The Development By Doing Your Best When Dealing With Challenges Approach

There are many ways to develop. One approach is to do your best when dealing with challenges. Some people even reframe difficult challenges as delightful. They then aim to do their best and develop.

Looking back, can you think of a situation when you developed by tackling a stimulating or stretching challenge? What did you learn from doing your best to tackle the challenge? Did you learn anything that helped you to develop?

Different people learn different lessons depending on the type of challenge they are tackling. They may be doing a creative project, climbing a mountain, rescuing people at sea, solving technical problems, making key decisions or doing other activities.

Whilst the challenges may be different, some common themes often emerge. Here are some things that people say about what they learned and how they developed.

I learned about the importance of:

Being clear on your goals … Learning from when you have tackled similar challenges in the past … Learning about what works … Clarifying the principles you want to follow.

Getting some quick successes … Continually focusing on your principles – because these may be the only constant as events unfold … Producing success stories.

Taking time to do reality checks … Building on what is working … Tackling areas for improvement … Getting a second wind and even a third wind … Following your successful pattern for finishing.

Let’s return to your own life and work. Can you think of a specific situation in the future where you may want to develop by dealing with a challenge? This could be something in your personal or professional life.

What may be the kind of challenge that you want to tackle? What may be the results you want to achieve? How can you do your best achieve these goals?

What do you think you may learn by tackling the challenge? How do you think that these may help you to develop? How could you then apply these lessons in your future life or work?

If you wish, try tackling the exercise on this theme. This invites you to complete the following sentences.