Why You Should Be Grateful For Your Problems?
Have you ever been in a situation where you thought that once you resolved a specific “problem”—whether it was getting a promotion you were working towards, earning more money, sending your kids to college, quitting a job you’ve disliked for a while, or something similar—you’d finally feel at peace, only to later find yourself in the same place because of new problems appearing?
Take myself as an example: I used to think that once I left the corporate world, all of my problems would go away. And while some did, such as lack of fulfillment at work, stress, an unreasonably big workload, unpleasant relationships, etc., others appeared, or the same ones showed up in a different form.
Stress did not disappear; at times, some necessary yet mundane admin tasks take up my entire calendar; the workload of building my own business is to some degree even greater than during my days as a consultant, with little to no distinction between “work” and “leisure”; and I still encounter people who are not whom I expected to surround myself with after I left the corporate world.
This personal experience taught me a valuable lesson: problems don’t disappear, they evolve. That’s why it’s so important to change how we perceive them.
One way to get around this is to view them as necessary vehicles to accelerate growth, or, to put it somewhat more poetically, view problems as gifts.
As Tony Robbins once said, “Life happens for you, not to you.”
If we start to think that all of the problems that appear in your life do so for a reason, that they have appeared to teach you something, assuming you allow them to, we can shift our mindset to a degree that we almost feel compelled to thank them for emerging, even though it is not always easy to realize that in the midst of it.
So how do you train yourself to start viewing problems as gifts?
Here is an exercise for you:
Name one problem that happened to you in your life that you can be grateful for. For instance, losing a job might have initially felt overwhelming and unfair. But perhaps it pushed you to pursue a career that aligns more closely with your passions, giving you a sense of fulfillment you never thought possible.
Acknowledge the fact that at that moment, you experienced negative emotions.
Remind yourself when a new problem appears that, even though it feels hard right now, you will start seeing a valuable lesson at some point.
I am sure you will come up with answers that will shift your perspective on how you view problems and increase your chances of approaching them differently, allowing you to enjoy life.
Remember, problems are universal. They’re normal. How you approach them makes all the difference.
