Adversity
“Failure is the opportunity to start over in a more intelligent way” by Henry Ford
Every once in a while we face adversity. Some is self inflicted other is due to chance. Some is worse than other, but I think the potential of adversity is overseen. Earlier in my life I felt sorry for my self whenever I faced adversity, but at the age of 17 I realized that I was able to turn adversity into a self learning process with a positive outcome regardless of the degree.
A lot of times facing adversity I have tried to practice whatever thing I was bad at regarding the adversity while I was facing it. For me, it was the logical solution but my experience is that I have to get back to basic, get secure and then decide what the important things for me is to be able to start over and get a constructive outcome of the situation.
I am right now in the middle of the process of turning a situation like described above. As written in my second post tennis is my biggest passion of all and maybe even like an obsession for me from time to time. The case is that I’m not going to work with the tennis project that I have used all of my time and energy on the last two years. That has made me question a lot of things regarding how I use my time and what’s really important in my life.
My way of turning adversity in a constructive way is like this:
The most important things for me in life
1. Happiness
2. My fellow humans well being
3. Constantly be in development as a person
Who am I
It gets more and more popular with personality tests and not all of them are equally good but I have used two to understand my self better and what qualities I have got and thereby also which qualities I have to aim for to reach my goals.
Garuda - Focus profile
The philosophy of this tool is that every human being consciously or unconsciously focuses on certain tasks or values. As the name says it’s a way of finding a persons focus which is done with 56 questions. The test operates with 4 different fields whom each indicates a kind of personality trait. No one is completely a field but often mostly 2 fields. When the test is done it’s possible to use the outcome to get a overview of your strengths and weaknesses.
I’m mostly the “blue” (color), the “grey” and partly “green” and “red”. Below is the outcome of the test described in words that fit on me as a person.
Blue
Adaption, positive, understanding, sensitive and harmony
Grey
Keep agreements, routines, details and considered preparation
Green
Experiments, development and inspiration
Red
Ambitions, targeted, risk taking, improvements,
Person type test
Is another danish tool to get to know some of your own traits.
My test result was like this:
Your type code: ISFJ
“Focus on prioritizing tasks depending on the personal needs” ISFJ-types are oftenprivate, loyal and caring people who seem modest and straightforward. Their talent lies in making sure that everything is organized so that others around them can achieve their objectives. It is often those who spontaneously offers to help others when they perceive that there is a need for help, and they are often better able to perceive others’ needs before their own. They are often friendly and understanding people who try to avoid confrontations and conflicts.
For ISFJ’s, it is therefore important that the organization or business is structured and organized, in order to create secure borders around the performance of the work. You often see this type be functioning in hierarchical organizations. Often you will find ISFJ’s in jobs where they can use their loyalty, respect for traditions and the ability to conscientiously to support other people. Often, they are employed as: educators
(I)ntrovert
Private, think before talk, is more quiet
(S)ense
Facts, details, focus on the 5. senses
(F)eel
Sympathise, more subjective, emphasis on human needs and values look at human relationship
J(udgement)
Planning, likes to complete tasks before embarking on a new
Trading plan
I always think that getting an actual plan of what you have to do is needed on writing because it’s then binding. Especially for a type of person like me it’s very important to have a concrete plan to keep me on the direct road towards my goals. In my planing I’ll keep in mind which qualities that I already have got I can use and what qualities I have to train.
“You can’t make a difference by doing the same” by Ulrik Wilbek, danish Mens Handball national coach.
Ulrik Wilbek says it pretty clear, and here is what I’m going to do.
3 things I wan’t to chance
1. Daily time especially to my self
21:30-22:00 is my daily alone time. It can be used on watching television, reading a book, writing a blog, watching a speech on the computer, walking and basically everything thats done alone without interruptions.
Here I’m mainly going to use some of the qualities from the “Grey”: Planning and rules, but what I think is more important for me is that I have to challenge my self to get better at: Variation, change, variety, testing, experiments which are all “Green” and I know that it’s not what I’m best at but because the circumstances will feel safe because of the “grey” I think there is room for development.
2. Practice to be more present in the moment
Morning exercises at wake up. Going to start with breath exercises to be more aware of my breath and when I feel ready (at least 14 days from today) I will try with some more advanced meditation exercises.
1. Exercise Inhale through one nostril and close the other with a thumb. Then block the nostril that has just been inhaled into – and exhale through the other nostril.
When inhaling the air must be dragged down in the diaphragm. It is repeated five times
2. Exercise Inhaling thorugh nose and thinking and seeing the air as fog going in the nose, moving around in your head, going to the bottom of the stomach out of all limbs and back towards the mouth and finally leaving the body.
3. Exercise Exhale in shock movements 2 or 3 times with sound like “Huh, Huh, (Huh)” It’s important to empty the lungs as much as possible, which will help getting the adrenalin out of the system.
As with the goal I also have to use some of the “grey” to get the breathing exercises done but once again I’m challenging my “green” values. Especially
hunches, experiments, fascination and testing,
3. Making a virtue out of every hour as a tennis coach
Make planning in writing for each individual lesson as when I started as a full time Tennis Coach about two years ago.
Once again I have to have some of the “grey” in the planning part but here I get challenges on a lot of values a cross the different categories such as: tolerance,
adaptation, variation, modification, experiments, ambitions, targeted improvements, risk taking.
As a final note studies shows that we are able to remember 10 percent of what we read, 20 percent of what we hear and significant 70 percent of what we say. This is my way of talking!
Now I’m ready to start making a change which I hope will lead me towards development.
/Adam