Overcoming Obstacles To Personal Growth: Grasp The Positive Benefits Of Negative Experiences

Working artists David Bayles and Ted Orland tell a story about an art teacher who did an experiment with his grading system for two groups of students. It is a parable on the benefits of failure. Here is what happened:

The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in some scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty kilogrammes of pots rated an “A,” forty kilogrammes “B,” and so on. Those being graded on “quality,” however, needed to produce only one pot—albeit a perfect one—to get an “A.” Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work—and learning from their mistakes—the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.

It doesn’t matter whether your objectives are in the area of art, business, ministry, sports, or relationships. The only way you can get ahead is to fail early, fail often, and fail forward.

TAKE THE JOURNEY

Many people are taught on leadership at numerous conferences every year. And one of my deepest concerns is always that some people will go home from the event and nothing will change in their lives. They enjoy the “show” but fail to implement any of the ideas presented to them. I tell people continually: We overestimate the event and underestimate the process. Every fulfilled dream occurred because of dedication to a process. (That’s one of the reasons I write articles and post them on my blog—so that people can engage in the ongoing process of growth.)

People naturally tend toward inertia. That’s why personal growth is such a struggle. But that’s also why adversity lies at the heart of every success. The process of achievement comes through repeated failures and the constant struggle to climb to a higher level.

Most people will grudgingly concede that they must make it through some adversity in order to succeed. They’ll acknowledge that they have to experience the occasional setback to make progress. But I believe that success comes only if you take that thought one step farther. To achieve your dreams, you must embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you’re not failing, you’re probably not really moving forward.

THE BENEFITS OF ADVERSITY

Psychologist Dr. Joyce Brothers asserts, “The person interested in success has to learn to view failure as a healthy, inevitable part of the process of getting to the top.” Adversity and the failure that often results from it should be expected in the process of succeeding, and they should be viewed as absolutely critical parts of it. In fact, the benefits of adversity are many. Consider these reasons to embrace adversity and persevere through it:

• Adversity Creates Resilience

Nothing in life breeds resilience like adversity and failure. A study in Time magazine in the mid-1980s described the incredible resilience of a group of people who had lost their jobs three times because of plant closings. Psychologists expected them to be discouraged, but they were surprisingly optimistic. Their adversity had actually created an advantage. Because they had already lost a job and found a new one at least twice, they were better able to handle adversity than people who had worked for only one company and found themselves unemployed.

• Adversity Develops Maturity

Adversity can make you better if you don’t let it make you bitter. Why? Because it promotes wisdom and maturity. American playwright William Saroyan spoke to this issue: “Good people are good because they’ve come to wisdom through failure. We get very little wisdom from success, you know.”

As the world continues to change at a faster and faster rate, maturity with flexibility becomes increasingly important. These qualities come from weathering difficulties. Harvard business school professor John Kotter says, “I can imagine a group of executives 20 years ago discussing a candidate for a top job and saying, ‘This guy had a big failure when he was 32.’ Everyone else would say, ‘Yep, yep, that’s a bad sign.’ I can imagine that same group considering a candidate today and saying, ‘What worries me about this guy is that he’s never failed.” The problems we face and overcome prepare our hearts for future difficulties.

• Adversity Pushes The Envelope Of Accepted Performance

Lloyd Ogilvie told of a friend who was a circus performer in his youth. The fellow described learning to work on the trapeze:

Once you know that the net below will catch you, you stop worrying about falling. You actually learn to fall successfully! What that means is, you can concentrate on catching the trapeze swinging toward you, and not on falling, because repeated falls in the past have convinced you that the net is strong and reliable when you do fall . . . The result of falling and being caught by the net is a mysterious confidence and daring on the trapeze. You fall less. Each fall makes you able to risk more.

Until a person learns from experience that he can live through adversity, he is reluctant to buck mindless tradition, push the envelope of organizational performance, or challenge himself to press his physical limits. Failure prompts a person to rethink the status quo.

• Adversity Provides Greater Opportunities

I believe that eliminating problems limits our potential. Just about every successful entrepreneur I’ve met has numerous stories of adversity and setbacks that opened doors to greater opportunity.

• Adversity Prompts Innovation

The ability to innovate is at the heart of creativity—a vital component in success. University of Houston professor Jack Matson recognized that fact and developed a course that his students came to call “Failure 101.” In it, Matson assigns students to build mock-ups of products that no one would ever buy. His goal is to get students to equate failure with innovation instead of defeat. That way they will free themselves to try new things. “They learn to reload and get ready to shoot again,” says Matson. If you want to succeed, you have to learn to make adjustments to the way you do things and try again. Adversity helps to develop that ability.

• Adversity Recaps Unexpected Benefits

The average person makes a mistake and automatically thinks that it’s a failure. But some of the greatest stories of success can be found in the unexpected benefits of mistakes. For example, most people are familiar with the story of Thomas Edison and the phonograph: he discovered it while trying to invent something entirely different. 

Horace Walpole said that “in science, mistakes always precede the truth.” That’s what happened to German-Swiss chemist Christian Friedrich Schönbein. One day he was working in the kitchen—which his wife had strictly forbidden—and was experimenting with sulphuric acid and nitric acid. When he accidentally spilled some of the mixture on the kitchen table, he thought he was in trouble. (He knew he would experience “adversity” when his wife found out!) He hurriedly snatched up a cotton apron, wiped up the mess, and hung the apron by the fire to dry.

Suddenly there was a violent explosion. Evidently the cellulose in the cotton underwent a process called nitration. Unwittingly Schönbein had invented nitrocellulose—what came to be called smokeless gunpowder or guncotton. He went on to market his invention, which made him a lot of money.

• Adversity Motivates

If you can step back from the negative circumstances facing you, you will be able to discover their positive benefits. That is almost always true; you simply have to be willing to look for them—and not take the adversity you are experiencing too personally.

If you lose your job, think about the resilience you’re developing. If you try something daring and survive, evaluate what you learned about yourself—and how it will help you take on new challenges. If a bookstore gets your order wrong, figure out whether it’s an opportunity to learn a new skill. And if you experience a train wreck in your career, think of the maturity it’s developing in you. In the game of life it’s a good idea to have a few early losses, which relieves you of the pressure of trying to maintain an undefeated season. Always measure an obstacle next to the size of the dream you’re pursuing. It’s all in how you look at it.

WHAT COULD BE WORSE?

One of the most incredible stories of adversity overcome and success gained is that of Joseph, who was an ancient Hebrew. You may be familiar with the story. He was born the eleventh of twelve sons in a wealthy Middle Eastern family whose trade was raising livestock. As a teenager, Joseph alienated his brothers. First, he was his father’s favourite, even though he was nearly the youngest. Second, he used to tell his father anytime his brothers weren’t doing their work properly with the sheep. And third, he made the mistake of telling his older brothers that one day he would be in charge of them. Some of his brothers wanted to kill him, but the eldest, Reuben, prevented them from doing that. So when Reuben wasn’t around, the others sold him into slavery.

Joseph ended up in Egypt working in the house of the captain of the guard, a man named Potiphar. Because of his leadership and administrative skills, Joseph quickly rose in the ranks, and before long, he was running the entire household. He was making the best of a bad situation. But then things got worse. The wife of his master tried to persuade him to sleep with her. When he refused, she accused him of making advances to her and got Potiphar to throw Joseph in prison.

FROM SLAVERY TO PRISON

At that point, Joseph was in a really difficult position. He was separated from his family. He was living in a foreign land. He was a slave. And he was locked in prison. But again, he made the best of a tough situation. Before long, the warden of the prison put Joseph in charge of all prisoners and the prison’s daily activities.

Joseph met a fellow prisoner who had been an official in Pharaoh’s court, the chief cupbearer. And Joseph was able to do him a favour by interpreting the man’s dream. When he saw that the official was grateful, Joseph made a request of him in return.

“When all goes well with you,” Joseph asked, “remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.” Joseph had hope a few days later when the official was returned to court and the good graces of the monarch. He expected any minute to receive word that Pharaoh was setting him free. But he waited. And waited. Two years passed before the cupbearer remembered Joseph, and he did so only because Pharaoh wanted someone to interpret his dreams.

FINALLY THE PAYOFF

In the end, Joseph was able to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. And because the Hebrew showed such wisdom, the Egyptian ruler put Joseph in charge of the entire kingdom. As the result of Joseph’s leadership, planning, and system of food storage, when famine struck the Middle East seven years later, many thousands of people who otherwise would have died were able to survive, including Joseph’s own family. When his brothers travelled to Egypt for relief from the famine—twenty years after selling him into slavery—they discovered that their brother Joseph was not only alive, but second in command of the most powerful kingdom in the world.

Few people would welcome the adversity of thirteen years in bondage as a slave and prisoner. But as far as we know, Joseph never gave up hope and never lost his perspective. Nor did he hold a grudge against his brothers. After their father died, he told them, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” He found the positive benefits in his negative experiences. And if he can do it, so can we.

We, the Ushauri Smart community, sincerely thank you for visiting our website and finding time to read our blog articles. In the next article we shall find out the role experience plays in our growth journey. Stay tuned!