“I can’t do it” “It’s not going to be me” “Not even worth it” “What if it’s like last time” “They probably won't care” “Everybody’s out to get me”.

There are things we experience that give us lessons to carry long term, the impacts of these lessons are determined by how we look at them. If you worked in a job where you were undervalued, criticized, or faced a lot of negativity in general, it can put a glass ceiling over your self-belief. However, as Steve Harvey said, the ceiling is glass because you have to break through it. 

Not taking the time to own past experiences and put them in the past can inhibit your ability to see the good in new situations. For example, if you’ve experienced a harsh leader, it may impact your ability to trust or take feedback from future leaders. If you’ve worked with an unreliable partner, you may not trust people, avoid delegation, and try to do everything yourself. Gaining the ability to detach from your past starts with acknowledging its value in it. 

Considering the disadvantage you’d be put at having not experienced adversity, these situations tend to lead to long-term gratification, so long as you don’t let it derail you. This is the fundamental concept of success that is building a foundation of passion and vision which cannot be cracked from the outside. Eventually, individuals who reach a level of success look back and see that all the seemingly negative experiences were necessary to be successful. 

Acknowledging that this concept is easier said than done, here are some things to keep in mind:

There Is no Right Time

So often we can find ourselves in a position we know is not providing any form of benefit to us, in the back of our mind we have an idea of what we need to do. This is when the tendency to think of “starting tomorrow” or “someday” comes into play. Yet, without implementing any form of action, that “someday” starts to fade, and the current loop continues.

To combat this, reflect on your situation, find any form of action, no matter how significant and begin making progress. If you think about the way you take orders from an authority, imagine if you had that same level of accountability and dependency on yourself. 

You Are Not Your past

Things change, people change, the world constantly changes and so does the way we communicate and see things. It’s so easy to fixate on mistakes we’ve made which can challenge our confidence going into situations that require us to show some grit. 

Each day is a new opportunity to set a standard, set an example, and lead others on your team to be better. In your career, you’ll constantly be faced with challenges that will test your ability to keep going. As the company Under Armour famously tag line “The only way is through” which means you cannot let temporary challenges or adversity stop you from reaching your vision.

Build Relationships

The people around you can have more of an impact on your perspective and benefit your problem-solving ability than you can on your own. Yet, trust is the baseline to create a dynamic that is give and take. In the workplace, this can come from overseeing objectives as a collective, listening to others' points of view, as well as giving and receiving feedback. 

Testing the waters with your trust in others is how you will be able to decipher who is trustworthy and the competency of those around you. This will be beneficial when faced with pressing tasks where coordination within the team is essential. 

Conclusion

Author and former navy seal David Goggins developed a concept referred to as the 40% rule. The idea here is that people tend to put a cap on their ability to achieve, after reaching a certain point, they think “that’s it”. It is at this point that they’ve only reached 40% of their true capability. Why do they begin to doubt themselves then? A lack of belief, previous failures, outside criticism, and all meaningless noise used as a defence mechanism.

Don’t let that be you, find solutions, connect with people, take chances, push your boundaries, set goals regularly and commit to yourself. It is often the things that seem impossible or that will “take too long” that are the most rewarding.

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