You may not think so at the time, but there are benefits to having incurred adverse circumstances. These are valuable life lessons and help shape your resiliency which is a key trait in being able to effectively deal with adversity. This also affords you the opportunity to develop in ways you may not have been able to if you had not had these experiences. As you encounter adverse circumstances, keep the following five points in mind during your travail:
1. Learning Experience — You need to be tested or challenged in order to learn and grow. Every adverse circumstance is a lesson learned that helps you grow and develop your capacity to deal with future occurrences. If you have never experienced something in your life, it is difficult to know how to react, and just as importantly, to know how you will react. Adversity provides you with the opportunity to learn from the experience and be better prepared for the next problem you will encounter.
2. Challenges are Opportunities — Adversity will challenge you in new ways resulting in experiences you otherwise would not have encountered. These challenges help build you as you strive to make the most of it a bad situation and turn things around. Facing these challenges head on, coping with them, and developing a recovery strategy emboldens you and gives you the confidence to face the next obstacle.
3. Builds Resiliency — These experiences develop your capacity to maintain resolve and determination through the tough times. Stress and anxiety are twin components which affect everyone when dealing with adversity. Being able to effectively cope with the stressors associated with adversity enables you to cultivate a range of skills which makes you stronger, better equipped, and more resilient for future events.
4. Gain Perspective — Times of adversity make us more appreciative when things are going smoothly. You will look back on this, taking satisfaction in the fact you were able to get through it, understanding adversity is not permanent. You will acknowledge adversity is also a state of mind, have a more positive mindset in the future knowing you survived once, and will do so again.
5. Helps with Planning — Another benefit to adversity is you are better prepared for the future. What you have learned about yourself, others around you, and the organization can be the basis for well-developed alternatives and contingency plans that can be expeditiously and confidently executed during the next unforeseen or untoward event.