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Life presents numerous challenges that we have to overcome. Whether it’s implementing a healthy lifestyle, or it’s passing that driving test, when it comes to obstacles, they can seem insurmountable. But what is the key to overcoming these difficult obstacles? Is it all about mindset, is it practicality, or is it a combination of factors?

Identifying The Details Of The Problem

Pragmatism is the goal. A problem is only a problem in your mind. If we think that an obstacle is insurmountable, we’ve got to break down the details and see if it truly is a problem, or we’ve built it too much up in our minds. When it comes to something like learning to drive, it’s unfair to diagnose it as an insurmountable problem when you’ve only taken one lesson. You need at least 5 driving lessons to truly get a grasp on the situation. Having identified the details of the problem, you are in a far better position to decide if it is all in your mind or not.

Exploring The Consequences

As we start to explore the issue at the outset, we need to go further forward in time and see what the consequences would be if we ignored it, or how the problem would snowball. We need to look at how it affects us, and when we start to look further forward, what we may do, especially if we are of a negative mindset, is put ourselves off trying it because of one of the potential outcomes. But at this point, we’ve got to assess the plausibility of those outcomes. This is when we start to realise if it is all in the mind, or not.

Taking Control Of Your Behaviour

And as we start to think that an outcome could result in a worst-case scenario, if we automatically jump to that, this is when we need to take control of our behaviour and have a sensible head on our shoulders. It’s you that has control over the final outcome. You need to see if there are aspects of the problem that you cannot control, but also look at the things you can control. A lot of stress in life results from being unable to take control of a specific situation. While some people feel the need to have control over everything, we have to remember that this is impossible, but we can still adapt to certain situations so we can, to an extent, have control of the situation.

The obstacles that we believe are insurmountable can put us off ever doing them in the first place and this means that we won’t try new things. But there are aspects of life that we have to jump back on the horse and try again. Because there are so many different obstacles in life, once we overcome these, it will make us stronger, but it also improves our comfort zone. If we never try anything new, we wouldn’t leave the house! It should be our duty to challenge ourselves. Ultimately, this is what will improve our quality of life.