“It’s not how hard you can hit, it’s how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward.” That’s one of the famous lines from the inspiring movie, Rocky. In the movie, Sylvester Stallone who starred as Rocky Balboa told his son:
The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it.
But it ain’t how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.
Rocky Balboa
There are times when you will face tough times and difficult moments in life where everything seems to crumble.
And of course, there are also good times where you enjoy every moment and life seems to be just beautiful.
This is a cycle of life and you have to understand that when there are good times, there will be tough times.
It is normal and you just need to know that it’s natural.
When there is an ‘in’ and there will be an ‘out’. When there is a beginning, then there will be an end. Up and down, yin and yang, left and right, good and bad, etc.
Hence, the first step to overcoming setbacks is to understand that setbacks and tough times are inevitable. They are a part of your life. You cannot live without setbacks. Just like what J.K. Rowling said:
It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.
J.K. Rowling
So, don’t be afraid of failures. And don’t worry about tough times and setbacks. For they are there to serve a purpose.
Ever since she was a child, she loved writing and dreaming of being a professional author. At the age of six, she would write fantasy stories.
In 1990, inspiration struck her. While she was on a 4 hour train trip, she suddenly got the idea of writing about a wizard boy and his magical adventures.
She began writing ferociously. However, fate intervened and it would be a few painful years more before she took up her pen again. Her mother suffered from illness and died.
She got so devastated that she went into depression. After that she went to Portugal to start a new life as an English teacher.
Things started to get better and she got married and got her first child. But good times are short for her, her husband left her and she suffered another blow in life.
She even thought of wanted to commit suicide. This was the darkest moment in her life. Finally, she rounded up all her strength and decided to write again.
Over the couple of years, she would spend most of her days writing in cafes. She got no job and had no money. She survived on government welfare. Her life was in a terrible mess.
Still, she holds on to her dreams and believed that her novel would turn her life and fortune around.
After 5 long years, she finally finished her first manuscript for her novel.
She submitted her first novel to 12 publishers, all rejected her. Success won’t come so easily. She refused to quit.
She continued to send her manuscript to every publisher she could find and submit it every day.
And finally after one whole year of persistence, a small publishing house, Bloomsbury agreed to publish her book.
The publisher told her she should look for a job as it would be hard to survive and make money from selling children’s story book.
Bloomsbury only printed 1,000 copies because they are doubtful about the sales. And 500 of those copies were distributed to libraries for free.
Months later, miracle started to happen. The book went on to win numerous awards, gaining her the recognition she fully deserved. She then started to write the series for her novel.
It was only after the publication of her fifth book few years down the road, that the book became an international best-seller and earning her a celebrity status.
Who is the author and which famous storybook you asked? It’s J.K. Rowling and her famous Harry Potter series.
More than 300,000 copies of Rowling’s fifth book, ‘Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire’ were sold in the first day in UK. And in the US, the book sold more than 3 million copies within 48 hours.
And her sixth book for the series, sold more than 9 million copies in 24 hours of release; breaking all the records.
Today, Harry Potter is a global brand with an estimated worth of $15 billion, making J.K. Rowling the first billionaire author in history.
Read: 13 Most-Inspiring J.K. Rowling Quotes that Make You Stronger
Great achievements will not come without failures and obstacles. Don’t ask me why because I have no idea about it. That’s just how it works.
Just look at it as a test from God to prove your worthiness before he blesses you with all the amazing success you desire.
Most people are afraid to make mistakes. They are afraid what if things don’t work out. They are scared to go through setbacks and adversities.
The ironic truth is that all the great successes are on the other side of all the failures and obstacles. And you have to overcome those failures before you can get there.
Don’t try to search for shortcuts because there are none.
Therefore, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. Don’t be scare to screw up. Anthony Robbins said that if you are going to screw up, screw up big.
Setbacks, obstacles, tough times, mistakes, and adversities will never kill you.
So if you are facing tough times right now, what about that? You still live and still able to read this article, right?
You just need to persist, hold on and get through it.
Here are the 5 principles that can help you to overcome hard times in your life…
It just can’t rain all the time. The same goes for all the obstacles and difficult times you are facing.
They will just go away. Don’t ask me why because this is just how it works.
Sun will rise and sun will set. Rain will come and it will go. It won’t stay for long.
Hard times are not there to make you fall; they are there to PASS so that great times will come.
It can rain, it can snow and it can have a thunderstorm, but all these are not going to be there forever. They will just go.
Things will come and things will go. And things will change. The only thing that doesn’t change is change itself.
So just bear with it. Believe that great times are near and have the courage to go through tough times.
Successful people treat setbacks as a lesson. They see it as an opportunity to learn than just looking at failure as failure.
You have to adopt the same principle and mindset as well.
Extraordinary people know that they can only get to where they want if they learn how to get there. It doesn’t matter if they got lost in the journey.
Just learn and take it as a feedback to improve. If you start a business and face with difficulties, do you quit or do you learn to overcome them?
You know the answer. It may be difficult when you are unaware of this principle while going through tough times.
And you may feel that there’s nothing for you to learn from your setbacks. Seriously, put some thought into it. Take time to think about it, what is there to learn from the tough situation?
It is your decision and your action that get you where you are. So there must be something related and something that you can learn from there.
When you treat setbacks as feedbacks, things will start to change because you started to look at things differently.
And when you look at things differently, you will be able to decide and act differently, which gives you different result.
Thus, change your mindset and thinking now. Believe that there are something to learn from all the hard times you go through.
Read: 8 Golden Lessons: What Can We Learn From Failure
If you have been through divorce, it will make you stronger emotionally. If you have lost money in the stock market, it will make you wiser and a savvy investor after.
You will never grow if you have never gone through hard times.
Every adversity gives you the wisdom and emotional strength you need to take on bigger challenges and experience greater opportunities.
If your business goes bankrupt, you will feel the pain. However, once it was over, you will see that you are still alright and you still survive. And of course, you can start over again if you want to.
The bankruptcy will make you wiser in running your business and make you emotionally tougher.
There is a saying:
Once you go through hell and back, a walk in the park at night doesn’t seem scary anymore.
Just like playing games. When your character faces tougher opponents, he will gain experience and increase his level. The higher the level of your character, the stronger he is.
It is the same in your life. The more setbacks and tough times you have overcome, the stronger and wiser you will become.
So, don’t be afraid to fail. Grow yourself, learn from your mistakes and failures, and this is how you become a better person who is worthy of the success you want.
Napoleon Hill said, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.”
Whenever one door closes, another door will open. There cannot be a new beginning unless there is first an end. There cannot be a recovery unless there is first a crisis.
Did you know that the most numbers of millionaires are created in a recession?
During a recession, property and stock prices will go down. And if you grab this opportunity to buy at a lower price and then sell it high after the recovery, you will make a lot of money.
Warren Buffett, the world’s greatest investor, made the majority of his billions buying stocks during the great recession.
His philosophy of being greedy when others are fearful is what makes him so successful.
So learn to see the opportunity in every adversity, and grab it!
What should you do if it rain? Learn to dance in the rain.
Johnny Depp said, “I think the thing to do is enjoy the ride while you’re on it.” You can’t stop the rain, so just enjoy it then.
When the economy comes down, you can’t stop it. So instead of complaining, blaming, and worrying about it; learn to enjoy it. Or better yet, learn to profit from it.
Everything happens for a reason. Many people give up when things seem tough because they see their suffering as being pointless and unfair.
When they fail or experience huge setbacks, they perceive it as a message that they are not good enough, that what they are doing is not meant to be or that they are just unlucky.
They tend to ask themselves, “Why must this happen to me?”
Like the story of J.K. Rowling and many other successful people who have made it, whenever you are suffering a setback, take heart knowing that it’s not without a reason.
If you can overcome it, you will see that it has led to a greater good for you. So just enjoy the ride while you’re on it. Unless you can get off the ride, else you should just have fun on the ride.
Read: Why Failure is Good and Necessary to be Successful in Life
No matter how hard the times are, believe that it is going to be over and won’t stay forever. No matter how big the setback is going to be, believed that it has come to pass and there’s always something for you to learn.
Tough times will make you stronger and wiser. Just like playing games, if you have beat a level 10 boss, a level 3 enemy will be a piece of cake to you.
If you are at level 3 right now and you face an enemy at level 5, you will feel that it is difficult to overcome it. However, if you have gone through it, you will get yourself level up.
This is life and you just can’t get away from the up and down cycle. And since you cannot escape life, why don’t just enjoy every moment of it?
Instead of worrying, blaming, and over-stress yourself, make it a game to challenge yourself to overcome the tough times.
And when you take the challenge, stop limiting yourself, and embrace the hardship, it is when you make the most progress in life. You will end up becoming a stronger and better person. You will become more successful.
Let me know what you think about this article. And I seriously hope that the ideas presented here are able to give you positive energy and support you in your journey.
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This article is so amazing. Thank you a lot for writing it. After reading it, I have been insprised a huge energy of positive and optimism. All I need is just be more optimistic and believe that everything will be allright and I can go through all of them. At the end of the road, maybe something suprising is waiting for me. ^^
Hi, thank you for leaving your thoughts here. I really hope that this article inspired people and lift people up from the time they needed the most. :)
thank you so much for this article. it's all I needed to stand strong.
Brilliant Article Shawn!
this is more than I'd expected. this helps me remember the days in almentor under Fawzy's class. its very helpful thank you.
Great to hear that.. :)
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Glad to hear that this article helps. Cheers. :)
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And when i followed you i know that their is hope for me some day
This is a good one.
Cheers :)