The Art Of Acceptance: Embracing Life’s Challenges

I've got a cool video for you today coming to you from the middle of the world in Ecuador.  It was a hell of a journey to make it here, spending about 2 hours taking the sketchy public transit system to eventually reach the equator.  It was amazing once I finally reached my destination, but the journey was filled with many challenges and was somewhat stressful.  I was constantly getting lost and confused about where to go, and attempting to communicate with the locals to try to figure out where I was and how to get to where I wanted to go.

Instead of stressing out about the situation and worrying, I decided just to ACCEPT the journey for what it was.  I changed my perspective and viewed it as an adventure, something I'd look back upon and always remember.  There was no point stressing or worrying, it wasn't serving me in any way.  Instead, I embraced the journey.  I just went with the flow and everything turned out great.

Watch the video below:

(Click here to watch the video on YouTube)

The experience for me was a metaphor for life's challenges.  Life will always throw curve balls and challenges your way.  There will always be things to stress or worry about.  Instead of RESISTING things and always trying to control things to be a certain way, sometimes you have to just LET GO and accept whatever life is giving you.

I talked about this in my how to overcome adversity video blog, where I explain how my beliefs and faith are what allow me to get through challenging times.  I really believe that “everything happens for a reason” and that whatever happens is meant to be.  I trust the process of life and have faith that everything will work out and I will become better for every experience that I encounter.

This has given me a lot of freedom in my life.  I've given up a lot of control.  If things didn't work out the way I wanted to, that's OK – understand there's a reason for it.  It may not be apparent right now, but it will sometime in the future.  I've had many things that in the moment didn't work out the way that I wanted to, but in the end, I was so grateful that I didn't get what I wanted because it lead to something better.

I've found this has been a much more empowering mindset to live my life by.  I also mention in the video my friend Wade's experience with public speaking, how he just trusts that whatever happens, happens.  If he goes up to give a presentation and it bombs, that's OK, it was meant to be.  If he does an awesome job, great, that was meant to be as well.  This has been something that has really helped me a lot in my life and gotten rid of a lot of stress or worry that I use to experience.

Practice ACCEPTANCE.  Stop trying to fight things or control everything all the time.  Embrace life's challenges.  In the end, everything will be just fine. 🙂