Top 10 Things to Do When Adversity Hits

1. Write down the most important thing you are trying to accomplish, followed by the small steps you can take to get it done. This will help you concentrate and focus.

2. Always finish your commitments. Never stop on the one-yard line. Tough times never last—tough people do. Give up now and you will never find the inner strength you have.

3. Create a vision of your goal. Post it somewhere you can see it every day. Focus all your energy on what you're trying to accomplish and what you need to get through each task.

4. Do more than you're expected to do on a project or in your job. Increase your service to others, and that action will often turn around some of the adversity and difficulties you're going through.

5. Think about the benefits of this adversity, knowing what will be accomplished at the end. How does it benefit you? How does it benefit the people you're serving?

6. Look for the lessons adversity teaches. The highest achievers in the world understand that failure is the most valuable teacher they can have.

   The good things which belong to prosperity are to be wished, but the good things that belong to adversity are to be admired.

   —Seneca,
   Roman playwright

7. Apply the lessons you learn to every part of your life. Failure in one part of your life might teach you lessons about how to deal with other parts, for example, setbacks in your business may tell you to take your life in a whole new direction or may teach you that you need to improve the way you relate to people.

8. Live in the present. Put stickers around the house that say, "What am I thinking about now?" Are you living in today or worrying about tomorrow? Worry is a negative activity that diminishes strength, confidence, and energy. Conquer something today and you don't have to worry about it tomorrow.

9. Live by Albert Einstein's three rules of work: 1. Out of clutter, find simplicity. 2. From discord, find harmony. 3. In the middle of difficulty, find opportunity. Most people are so busy knocking opportunity that they don't hear opportunity knocking.

10. Put the last nine tips to use before adversity strikes. Use them when times are good and your confidence is high. Remember, success breeds success.

    If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant. If we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

    —Anne Bradstreet,
    writer

I Dare You...

In a difficult or challenging situation, take action using these five strategies:

1. Find one or two people who have done what you're trying to do and interview them about how they achieved their goals.

2. Read biographies of people who overcame obstacles to succeed in your field.

3. Seek out every piece of information you can find about what you're trying to accomplish. (Try the library, tapes, the Internet.) Surround yourself with information.

4. When you want to stop working, go another 10 minutes. Make one more call. Write one more letter. Work through the pain, be it physical or mental. It will make you stronger for the next time.

5. Discard the word can't from your vocabulary. Where there's an open mind, there's unlimited potential. Negative thoughts block our own achievements: I can't do that. I'm too tired. I'm not good enough. Substitute action thoughts: I'll try one more time. I'm not ready to give up. I deserve to give myself another chance.

Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly.

—John F. Kennedy,
U.S. president

If these chapters make you feel better about your own situation, if they give you the courage to go after your dreams, notwithstanding the possibility of failure and adversity, if they provide you with just a few practical tools to help you accomplish your goals, then I am doing my job.

What we get in life most of the time is not new information. We get reminders. Reminders of how lucky we are in the good times, how appreciative we must be of the gifts and talents we have been given, and how much love we are capable of giving and getting. Shakespeare said that every day is a king in disguise. Every day we get a chance and a choice to start with a positive attitude, to make something unique, to put a new twist on life. Every day is a new beginning, every single day.

It is never too late to be what you might have been.

—George Eliot,
novelist

Every day is a new beginning. And every day we have choices to make. We may not always be able to choose what happens to us on any given day, but we can choose the attitude we take towards those events. No matter who we are, what we do, or where we come from, we have the choice. That choice is not how the events before us shape our attitude, it's how our attitude shape the events before us. In the next chapter, we'll examine one of the greatest gifts we possess, if only we choose it—the power of the positive, realistic attitude.