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A runt of a Shetland pony named Socks helped teach me how to overcome adversity. We lived on a remote cattle ranch in Wyoming, and my grandfather bought him for me when I was four years old.
Socks had a hard and dry little heart; he only wanted to terrorize his rider. Dad would get on him, and he was a well-mannered pony. However, I couldn’t get him to do anything when I got on him. Worse yet, when Dad wasn’t looking, Socks would kick up his heels to see how much it would take to buck me off.
As time passed, I got very worried because Dad said I wouldn’t get a “real” horse until I learned to ride Socks. I worked at it and finally rode Socks about half a mile down the meadow. We had to cross a ditch to go further. Socks turned his neck to get a good look at me before he let loose and bucked high and fast as he crossed the ditch. I went flying through the air.
Dad watched and saw the whole thing. I was humiliated; I cried and walked back to the house, but my Dad caught Socks and made me get back on. Right then and there, not later when I’d plucked up enough courage to try and ride Socks again.
Although I didn’t know it then, neuroscience tells us that new memories remain unstable for a short period after an event. During this unstable period, memories are coded and consolidated into the subconscious.
We can erase our fear of an event by altering our memory of it, and the best time to do that is during the unstable period, which lasts for the first few hours.
Getting through adversity isn’t always simple, and it goes deeper than happy-clappy slogans meant to numb our fears. We need the right mindset to find the best solution.
He that wrestles with us strengthens our nerves and sharpens our skills. Our antagonist is our helper”—Edmund Burke.
Life is a worthy opponent; it produces the antagonists we all need to grow. When you have the right mindset to overcome adversity, you know the situation will produce skills that will help you come out a winner in life. Adversity can be a helper rather than stopping you from achieving your goals.
We can learn how to overcome adversity and come out stronger than before if we do these things:
1. Get back in the saddle
We have all had experiences with colleagues, employees, or family members that have left us unsettled, afraid, or unsure of how to move forward. If we find new ways to tackle the problem again, we learn how to overcome adversity. This way, we can update our memory before that negative feeling is codified.
It might be with a different colleague, employee, or client, but don’t let the experience of fear or anxiety get embedded into your thinking. It is important, however, that you make sure your environment is safe before trying to extinguish your fear-conditioned memory.
How to make it work for you:
- Replace a bad memory about a situation with a better one. Don’t wait because the sooner, the better.
- Take the time to think about what went wrong and how you can change your approach next time.
- Reflect on a similar situation where you came out a winner. Remind yourself that you’ve “got it” when confronted again.
2. Grit up
When I interviewed with the FBI, they liked that I wasn’t coddled, pampered, or entitled. Growing up on a cattle ranch in Wyoming left me scrappy, hungry, and full of grit. Getting bucked off Socks taught me that getting knocked down is part of life. But it’s those knocks that produce the grit we need to be successful.
Grit is doing what is needed even when you don’t know exactly how to do it. Grit is determination, persistence, and endurance.
Sports psychologist Tim Woodman has done several studies on what makes superior athletes. He spent a lot of time interviewing many top performers, and the one thing that he came away with was this: nearly every top performer in his study had experienced a critical negative event in their life—parents divorcing, a death, disease, or some other perceived loss—and they experienced it early in life.
Shit happens. Life is hard. Pain is inevitable. Growth is optional—LaRae Quy
Hard times create the need for a coping system. Because there is one of two ways to react to the crap that happens in life: you can whine, complain, and blame others. Or, you can take responsibility for your actions, grit up, and look for solutions.
This takes a strong mind. Are you mentally tough? Take this evidence-based, FREE Mental Toughness Assessment.
How to make it work for you:
- Choose your mindset. Don’t fall victim to a mindset that tells you failures have created trauma that you can’t get past.
- Decide to look at your adversity as an opportunity to learn and grow.
3. Express gratitude
Hunt down the good in your situation and express gratitude for what you find because simultaneously, you cannot be anxious and grateful.
The limbic system is the part of the brain responsible for all emotional experiences. Studies have shown that the hippocampus and amygdala, the two main sites regulating emotions, memory, and bodily functioning, get activated with feelings of gratitude. The area of the brain that produces anxiety and fear overlaps with the area responsible for positive emotions. This is one reason it’s hard to be stressed out and grateful at the same time.
The Mindfulness Awareness Research Center of UCLA stated that gratitude does change the neural structures in the brain and makes us feel happier and more content. When we express gratitude and receive it, our brain releases dopamine and serotonin, the two crucial neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions. These neurotransmitters make us feel good and immediately enhance our mood, making us more positive.
By consciously practicing gratitude every day, we can help these neural pathways strengthen themselves and ultimately create a permanent grateful and positive nature within ourselves.
How to make it work for you:
Start a gratitude journal where you can write down the little and big things in life for which you are thankful. Your gratitude journal can fit in your daily planner or an online notepad. Consciously focus on the good memories and recollect some long-lost happy moments. Words have power, so don’t overlook the small things, no matter how unimportant they may seem.
Much like the gratitude journal, the gratitude list will help you come face-to-face with your blessings. List the people who offered their support when you needed it the most. While you are writing, try to revert to those days and feel the thankfulness in your heart again.
4. Acquire Lots Of Information
FBI agents making arrests face the unknown because they can’t predict how an individual will react when arrested. To alleviate the fear they may experience, they collect information in several different ways:
First, they collect information about themselves. They practice arrest scenarios with red-handled guns that do not have firing pins. This provides feedback on how they respond to different situations. It allows them to constantly fine-tune their responses to anticipate a good outcome when confronted by the unknown.
Second, they collect as much information about the person to be arrested as possible. The agents can prepare if they have reason to believe the suspect might be armed and dangerous.
Third, agents qualify for firearms four times a year to fine-tune their skills. By the time they actually make an arrest, they have enough muscle memory that they don’t even have to think about what to do because they’ve done it so many times before.
How to make it work for you: You’ll have a better chance of coming out as a winner if you practice or rehearse your performance ahead of time. It might not be possible to replicate the exact experience but pay attention to your response in similar situations to decide whether you need to fine-tune it.
5. Visualize Your Success
Visualize how you will overcome adversity. When you visualize your success, your brain releases a neurotransmitter called dopamine. That chemical becomes active when you are rewarded or have positive feelings. Dopamine enables you to not only see rewards but to move toward those rewards as well.
By visualizing your performance, your brain stores that information as a success.
One important caveat here, though: your brain is not easily fooled. It knows the difference between visualizing your success and fantasizing about something you can never do, like being a rock star on stage. Your brain will only store it as a success if it represents real life and real situations you will encounter.
How to make it work for you: Create a petri dish with experiences in which you have no or little experience and where the likelihood of failure is high. A petri dish is a safe place to fail or feel fear. Educate yourself about your fear, learn as much as possible about the circumstances that activate it, and practice overcoming it.
Related: Mastering Difficult Conversations: Managing Emotions Effectively