Life is full of ups and downs and sometimes has a few sideways turns and blindspots thrown in too. When things go wrong or don’t go as planned, or when something happens to throw us off balance and causes us to doubt ourselves it can be tough to handle. After all, we all want things to go well so we can end up as ‘winners’. But life will always throw challenges at us, and we can’t control everything. Nor should we try. It’s not what happens to you but what you do with what happens to you that makes the difference. Here are two strategies that can help you come out on top always.

1. Focus on Your Strengths - Sorry to break it to you but we, as human beings are full of contradictions. Sometimes we’re happy, sometimes sad; sometimes hopeful, sometimes pessimistic; sometimes childish and sometimes mature. We also have a whole load of strengths and weaknesses that affect what we do and how we do it, but we tend to put more focus on our weaknesses rather than on our strengths.

A strength is something that you do consistently well– it’s something you’re just able to do, you’re hard-wired to do it well and you get an inherent satisfaction from doing it. This could be tackling and solving complex problems, empathising with people, having a lively imagination or being able to make the perfect Sunday roast. .

Focusing on what you do well rather than what you’re not so good at makes all kinds of sense. When you look at what you’re not good at you feel bad about yourself and your confidence takes a hit but when you focus on and play to your strengths you’re guaranteed to get results.

2. Set Things Up Ahead Of Time - Sure, there will be times when you can just head into something, be brilliant at it and get the result you were hoping for (normally if you’re playing to your strengths), but other times you might just wing it and not get the result you wanted. Whatever challenges or opportunities you’re facing you’ll stand a much better chance of getting a great result if you set things up to succeed ahead of time.

Analyse the task at hand, understand what is required to accomplish it - what exactly do you want to happen? What solution, outcome or result would be great? Get really clear on the outcome you want from what’s facing you and how it would feel to get the outcome you’re looking for. Then start breaking it down – what can you do to set things up so that your desired outcome happens? What needs to be put in place? What will help to make what you want to happen, happen? And to ensure the best outcome, what are you willing to do? The answers to these questions are what will make up your plan of action. Once you have covered all the area, its time to execute your plan. 

Remember though to factor in the ‘what if’ situations so you’ll be in a better position to deal with these when they come up. Granted we cannot possibly plan for every eventuality but the better prepared we are the more likely we are to gain our desired results.

Until my next blog post, stay focused, encouraged & motivated.

Ayeshea

PS: I will love to hear how you are getting on so please use the 'Send a Message' form below to get in touch with your comments and/or any questions you might have, and I’ll personally get back to you (normally within 24hours of receiving your message).