Life experience: When you overcome your challenge

Everyday people overcome their challenges.

You just saw it with the JO 2021, the training that is going on for those athletes for 4 years to prepare for a few days.

For 3 people or 3 teams the fact of pushing their boundaries will pay off, and for the rest, it will end up as a deception or hopefully for an unforgettable experience.

For the next 4 years they will push themselves once again hoping that it will pay off at the next JO.

This is what people see as challenging, the first person who climbed the Everest, the first person who crossed the Atlantic swimming…the list can go on and on as new challenges are attempted every day by those extraordinary human beings.

The latest I saw on the T.V is a 19 years old girl, attempting the world tour on a plane.

The age is what triggers the admiration because most people will think back at what they were doing at that age and realise that their activities were very much mundane and “boring” compare to her life.

The unknown challenge

But we forget that a challenge can be very different from one to person to another.

I remember going to a retreat, years ago in London.

I jumped on the planed and took the train and spent a wonderful week at a religious retreat, unknowingly sowing a lifelong friendship.

The retreat was a challenge for me, I am not a quiet person and standing still is extremely difficult for me.

I am a chat box, I overthink and cannot stop for a minute…. funny enough that probably why I am the crazybusybee!

So, the challenge was for me to have to spent hours on in the quiet and reflecting.

Lots of people will think it is not that hard and pretty relaxing.

For me it is an almost impossible task, I can concentrate for about 30 seconds on my breathing before my mind start wandering

·         What do I have to do when I am back home?

·         Shopping for the week, don’t I have a night in organised with the girls?

o   I need to check if I have Gin, I think we finished it last time

·         Cleaning, I have not emptied the wardrobe in a while to wash the shelves and the sides

o   I have a bag of clothes to drop to the recycling

Right, right, breathing, I need to close my eyes and think about the reflective sentence and how that sentence makes me think…..

·         Oh, is it time to bring the dog for his vaccine?

o   Oh, and he also needs grooming

·         It is such birthday soon, when I am at the airport I need to look for a present that is a little different

·         I had seen that perfume I wanted, I should check if it is cheaper at the airport!

Right, right, breathing, the sentence I need to concentrate on….and I can keep going because it was a 2 hours exercise and this is pretty much how my brain was working!

I was exhausted after 2 hours to have to straight myself all the time, I had to go for a nap just to recover from reflective time!

So, this was my challenge of the day but most people in the retreat with me would never think that such exercise is a challenge!

I did not know that it would be a challenge it was my surprised challenge!

The challenge that changes your life!

At that same retreat, as mentioned I met a person who changed my view of life.

Unknowingly, I helped with a personal challenge she had and never overcome.

That person was a few decades older than me, but it does not change how we felt for one another and how strong that friendship was and will always be!

Anyhow, following the retreat I decided to stay in London for the weekend to spend some time with a friend that I had not seen in a very long time.

I had travelled with that friend to come to the retreat, but obviously was not going to travel back with her.

I took the train and made sure she was at the airport but as mentioned I was flying a few days later so had to let her go her own way.

It was the first time she had to travel on her own and it was something that she was dreading more than I could have imagined.

Her fears were real and visceral but it was agreed from the beginning that this was the plan, so there was no turning back.

Until I left her at the airport I had not realised how much that step in her life was a real challenge.

I am not a great traveler myself, but I can manage, here we are talking almost of phobia and I felt awful to put her throw that process.

I felt I was abandoning her to the wolves and wishing her good luck was almost heart-breaking for me.

But I had too and she managed!

And once she realised that she could travel by herself, the whole world opened up to her.

She was not necessary going very far.

But until that day, she never even took the bus by herself!

Having taken the plane made her realise that bus and train were nothing compare to that experience.

It allowed her to extend her life experience, the Spa weekend became a great favorite of hers!

To me who has been travelling since I was a child, it was hard to believe that getting on a bus can be such a trauma.

She told me, that I changed her life for the better.

In my opinion I did not such thing, I dropped her at the bottom of the elevator.

I can still see her frozen smile trying to reassure me that it will be alright, knowing that she was trying to convince herself more than me!

She is the one who had to get the courage and she is the one who did the whole work by herself.

She changed her own life!

But I guess it does not mean that me believing in her, and telling her that she could do it was not the push she needed.

I certainly think she gave me more credit than I deserved.

In the end, this is what people forget, those small challenges are actually the ones that make the most impact in your life!

She has left my life a few years ago now, but her smile and her strength drive some of my actions every day, week, month and will for years to come.

In the end, she changed my life for the better and I will be forever grateful.

Never underestimate the impact you can have on a life and vice versa.

Until the next time, wishing you all a wonderful week….