How to Make Lemonade When Life Gives You Lemons

Challenges are opportunities in disguise.

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.

I first stepped foot into a gym almost ten years ago. I have come a long way since then. There have been ups and downs. Sometimes motivation was high and I was getting up in the morning just so I could lift and sometimes I hated every minute of a workout.

I have been to a ton of different gyms and I have seen many people come and go.

But through all this time, I never had a gym partner. I was always on my own. Sure, there were the occasional sessions for which I would meet up with friends, but for some reason no gym buddy lasted for long. Sometimes they would pull out, sometimes I decided that they just weren’t beneficial to my training.

For years, I never really understood why I never found someone whom I could work out with.

That was until I met Siaka.

But back to the start. My style of training is rather brutal. I don’t waste time. I don’t even try to make it easier for myself. Instead, I make it harder. I mean, that is the whole point of a challenge. That it is hard to do. The greater the hardship, the greater your opportunity for growth.

Whenever I trained with someone, it would usually go like this: We would throw plate after plate on the bar, push ourselves through set after set. Until they tapped out.

“It’s too much, I can’t take it anymore.”

“It hurts, stop!”

“I can’t.”

Sooner or later, they all gave up.

Not Siaka. Not this guy. Anything I put him through, he endured. More than that. He demanded even more. “Let’s do another set!” “Three more reps!”

While it didn’t take me long to see that he was a great training partner for me, it took me a while to understand why. Until it finally dawned on me.

All my previous gym buddies saw the weights and sets and reps as a challenge to overcome, as a hardship to endure. Not him. He saw them as an opportunity, an opportunity for growth. That’s why he always wanted more. And this simple distinction made all the difference.

Change your perception, change your life

With any situation in life, you have to make a clear distinction. You have to make a distinction between what a situation is like and how you perceive it.

See, 200lbs will always be 200lbs. A complex task and close deadline given by your boss will be complex and hard to get done. And a stressful day crammed with appointments and to-dos… Well, you get the point.

But how you perceive these things makes all the difference.

Things which you are not at fault for are going to happen. But you are still responsible for your reaction.

What if you saw the 200lbs not as insanely heavy and painful to lift, but as an opportunity to get fit?

What if your boss’s demands weren’t a nuisance to you but an opportunity to show your competence and earn bonus points with him?

What if bad feedback about your performance wasn’t pulling you down, but instead presented an opportunity to improve yourself?

Your motivation? It would skyrocket.

Your results? The best you ever had. You wouldn’t just look for the easiest and most convenient way. You would rather try to give your very best and learn as much as you can.

Your mood? Get ready to flash a smile and flush your worries down the drain. You will feel blessed and grateful for the opportunity instead of worrying about the challenge.

Your accomplishments? Ever-increasing. You will actively seek out more challenges because you will want more opportunities to become better.

This mindset shift will turn your world upside-down. It will pull you away from negativity and mourning and push you into positive thinking and striving for excellence.

Think about how often you mourn about the hardships life throws at you.

Stuck in traffic? Opportunity to practice patience (or listen to a podcast or your favorite music).

Made a mistake? Opportunity to learn a lesson.

Get dumped by your partner? Opportunity to focus on yourself and improve your life.

A low number of followers on Medium? Opportunity to experiment with different styles and see what sticks. You got nothing to lose anyway.

It’s easier than you think

As with all mindset shifts, they happen gradually over time. You can’t live your whole life with a certain belief and then expect it all to turn around just because you read an article.

But there are a couple of tips which will make it a lot easier for you and give you a head start.

Challenges are a normal part of life

A flat tire on your bike. Rain catching you by surprise. A traffic jam on the way to work. Dropping your favorite cup. Relationship problems. Not having enough time. Getting sick.

Life is full of what we call problems and challenges. And that’s totally normal. It’s just the way human life on planet earth works. And there is nothing bad about it.

Sure, they are annoying at first sight, but you have to realize that they are completely normal and unavoidable. Once you have realized this, you can take a step back and look at them with objectivity instead of panic.

So that’s the first step. Acknowledge that life will throw shit at you and that this is totally normal.

Avoid panic & express the problem in neutral terms

I (read: my e-mail application) recently messed up a super-important deadline for university. I don’t know about other institutions, but at my university they are more anal than a Pornhub movie when it comes to deadlines.

Missing this one meant a whole extra semester of studying, just because I had to take one extra course. If you’ve read my article about lying to myself (LINK), you know that I want to get my studies done ASAP.

Naturally, I freaked out a little bit.

“Fucking hell, I missed the deadline. Why can’t technology just work properly for fuck’s sake?”

But then I regained control, forced myself to calm down and simply express the problem in neutral terms.

“I have missed a deadline because an e-mail didn’t go through.”

Sounds a lot less intimidating, doesn’t it?

Free yourself from your first impression, take a deep breath and assess the situation in a neutral way.

Once I calmed down, I could clearly think of the next steps to take.

Step out of it

Next, I tried to distance myself from the problem. This is especially helpful if you are emotionally involved and there is much at stake.

Pretend that it was someone else instead of you. You are just giving advice, trying to help and show the person the steps he can take to improve his situation. So I simply put my imaginary friend Alex in that situation.

“Alex, you could try to explain the mail incident to the person in charge and see if this makes the situation better.”

By stepping out of the problem you can distance yourself from it — this makes way for clear, rational thinking and the search for solutions.

Focus on the learnings and opportunities

Now that I had moved all the negative rubble out of the way, I was clear to look for the opportunity and learnings in my former misery.

This was an opportunity to learn. Next time I should double-check if my mail actually went through.

But this was also an opportunity to polish up my phone call and e-mail writing skills and to show the supervisors how much I wanted to take this course.

I got excited. I wanted to see if I was good and convincing enough for them to accept my late submission. I thought about what I was going to say and how. How could I show them? Which buttons did I have to push? Who did I have to call? What would I write in my e-mail? My mind was racing. I had a plan.

I polished off the e-mail and hit send at 9 pm. The next day I called as soon as the office opened. “My colleague will send you an e-mail informing you about the status of your submission today.” Click.

In the afternoon, a new e-mail notification popped up on my phone. My heart was racing as I opened it up.

“[…] under the given circumstances we will accept your late submission”

Bingo, motherfucker.

If you find yourself in an unpleasant situation, instead of worrying about it and feeling annoyed, focus on what’s in it for you.

Yes, the thought of presenting your project in front of people might run cold shivers down your spine. You might be afraid of losing your train of thought, of someone pointing out a flaw you overlooked. But push these thoughts to the back of your head.

Instead, think about the opportunities this presents you with.

It’s an opportunity to practice public speaking and to have your idea refined.

It’s an opportunity to grow.

And last but not least, it’s an opportunity to get exposure for your project.

“But what if I get totally trashed in front of all these people? What if they laugh about me?”

Then that is an opportunity to learn from your mistakes and prepare for the next time you present something.

One way or the other, you are going to come out stronger.

Start small

Last but not least, this is key. As with all mindset shifts, you have to gradually get used to your new way of thinking.

It will take time and effort, but it will be totally worth it.

Start with the small things in your daily life. A traffic jam on the way to work, forgetting your lunch box, getting caught in the rain.

Then scale it up.

Summary

To round this off, I’ll tell you a little bit more about Siaka. He was born and raised in Gambia, but came to Germany a couple of years ago as a refugee.

He didn’t speak a word of German, neither did he have a job nor any German friends.

Now, a couple of years later, he has got a girlfriend, a little daughter, a job and is living a fulfilled life. (He also lifts way more weight than I do by now.)

He went from nothing to everything.

And I am absolutely convinced that without his mindset, he would not even be close to where he is today.

His story shows just how incredibly valuable it is to be able to see challenges as opportunities. It enables you to think clearly and employ a rational and constructive train of thought.

But even more important, it will cause you to worry less. It will decrease your fear and anxiety. At one point, you might even become grateful for all the challenges (or rather, opportunities) you encounter.

It will have positive effects on your motivation, results, mood and accomplishments.

To successfully complete this shift, the next time you face a problem, keep the following in mind:

1. Challenges are a regular part of life and completely normal. They have and will always be there and there is nothing you can do about it.
2. Problems only become problems because you perceive them as such. Step back and take a neutral point of view.
3. Distance yourself from the problem, especially if you are involved emotionally. Pretend someone else has the problem and you are simply offering counseling.
4. Focus on what you can learn from this experience. Focus on the opportunities for growth that this situation presents you with.

What we call a problem or a challenge is actually nothing but a situation.

It only becomes a problem or a challenge if we perceive it as such.

Because it’s all in your head.

~Moreno