“What were your top three challenges of the last six months?”  This is the question I ask in my Quick Start strategy sessions.

“What were your top accomplishments over the last six months?”,  is the second question I ask.

More often than not the answers to these two questions are, amazingly, the same. 

Periods of loss, challenge, suffering, and failure can be powerful catalysts for personal growth and transformation. “It is often through suffering that we develop inner strength, from loss that we increase our understanding, and from overcoming struggles that we come to discover our own strength and resilience.”  (excerpt from Wired to Create)

“Adverse events can force us to re-examine our beliefs and life projects, and therein lie their power and creative potential. After the experience of adversity, the mind is actively dismantling old belief systems that no longer hold up and creating new structures of meaning and identity. ”

How do you move from the intensity of a challenging period into one of positive transformation?

To move from Adversity to Applause:

1. Take notes. Acknowledge that this was difficult. Whatever you were faced with, give yourself credit for surviving it. With the simple act of writing down what was hard and what you learned from it, you move the experience from a weight around your shoulders to a place of empowered resilience.

2. To make meaning of difficult experiences, resolve to let go of bitterness. Bitterness lives within powerlessness, and you are not a powerless person.

3. Applaud your strength. Life is messy, painful, full of potholes. You found a way through. Give yourself credit for getting to this next, higher place. Bravo!