It may be obvious, but do you know why athletes need a pre-season? They need it to get ready for the challenge of competition. Runners are not ready to race, football players are not ready to hit, and pitchers are not ready to throw the moment they arrive to pre-season. They have to get in shape. If they take the time to get in shape, they will perform optimally. If they don’t, they are unable to fill their role and contribute to a winning effort, and they might sustain an injury. I find the idea of being in shape to face a challenge applies outside of athletics too. It applies to any area of life and work where you will face a challenge. The difference is that these are intellectual and emotional challenges. And these challenges show up in the form of feedback, critique, and criticism. Too many people are not ready to be challenged. Are you ready to have your ideas, actions, behaviors, and beliefs challenged? If you are, you'll respond to the challenge optimally.
Here are 5 ways you can make sure in are in shape to respond to the challenges that life will throw at you.
When challenged: be confident you are MOSTLY right. Too often, we back down or flare up when we are challenged. Both are too extreme and the value of our perspective is lost. Your perspective does matter and people need to hear it to understand it. They won't hear your idea if you crumble and fade, or stomp and scream. When you are challenged, maintain humility to maintain control of your emotions and maintain confidence to maintain clarity on your perspective.
When challenged: admit you could be REALLY wrong. Too often, we give ourselves no space to be wrong. I recently heard, 'leadership is a 52/48 proposition so you better get comfortable being wrong'. The ability to balance being mostly right with an awareness that you could be really wrong is probably best summed up, 'strong opinions, loosely held.'
When challenged: account for nostalgia. Our experiences should not be the entire basis of our perspective, but they do inform our perspectives. However, nostalgia is the story we tell ourselves about our experiences. Bruce Springsteen's, 'Glory Days' is a chart-topping song about how nostalgia can take over our experiences and our story becomes far different than the facts. Control your nostalgia. Uncontrolled nostalgia tells us the wrong story and leads us to learn the wrong lessons from our past experiences. Learning the wrong lessons from our experiences does not lead to being in shape for a challenge.
When challenged: admit to history. The facts of our past experiences matter. Facts form a reliable perspective on who we are, how we've failed, and how we've grown. CS Lewis in his book, The Reading Life, declares that reading the classics allows us to develop wisdom by comparing the mistakes of our age to the mistakes of a past age. We can learn a lot from the facts of the past, but it is just as likely we will find out we are wrong as it is we were right. And that is why we have to admit to history. A sure sign of being in challenge shape is the ability to change your mind when the facts prove you wrong.
When challenged: commit to what is right, not being right. We live in advanced times which allows many things to be possible, but just because we can do something doesn't mean we should do something. Those that are overly focused on being right, may win. Those that are committed to what is right help themselves and others to respond correctly to a challenge. Everyone wins when the focus is on doing the right thing. Don't worry about being right. Focus on doing what is right.
Get in challenge shape! Too many people fall short of their God-given potential because they aren't in shape to be challenged. Use these 5 suggestions to get yourself in shape to respond positively to the challenges you will face.
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