Seth Saunders Leadership, Learning

Overcoming Obstacles

Overcoming Obstacles | Mental Toughness Boot Camp

How do you see obstacles in your life? Do they cause anxiety, depression, frustration, and sadness? If you answered to any of those feelings, congratulations, your human. Now, how do you handle obstacles in your life? I try to run from them, I don’t address them hoping the just go away, I freeze, I find ways to overcome them, I reach out to others to help me, I just give up? Again, if you answered yes to any or all of these, congratulations, you are human.

I have always been a huge Michael Jordan fan and he stated the following:

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

I love how he simply states that obstacles don’t have to stop you. The key is to try and understand how you can overcome the obstacles you will encounter. Here are some thoughts/ideas on you can overcome obstacles:

Acknowledge the obstacle: It is critical that when you encounter an obstacle in your life to acknowledge the obstacle. To to do this you must take a look at how it came into your life, what was the circumstance, what does it involved and who does it involve. Being able to understand these items will give you a feeling of control of the situation. The sooner you can feel like you are in control of the situation, the quicker you can start to think about ways to overcome the obstacle.

Eliminate the noise: If you think about it, when obstacles come in your life one of the main reason for the feelings I mentioned at the beginning of this post enter your life is because you cannot focus on what is happening. This is usually because of the noise that is taking place in your life. In order to address what is going on, you must eliminate the noise. This may be removing yourself from a situation, taking a break from what you are doing to give yourself time to think, doing some type of meditation, whatever works for you to eliminate the noise.

Focus on what you can control: There is no doubt that we all like to be in control. This is especially important when we encounter obstacles. Being in control allows for better clarity of what needs to be done. When you focus on things you can’t control, you only increase your feelings of frustration and this can often lead to feelings of giving up. There will be times when you feel like you cannot control anything but at the end of the day, you can control how you feel. And as is often said, when you control how you feel, you can control how you act. I have often found writing things down helps me understand what I can and cannot control when dealing with an obstacle.

What Is a Growth Mindset? And How Do I Develop It?

Mindset is key: You may or may not have heard about the concept of Growth Mindset vs Fixed Mindset. Simply put, if you have a Growth Mindset, you embrace challenges and persist in the face of obstacles while on the other hand, if you have a Fixed Mindset, you avoid challenges give up easily when faced with obstacles. As you can quickly see, how you think will impact every aspect of how you act. Thus, it is imperative to have a growth mindset in order to effectively overcome obstacles.

Notice that no where did I say overcoming obstacles in your life is easy, the truth is, its not. However, when you develop what works for you, overcoming obstacles becomes an empowering part of your life. You will find ways to learn more about who you are and what you value in your life. Remember this, developing ways to overcome obstacles is a process. It will not happen overnight.

The fact that you have read this block post means you believe in yourself and want to make good things happen so let me simply say, you’ve got this, you are amazing and there is truly no obstacle you cannot overcome.

Be A Hero

Seth Saunders Leadership

A Break Worth Taking

So I felt I needed a little break from social media to refuel myself mentally, so I took one. I am not sure what exactly I was expecting from this experience but I started writing down my thoughts. I wanted to share those here:

My weekly phone activity dropped dramatically.

At first I struggled with “what am I missing” anxiety. But then felt calm and peace.

I spent more time pondering important things.

I realized the need and importance for people to show they care by reaching out.

I was able to gain a better understanding of why I use social media.

I learned that life goes on.

I felt more in control of my day to day actions.

I discovered that social media can be important as long as boundaries are set.

I realized how polarizing social media can be and for some reason people who enjoy confrontation can let things go.

I enjoy playing Sudoku.

I felt less continuous towards others.

I appreciate all the things my wife and boys do each day whether it’s work, school, playing, helping or just chilling.

I missed dancing and making others happy.

You might be asking, “so what was your big take away from this?” Well here it is:

Technology has an incredible influence on our lives. There is so much good that comes from it but there is also lots of bad. We have a choice who we listen too, who we surround ourselves, how we treat others, how we react towards others and many other things. I realized that every person has influence on others, some we know about and many others we don’t. The pictures we share, the post we make, the comments we add, the reaction buttons we click all have influence. And all of this because of technology.

I have had reconfirmed to me that I will continue to be authentic, myself and open. I may not always feel the happiest but if I can help some else feel happy, I am at peace.

So I learned I may be able to live without social media but I also know it has created many incredible blessings because of the people. I feel connected to so many amazing people and I love that.

One last thing that I am excited about is the knowledge that taking a break strengthens me and gives me some much needed mental health fuel. Thus, I plan to take breaks in the future.

I look forward to reengaging on social media to connect with people. That’s what it’s all about.

Seth Saunders Leadership, Learning, Value

What have you learned?

what have you learned

With 2015 coming to a close and 2016 getting ready to make its presence known it is time for some reflection. Whether you have done this before or have only ever actually thought about doing it, taking some time to reflect can have a number of great benefits. There are numerous ways to reflect upon the year that was but I would like to share one way that you may find useful. It’s all about focusing on what you learned.

See, we may be able to quickly reflect about what happened in 2015 by thinking of key experiences that took place. We may simply think about them for a minute then move on to the next experience. Although this is a good start, what if you took some quality time to really ponder what you learned from those key experiences? Two very important things happen, first you document what you have learned which helps to reinforce those items and second, you now have the opportunity to set some solid goals for 2016 based on those learning’s.

Click on the image below to see a helpful tool I created. You can recreate this tool any way you want; this is just a simple example.

what have i learned

 

 

As you can see with this example, based on a Key Learning from 2015 I was able to establish a goal for 2016. It is important not to overwhelm yourself by listing tons of learnings and/or goals. You may actually go through a couple of iterations to help you narrow down and focus on those experiences that provided the greatest learnings for you. Then you can dial in on the 1 to 3 goals for 2016.

Leaders have the ability to learn from every experience. The best leaders have the ability to take those learning’s and make both themselves and those they lead better. Ironically, heroes are those that are always learning from their experiences, it makes them more effective in the future as they are in situations that require them to act and react quickly.

You are a hero and a leader. I have said it before but you don’t need a title to be a leader and most people will not be called a hero even though do heroic things. There are people around you watching what you do and what you say whether you notice it or not. You have the ability to make a positive impact every day on others. I hope you will take some time to identify what you learned in 2015 to make 2016 even better.

Here is to each of you, my heroes, to an awesome and successful 2016.

Seth

Hero boss [Converted]-01