It's weird to tell someone who has a flat tire on his way to work that there is an opportunity during his "flat-tire" moment, he might want to bite your head off.
We all react to problems or difficulties differently. If you ask any successful entrepreneur or any professional person on how they view problems, you'll find one trait in common; all of them have a unique mentality that allows them to handle challenges differently. They tend to see problems as disturbing forces of opposition, they see problems as opportunities to learn, grow, improve, or adjust in a way that leaves them better off than before the challenges existed.
This simple method has a lot of benefits. First, it reduces stress that is usually associated with any new problems or difficulties. Why is that? because the difficulty is attacked in a positive way, so it's less intimidating. Second, it crushes the problem because the mind immediately starts thinking about the effects and conceivable responses to the difficulty. Third, it encourages growth by making one's mentality to adapt and improve on a constant basis and then finally, every problem we view or solve this way makes future problems easier to demolish.
There are different ways to find opportunities in difficult times, but I will tell you how I do mine. It is not magic nor is it easy to find opportunities during difficult moments, but what is important is to have the zeal and passion to want to solve that challenge, problem or difficulty.
When I am faced with a difficult problem or challenges. What I do first to clear my mind and head of any negative impression towards the problem. Why? Because our impression alone can impact positively or negatively on the problem. So we have to put aside our first impression or panic about the problem and just have an open mind, then we will see the different aspects of the problem.
We always think of all the bad ways a problem could affect us, but if we think of the problem as a separate entity, unconnected to us, we will do a better job of tempering our emotions down and thinking about the problem open-minded.
Once that initial reaction stage has passed, which is having an open mind about the problem and viewing the problem as a separate entity, next is you focus on tempering your emotions down and thinking about the challenges detachedly. One best strategy to do this is to think of the problem as if it were happening to someone else or friend. This helps you avoid the self-emotional reactions that you normally have, associated with problems.
The next thing you do is to seclude the real threats and consequences of that particular difficulty from your exaggerated and imaginary ones. When you do this, it will help you shift your view from seeing the difficulty as a burden or as a destructive thing. Whenever I am faced with a problem, I make a mental list of all the significant negative consequences that the problem might come up with. Our brains are wired to imagine the worst scenarios and expand threats, so we can prepare well.
Lastly, I ignore reactions and focus on Improvements. For example, if I am faced with a flat tyre scenario, normally the first thing to do is to panic, but now I would immediately think of my extra tyre and begin to make plans on how to fix the flat tyre with the extra one. So you see, I ignored panic reactions and immediately thought of improving the situation.
We should not forget that difficult times are not avoidable, but they come to make us smarter and stronger. I hope this helps someone out there facing a difficult time.
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