It Does Get Better: Surmounting Obstacles (Again and Again)

The other day, my team and I were dwelling on a particularly stressful period at work last year, which had pretty much everyone involved in various states of distress. Back then, tempers were frayed, frustration loomed supreme, and it’s safe to say that all of us were tired out of our wits. However, these weren’t the aspects that we were talking about as we looked back on this phase in our work lives: instead, we found ourselves snorting in laughter at the now hilarious hacks we made use of to get past every hurdle thrown in our way, or the funny episodes that were entwined in this seemingly tortuous course we were on.

In addition, as we looked back on when either of us faced setbacks that, at the time, felt like the end of the world, we now found ourselves bonding over how, in such instances, we would swoop in to help the other, band together as allies, and keep moving ahead on the goals we had set ourselves up with.

I’m bringing all of this up now, because of a couple of accounts I’ve heard recently from entrepreneurs and enterprises in the region on how they’re finding themselves in tough phases with their business today, which sound quite similar to the crunch situations my team and I found ourselves in not too long ago. Now, I’m neither a soothsayer to predict how such scenarios will unfold, nor can I profess to have any kind of knowledge that’d function as a silver bullet to get yourselves out of such challenging circumstances.

But in light of my aforementioned reflections on such tough times at work, I’ll claim to have a few ideas on how you can get yourself through these situations, and come out of it, scarred, maybe, but not broken. For starters, know that, no matter how this state you are in pans out, rest assured that, as cliché as it may sound, it does get better.

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that if someone chose to come at me with this kind of a message when I was going through hell, I’d probably have told them to take a hike, along with a few choice expletives. But today, I’m willing to say that if one does manage to keep this notion of an insightful outcome in mind -regardless of whether it’s perceived as a positive or a negative result- it is something that will allow you to keep soldiering ahead, no matter how the circumstances may turn.

There will always be something you can learn from the experience in hindsight, be it the ability to identify warning signs earlier than you used to before, or the understanding you get of the mistakes you committed along the way. Perhaps best of all, if you’ve got the right people around you, you’ll find that at the end of it all, more than mulling over the things that went wrong, you’ll be bonding over how all of you came together to rise to the occasion.

And that, I believe, is worth every sweat and tear you may go through today- so, just keep the faith, people.

Related: As An Entrepreneur, Being Self-Aware Can Only Ever Do You Good