Obstacles and Challenges Help Us Find the Way Forward

Overcoming obstacles and challenges is what ultimately gives us fulfillment and personal growth. Often this will require a degree of suffering or pain, because the actions required to work through the challenges are demanding.

There are decisions to be made, and commitment is required to navigate the challenge. This provides a sense of achievement and fulfillment that is hard to find in any other way.

An obstacle is something that stands in your way. A challenge is what you must navigate, learn, or do to move forward.

We face obstacles. We navigate challenges.

Accepting that there is an obstacle is the first step towards facing it and deciding how to embrace the challenges and navigate a way through them.

The Obstacle Is The Way Forward

I still remember when I was just starting out in my own business. I hated the idea of having to do marketing.

I had a negative association with the term ‘marketing’ due to my experience with my previous employer and how it was used there. I would go to a ‘marketing meeting’ every week, listen to them drone on about their offers and what a difference they would make to sales.

The only reason I was there was that it usually had an impact on store operations. Complex offers that the system usually screwed up meant the stores would bear the brunt of customer frustration at the time of purchase.

The meaning I gave it was that it wasn’t ‘marketing’. It was advertising.

O top of that, I had recently ended a 14-year relationship with a man who claimed to be an expert in marketing, just because he had achieved a high distinction in his Master of Marketing at RMIT and was dux of his class.

S, my references for marketing when it came to my own business were less than positive.

My obstacle was my negative association with marketing. At a rational level, I knew I had to do marketing to have a business.

Through networking, I met Maureen, a marketing consultant. I blathered on about my fears and resistance to marketing. Maureen gave me a look that said she felt sorry for me and said, “Wendy, marketing is just communication.”

That one line was a game changer for me. I love communication.

Once I gave the obstacle a different meaning, my challenge was changing the way I thought about marketing, learning what it really is, and beginning to communicate effectively.

That was five years ago, and I am still learning.

What is in the way is the way. Marketing was in my way of having my own business. Now it is not.

The Changes That Made a Difference

Maureen’s simple reframe changed the meaning I had given to marketing.

As humans, we are meaning-makers. Once I saw marketing as communication rather than advertising, I was able to see the bigger picture more clearly.

I realised that I needed to learn more about marketing to help my clients approach it in their business from a leadership perspective.

This is because my problem was common among business leaders without a marketing background. The more I learned about marketing, took action, tested, and set up my marketing systems, the more effectively I could help my clients.

When we are curious about why, what, and how we think, we can better understand how our thinking influences our actions and ultimately our results.

No one else can take responsibility for your thinking. You are in control of how you create your future because you are the only one who can think for you.

Other people can offer insight, support and expertise. It is our thinking that shapes the meaning we give to the obstacles that get in our way and the challenges that will inevitably need to be navigated.

Read more here, starting with Challenges Bring Fulfillment