them

Life issues

Every living being must surely face challenges. The only time challenges will stop will be when you give up the ghost. On a daily note, you face challenges in taking care of your responsibility both personally and professionally. Whether at home, at work, in public areas or even in the hospital, you are bound to deal with life issues. You kids can get on your nerve, it can even a traffic situation or something you can’t really explain how it came up, but you’re just expected to deal with it. My take on this is, smile and say this too shall pass especially when you have your best and the situation still persists. Things simply don’t go as planned. That’s life! And life will never stop giving you challenges. So stop complaining. Take up the challenges and assume full responsibility for the situation.

Tend to Your Loving Relationships

These relationships don’t just happen magically; they grow and are sustained through attentive care and hard work. Mature love in marriage, family, or friendships is a dynamic living experience. It requires a commitment to keep it working. It involves a daily process of overcoming the challenges. It accepts the reality that we will hurt one another and be hurt by one another. It is the nature of being human. These pains cannot be avoided. We can only devote ourselves to do what we can do to weather them and to mend them. Love, then, is essentially repair work which we must use to heal the wounds. However, we must endeavor to take responsibility for our mistakes by learning to say I’m sorry and then making an effort to make amends. We should also learn to forgive. As the monks do every day, we fall down and get up, fall down and get up again.

The question now becomes, how do we face these challenges?

Positive thinking

This is harder than most would think. Shaping your thoughts can be an uphill task. It’s easy to go awry in your head. It’s easy to start linking them with your emotions and then acting out impulsively. So take your thoughts as challenges because they want you to follow them. Overcome them slowly and have patience with yourself. Your thoughts are your reality, so create the reality you want.

Calm yourself.

During stressful times, we sometimes push the panic button and “catastrophize”, or imagine the worst. Instead, calm yourself with “traffic light coping”. This exercise, developed by Dr. Williams, works like this: When you start to feel worried, panicked, or angry—when you start to “see red”— stop and relax. Pause. Take time to breathe deeply to help calm your body and mind, then move forward.

Start with a single step. The sooner you take action, the better you’ll feel. If a challenge feels overwhelming, think about the simplest thing you could do to take you in the direction you want to go. Then do it.

Mastering Your Mind

Your mind can be a formidable opponent on your path to becoming a better person. It can pipe up with all kinds of negative commentary when things are not going well and can have the power to derail you with doubt and fear – if you let it. Mastering your mind is one of the greatest life challenges of all. Your mind controls your perspective, it informs how you receive and process your interactions with the world around you. Unlike other things you can claim mastery over after a finite amount of time, the mind can take some a lifetime to master.  Some common methods to calm the mind include having personal time for yourself, therapy, meditating, self- reflection, prayer, and intentional silence. You don’t have to be hard on yourself, give your self some break.

In conclusion, whatever problems you think you have, whatever it is you’ve gone through, whatever you’re going through right now. You’re a challenge by itself. Don’t let mistakes, challenges, circumstances, pressure define you, you’re bigger than them all.  Life challenges are not to paralyze but to make you discover who you are.  I will leave you with some great nuggets:

Life is a challenge –   Meet it

Life is a gift –    Accept it

Life is an adventure –   Dare it

Life is a sorrow –        Overcome it

Life is a game     –     Play it

Life is a mystery –      Unfold it

Life is a song    –        Sing it

Life is an opportunity – Take it

Life is a journey –        Complete it

Life is a promise    –    Fulfill it

Life is a love –             Enjoy it

Life is a beauty         Praise it

Life is a struggle –   Fight it

Life is a puzzle –      Solve it

Life is a goal –         Achieve it.

Yes, we may have been hurt in one way or the other, but as Mother Teresa will say, in other to live a positive life we need to have to have a positive mental attitude. According to her:

People are often unreasonable and self-centered, Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people will accuse of you ulterior motives – Be kind anyway

If you are honest people may cheat you, Be honest anyway

The good you do today maybe forgotten, Be good anyway

If you find happiness, people may be jealous Be happy anyway

Henry Ukazu writes from New York. He works with the New York City Department of Correction as the Legal Coordinator. He’s the author of the acclaimed book Design Your Destiny – Actualizing Your Birthright To Success. He can be reached via henrous@gmail.com