How many times have I told myself, "These things are sent to try us!" It is an old saying that my mother used to use whenever something went wrong or not as planned. When these words were uttered we knew as children that it was time to spring into action and find a way to make things right. My mother was definitely a woman of action and certainly taught me to deal with adversity from a very young age. What she told me was true, that we learn so much more from adversity than from our successes. Of course you have to have the right mindset and be willing to learn from whatever went wrong. When things don't go our way it is easy to become hardened and even bitter. We generally do not choose the problems that cross our path but we can choose to deal with them in a positive or negative way.
So often in schools children are taught that mistakes are bad and very often that carries into their adult life. They are fearful of mistakes and view them as something final rather than as a new beginning. Encouraging students to understand that we all make mistakes, we are none of us perfect and the desire to be perfect can motivate us or destroy us. It is up to us whether we embrace those mistakes and move onward and upward or we simply suffer and crumble.
When my husband Steve and I were putting our adagio act together we would rehearse all of our lifts religiously but the highlight of the rehearsals was when one of us would make a mistake and all of a sudden a new lift was created that was even better and more exciting than the one we had been working on. Our act was full of dazzling and difficult lifts, many of them spinning with dare devil throws across the stage, when the audiences went wild and gave us standing ovations if only they had been aware of how many "mistakes" they had witnessed.
Of course, along with adversity comes pain and moments when you feel hurt but if you can gather up all the strength you have along with a good dose of determination, you will be capable of not only solving whatever the problem is but moving up higher than you were before. The reality is in business and in life there are going to be days and people and things that rise up to challenge you and the key is to prepare yourself to the best of your ability for those moments. Really it is just like having an emergency kit in your house in case of a blackout or some weather disaster. The likelihood of anyone surviving a natural disaster increases substantially if that person is well prepared. So it is with adversity and the one ace in the hole for us is that dancers are trained to improvise. We are taught to improvise if we forget a step or somehow lose our way. That is great training because it helps us to focus quickly on the problem and find a rapid solution.
We can never adequately plan for every problem that may arise on any given day but you can give yourself some tests to see what your initial reaction and path of action would be on whatever problem presented itself to you. I suggest writing down a few possible scenarios and then figure out ways that you could tackle the problem. It is not a bad idea to bring other people in on the problem solving because other minds will come up with different ways to approach an issue. Many problems are caused by individuals crying out for attention and sometimes just by giving them a small but positive spotlight they will be willing to back down.
By becoming a leader during adversity your peers will respect not only you as a person but also your ability to fix problems in a calm and systematic way with a positive outcome. Let adversity propel you to new heights and let each new challenge be exactly that … a challenge to your intelligence and problem solving capabilities.
