We have all heard at least one interesting story of someone who faced obstacles and turned them into an opportunity. Only that, when it comes to our turn, we see how daunting the challenges are; so difficult we just feel like giving up.
Thomas Eddison in 1879, after several attempts at inventing the modern light bulb to no avail, eventually succeeded. He reportedly conducted over 1,000 unsuccessful experiments before finding the right filament material that worked, but he viewed these failures as learning opportunities, famously saying, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”.
How about the story of J.K. Rowling and the writing of Harry Potter? Rowling had faced numerous rejections from publishers and had financial and personal challenges when writing the book but instead of giving up, she turned these obstacles into a motivation to keep refining her manuscript until it became the masterpiece that it is today.
Every day, we all have obstacles that look so fierce we think we can’t overcome them. But instead of giving up, there are ways you can turn them into opportunities to grow, to improve, and to become successful.
Qualities You Need to Turn Obstacles into Opportunity
Being able to turn your obstacles and challenges into opportunities and becoming successful eventually requires you to have a mind shift, beginning with the mindset of “I can do it” to taking the right actions even when it doesn’t seem like a breakthrough is near.
With the following qualities, you can turn every setback into an opportunity and achieve success in anything you do.
1. Self-belief
Nobody challenges the status quo without first believing in themselves. You have to believe yourself to the point it doesn’t matter what other people think about you.
Self-belief comes from the identification of your ability to achieve all you put your mind to. It is the realization that you are the best definition of yourself, and being able to invalidate other’s negative definitions of you.
When you believe in yourself enough, others will be forced to believe in you because they see that you are very determined to turn those obstacles before you into opportunities.
2. A positive mindset
Again, nobody who ever turned their challenges into opportunities did so without having a positive mindset. This is why they always believe that they can make it.
Giving up on the way is not an option. Even when you are down, you should keep looking at the bright side of things. Remembering that, “there is always light at the end of the tunnel”.
3. Resilience
Resilience is one’s determination to keep moving on despite the amount of obstacles that have been on the way. No matter how many blows life has dealt you, resilience is what tells you to keep moving on. Having a positive mindset and the determination to take the next step ahead is what resilience truly means.
4. Strategy
Rita Mae Brown once said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” – a quote popularly attributed to Albert Einstein.[1]Who Really Said These 5 Famous Phrases? — Google Arts & Culture But how true this is! So true no one ever disputes it.
However, many people subconsciously do the same things and expect different results. When Edison said, “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work”, he tried different things every single time until he got the one that worked. By failing, he eliminated one way that won’t work.[2]Thomas Alva Edison – Oxford Reference
Being able to turn obstacles into opportunities requires you to have a mindset of change and continuous improvement. If it didn’t work the first time or two, you have got to restrategize.
5. Reflection
Reflection goes together with strategy but it is one’s willingness to think about the outcome of one’s actions. By comparing action to consequences, you can see what you could have done differently. This is reflection, and it is an important quality in turning your obstacles into opportunities and achieving success.
6. Change-oriented mindset
If you find it hard to change a habit, an environment, or a method of doing things, you might have to ditch this fixed mindset and embrace a growth mindset. A mindset change is necessary to become a creative and more productive person.
People with a growth mindset look to get better and bigger, while those with a fixed mindset simply want to live through every day being the same; more like just surviving.
Practical Example of Turning Obstacles into Opportunity
When talking about how to turn an obstacle into opportunity, many names come to mind but one that is very remarkable is Raymond Ackerman.
Raymond Ackerman, an inspiring South African business leader, had a clear story of how you can turn your obstacles into opportunities. After finishing school with a Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from the University of Cape Town, Raymond joined the Greatermans group as a trainee manager. The Greatermans group was a company founded by his father, Gus Ackerman, just after WWI but was later sold to the Greatermans group in 1940. However, his family was pretty much still around the company.
Forward to the early 1950s, Normal Herber, the then chairman of Greatermans group decided to start a food retailer called Checkers and made Raymond in charge of the new food retailer. By mid mid-1960s, he had showcased outstanding performance in managing the stores, which in 1966, were 85 Checkers stores. This same year, he was fired from his top managerial position for unknown reasons.[3]Key Business & Life Lessons From African Business Magnates – Knowseeker.com)
However, Raymond became a practical example of what it means to turn your obstacles into an opportunity. In 1967, he proceeded to buy four Pick ‘n Pay stores from Jack Goldin in Cape Town. Through his unique managerial skills and adopting a consumer-centric business approach, he turned Pick ‘n Pay into one of South Africa’s largest retail chain stores.
How to Turn Your Obstacles into an Opportunity
What obstacle are you currently facing? Let’s assume you lost your job, or you lost some money, or you failed a test, just name it. Here are some step-by-step ways to recover and turn your obstacles into opportunities.
1. Accept quickly – identify your flaws
When you encounter a setback, you need to accept it quickly. Accepting that the obstacle before you is real will enable you to take actionable steps in overcoming it and finding an opportunity out of it.
2. Evaluate
If for instance, you failed a test and you have accepted the outcome, the next step is to evaluate why that may have happened. You need to know the factors that contributed to this obstacle.
Sometimes, the factors may be related to your earlier actions. Other times, they may have nothing to do with you. Whatever the case, you need to identify what could have led to the obstacle so you can know what to work on to rise above it.
3. Think critically
Critical thinking is one essential tool in rising again after a setback or obstacle. It entails analyzing different lines of actions and the possible outcomes they will produce even before carrying them out.
While evaluation considers what you may have done or what has happened, critical thinking considers what you can do differently. Thus, making it an essential tool when you want to turn an obstacle into an opportunity.
4. Ask yourself what the opportunity is
When you start seeing the problem as an opportunity, only then will you find what opportunities could be hidden behind the curtain. You have to ask yourself, “Where is the opportunity”, “How can I unravel the opportunities in this challenge”.
Cultivating the habit of asking yourself questions when at a hurdle will help you find answers to problems quickly and more efficiently. John C. Maxwell seems to agree strongly that, “The ability to ask the right question is more than half the battle of finding the answer.” – Thomas J. Watson (IBM founder)
5. Take action
In turning an obstacle into an opportunity, folding your hands and doing nothing does not work.
Many people believe that the obstacle came as a thing of fate and would leave the same way. They reject anything that suggests to them that they may have played a role in the appearance of the obstacle, or that they don’t have any role to play for the obstacle to disappear.
Unfortunately, this passive attitude does not help. Taking an active position is what makes you see the opportunities behind what you may consider an obstacle. However, the discovery of an opportunity does not make the obstacle less of itself. It only means you have become bigger than it.
6. Seek help
Asking yourself deep questions about how to rise above the current obstacle can help you find what you already know concerning the problem. It helps you to discover links between the obstacle and similar experiences you or someone close to you have experienced before, and how they recovered from them.
However, sometimes you may need to step out of yourself to get the answers you are seeking. This is why you should be open to asking someone else if you feel you cannot easily find the answers on your own.
More importantly, you need to ask the right questions, which involves identifying what could have caused it and what the solutions are. Asking questions that reflect a feeling of regret, pain, or disappointment is completely unnecessary.
7. Stay positive
It is important to stay positive throughout the process of finding the solution to an obstacle. Do things that motivate you, or hand around people who encourage you, while avoiding people who make you feel discouraged. If it will help, read motivational books. Sometimes, any motivation or inspiration from someone else can be truly valuable.
8. Celebrate small wins
Celebrating small wins along the way will encourage you to keep going. Don’t wait till you encounter the biggest win before you celebrate. Celebrating small wins has the psychological effect of making see that you are making progress, which is often very motivating.
9. Re-evaluate
Once you have successfully turned the setback around, it is now time to look back at what you did to achieve the results. This step aims to refine the overall experience into a template that can help you turn similar obstacles into new opportunities in the future.
