Have you ever felt broken? Like everything seems to be pushing you a little too much, life is stretching you, and you don’t know what’s next?
If you feel like that, you’re not alone. We all go through tough times where life pushes us to our max. But the good news is that this can be a time of immense growth. It can be an opportunity to improve yourself. As a matter of fact, when I look back to my worst times in life, the lessons I learned and the wisdom I gained, propelled me to a much better place.
Builds Character
When you face difficulties and challenges, you get to choose what mindset you adopt. You can have a growth mindset, where you see this as an opportunity to improve and you are grateful for the challenge. Or, you can adopt a fixed mindset, where you step into victim mode. You can complain, have self-pity, blame the situation, and end up staying stuck.
When your plans are broken and you face a roadblock, you get the chance to build your growth mindset and become stronger. You are able to reassess and recommit to your goals. You build confidence and perseverance, which helps build your character.
Unexpected Guidance
When you face struggles and challenges, you have to dip into resources you may not have known you had. For example, you might ask family or friends for help. Or, you might hire a coach. You may even tap into your own inner wisdom that you weren’t aware of earlier. Reaching a stage of being broken can help you access sources of guidance that can help you improve yourself.
Increases Self-Efficacy
Self-efficacy is your belief in yourself to be able to overcome obstacles. It’s the confidence one has in their ability to succeed. When you face hardships, you are stretched beyond your comfort zones. When you reach a breaking point and you move past it, you build that confidence in yourself that you can truly face anything. That is an extremely powerful self-image, rendering you limitless. The next time you face a challenge, you’ll have the confidence that you can easily overcome it because you have overcome countless challenges earlier.
Reframe Stress
What is the first thought that comes to mind when you think of stress? If you are like most people, you associate stress with negative emotions. It’s difficult, exhausting, and something to be avoided. Seeing stress as a threat causes your body to enter the fight or flight response, releasing cortisol and increasing fear.
However, what if you saw stress as a positive emotion? What challenges would you then face? What scary life-changing decisions would you make?
When you are presented with a setback and feel broken, you can practice looking at stress as a challenge rather than as a threat. When you do this, your body feels more focused instead of fearful, and you get a boost of energy that you can use to your advantage. So, the next time you are faced with a problem, try to reframe it as a challenge rather than a threat.
A great example of breaking yourself to make yourself is found in athletes. Professional athletes sacrifice hours of their day to train, pushing their body past all limits, adhering to strict diets, and living in accordance to carefully planned routines for training, sleep, and meals. But by pushing themselves hard and stretching their limits, they make themselves.
When you feel pushed past what you thought you could handle, remember, this is a golden opportunity to improve yourself. You get to create a new version of you who is stronger, wiser, and more resilient. So, embrace those moments of brokenness, and get back up again.
