SELECT YOUR LANGUAGE

Your mind is one of the most powerful tools that you have to navigate through life.  Your perspective is the way you view things in life.  The way you receive and process information are extremely important to learning how you will deal with the information received.  You choose how you view things and how you handle everything that you encounter in life.  In life, you will experience good days and bad days.  You will define each day by what you experience each day.  You might define bad days by moments in the day that prevent you from achieving your goals for the day.  Some people will view the preventative measures as obstacles, while others will view them as opportunities.  

​

If you view things that try to prevent you from achieving your goals as obstacles, it is usually because you are losing the focus on your goals.  If you view things that try to prevent you from achieving your goals as opportunities, it is usually because you are staying focused on your goals.  Being focused on your goals, helps you develop a more positive mindset, determination, resilience, and goal achievement.  Losing focus of your goals will create a problem-focused mindset that could eventually lead you to giving up on achieving your goals.

​

Sometimes, what may look like preventative measures, can cause us to take a step back and rethink our strategy and approach the situation differently.  This is a part of the learning process that can lead us to higher level critical thinking about things that we did not foresee, but can prepare us for what we need in the future to achieve our goals successfully.  Obstacles are often there, to help us view things differently and not always in a negative way.  You can get around obstacles, you just have to take a different approach.  So, do not let obstacles prevent you from achieving your goals.  Use the obstacles as a learning opportunity.  Each learning opportunity is a teachable moment that will serve as a guide in the direction in which to go or not to go.  Every obstacle gives us an opportunity to learn.  If the obstacle is not supposed to stop you, don't let it stop you.  If it is supposed to stop you, then it is stopping you for a good reason.

​

Try to view obstacles as opportunities; opportunities to learn from, to grow in spite of, to inquire, to answer questions, to problem solve, to strategize, to critically think about what you want and how bad you really want it.  Obstacles are a matter of perspective.  What are you telling yourself about the challenges you encounter in life?  Are you letting them defeat or deter you from achieving your goals?  To be able to view obstacles as opportunities, you have to be open-minded and willing to change your perspective.  Free your mind, so that you can achieve what you want for your life.  Every obstacle is an opportunity to learn.

​

By Lynnette Clement

​

​