It is easy to say that struggles lead to success, but it is difficult to see that while we are going through our struggles.
Struggles are horrible while we go through them, but they help us become stronger people. Challenges give us strength and help us see our problems in a different light. While not all struggles lead to success, they can help us reframe our goals, so that we have better luck the next time.
Everyone goes through some struggles in their life, some of these events are worse than others, and not all people come out on top, yet every challenge can be an opportunity in disguise.
If you are going through a struggle, keep on reading as we are going to explore this topic a little more.
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Looking for Success? Expect to go Through a Struggle
As I mentioned briefly at the beginning of this article, most of my childhood was a struggle. Very early in my education, my parents knew that something was wrong; they regularly went to my school and spoke with my teachers and principal. They did this because they could see how much trouble school was for me. On top of this, even though I was smart, I couldn’t keep up with the other kids in my class. They were reading books and I was still learning basic words.
Eventually, an opportunity arose, and I was able to go to a special school that focused on kids like me, but that wasn’t easy either. It took two years of special education and tons of effort from me and my parents, but I was ready when it was time for high-school. But that didn’t mean my struggle was over either, quite the opposite, high-school was a constant struggle, and every day I spent hours in my bedroom studying.
To this day, I still have trouble with unfamiliar words, but I am also an avid reader and writer. Ironically, my weaknesses as a child have become my favourite things to do as an adult. Now it could be that because I couldn’t do those things before, I’m working to make up for all that lost time. But either way you look at it, for me, my struggles have lead to my success. If I am a successful writer, that is open to debate, but regardless, I get immense joy and satisfaction from doing it.
By no means am I saying that everyone will have the same experience as I did; some people aren’t as lucky or don’t have the same opportunities. Others have struggles that no one else can understand, and for that reason, they may not have the same results. But the point remains, if you are going through a struggle, there can always be opportunities that come out of it.
Struggles lead to success because they challenge us; they put us in a situation where we have no other choice but to push forwards.
For myself, my struggles taught me about persistence and dedication, if I hadn’t stuck with my learning, I wouldn’t have had any opportunities in my life now. At the same time, those experiences help me now because I can better endure pain and difficulty than people who didn’t have to go through what I went through.
Another way that struggles help us is that they encourage us to see the world differently. When I was a kid and got home from school, I would often cry to my parents about what had happened during the day. At the time, I could see no way out of my situation, it felt and seemed hopeless. But now that I have been through that struggle, I see things differently, I know that if I want something, it might be difficult, but that doesn’t mean it won’t work out. Going through a struggle gives us hope, and hope does wonders for our sense of self and confidence.
Friedrich Nietzsche
said many years ago, “What does not kill me makes me stronger.”
In so many ways, this is a truism that doesn’t need any explanation, but it is still an important thing to keep in mind. If something doesn’t kill you, you know that you have been through it and are stronger than it. For me, my struggles as a student have made me stronger today, I’ve not yet accomplished all of my dreams, but I haven’t given up either.
Even if you don’t believe in a higher power, while you are going through a struggle, you will feel that you are destined for something greater. And in a way, that will give you the strength to keep going. If you can maintain that belief and vision, then you will have more power and persistence the next time you face a challenge.
Often when we are going through a struggle, we might hope for someone else to help us. In my own experience, I needed help from my parents and the teachers at my school cause I couldn’t do those things on my own. But at the same time, even with all that help, I couldn’t have done it without me myself pushing each and every day.
My point is that outside help may be essential, but we can’t depend on it for everything; we have to do most of it ourselves.
Failure Is the Mother of Success
Every time we fail at something, it is painful, but it is also an opportunity to learn and get better. Imagine a deck of cards all faced down, you are trying to find the queen of hearts, so you flip a card. Each time you flip another card that isn’t the queen of hearts, you are failing, but at the same time, you are getting closer to your goal and success.
The key here is that you learn a valuable lesson about what doesn’t work every time you fail.
The hope here is that you learn rather than take the failure to heart. But if you are able to learn, then your next guess or effort will be better informed by the attempts before it. Surely you won’t always win, nor will you always fail, but you will learn to make a better attempt each time.
I have tried many different sorts of business throughout my life, and some have had some success, while others have failed, but I know that my efforts are getting better and more on target. I may not have found what I am looking for yet, but I know that I am getting closer.
Does Struggle Always Lead to Success?
Every single struggle will not lead to success, but some will, and if you keep on failing, you should know you are getting better, and therefore eventually, success will come. But it also depends on many factors, some of which are beyond your control while others are not. Luck is a huge factor in many situations, and you can’t do anything about that.
At the same time, your perspective or how you look at things matters more than everything else.
After going through a struggle, you can take it as an excuse to give up, which isn’t always wrong, sometimes struggles are a warning that we are on the wrong path. But at the same time, you can choose to give up and not try any more, or you can choose to learn from the situation and try better the next time.
In addition to all of this, there are struggles that just pain suck, and there is nothing we can do about them. Often, there are factors that we have no control over, we don’t have any choices about where we are born, who we are or who our parents are. But we can’t let that blind us to what matters and what we truly want.
We never know what is going to happen next, so we can never perfectly plan. But we can try to learn from our mistakes and make better choices when we have the chance.
Just remember that after all your struggles, when you finally find what you are looking for, it will be so much sweeter. Also remember, if you never had to go through what you are going through, you wouldn’t have any reason to appreciate what comes next.
What are you doing to show strength through your struggles? Are using these difficult times as learning opportunities?