Many times when we look at things like challenges, we immediately focus on the “challenge” aspect. This is where considering approach comes in handy. When doing anything, I like to follow this step process:
Intention – write out your intention for taking on the given challenge. Think large scale! What is the ULTIMATE why for doing it?
Approach – how do you want to approach this challenge? From the perspective of learning and growing or conquering? Open-minded or expectational? Spend some time picking apart how you usually approach things in your life, and it will help better illuminate this portion for you.
Awareness – if our approach is set on learning and growing, what we “realize” and become aware of will be different than if we are set on things working out a certain way. Even when things don’t turn out the way you want, what can you learn from this? One way of looking at it is do you value the journey or the destination more?
Choice – In intentional living, all choices that then breed action steps come from first seeing to the steps mentioned above. The way most of us have been taught to live our lives, however, it’s the choice that plays out and makes us form awareness. We then change or stick with our approach (depending on experienced outcome) and this leads to the same or different intention next time (again, depending on experienced outcome). Living this way, we can see that our odds of learning by making mistakes is much higher. Let your choice be dictated by your intention, approach and awareness instead of vice versa.
You will find that if you focus on these steps, you will have the tendency to be less aware of the difficult aspects of the challenge itself. You will be knee-deep in introspective experience and will be better positioned to meet the goal that you have and the challenge at hand with a mind-set of learning and growing, no matter the outcome.