Falling Up

Adversity, no matter what it is, doesn’t have the power to hit us as bad as we think it will. 

As students we overestimate the power of a bad grade in a test. When we are young, we also think that ending a romantic relationship can have a devastating power which normally is not the case.

“Our fear of consequences is always worse than the consequences themselves.”  Shawn Achor.

As adults, many times we overrate the importance of the problems we need to solve in our jobs, letting them to affect us deeply.  We must remember that, except for a few professions, most of the problems we face at work are not life or death situations, so pondering them correctly and taking care of them calmly and with good judgment is normally the wisest thing to do.

Through thousands of years of evolution, we have demonstrated the ability to cope with adversity, not only to bounce back, but using it in our favor to end in better place than we were before the crisis.

Success is not about never falling, and it’s more than simple resilience.  It is about using our falls to boost us upward, capitalizing on our adversity to become even happier.