Don’t Give Up: It’s A Hurdle, Not A Brick Wall

“Every adversity carries within it the seed of equal or greater benefit”

- Napolean Hill

In 2005, when I ran a half marathon for the first time, I tore my calf 8 weeks before the race and was advised to pull out of it. But I kept telling myself that it was a hurdle to overcome and not a brick wall. So I found an amazing physiotherapist who I visited twice a week, radically changed my diet and started visualising daily so that I was mentally prepared to complete the race.

8 weeks later I completed the London Half Marathon without injury in 2 hours 27 minutes. Not exactly an Olympic winning time, but it was (freakily) the exact time I had planned and visualised when preparing for the race. The injury, rather than stopping me running, was a catalyst to help me develop an unwavering self belief that I was going to run the race in my target time.

In 2006, when I gave my first ever interview with the media on a live BBC radio show, I had a power cut on the morning of the call. So no heating, no lights, no phone.  As I had to make a mad dash to my sister’s house to take the call I told myself “it’s a hurdle, not a brick wall.”  I did little or no preparation – but because of that, I actually came across much more relaxed and spontaneous when taking live calls from radio listeners. 3 years on, I now have a regular careers advice slot on the same radio station where I answer career related calls from listeners on air.

In 2008, when I delivered my first ever teleseminar for job searchers at the start of the recession, my laptop crashed on the morning of the call, so I lost much of my preparation. But I quickly prepared the key areas to cover and delivered a far more natural presentation.

As regular readers will know, as a hobby, I do some comedy improvisation (ie making up stories live on stage without a script), so the improvised teleclass actually gave me a buzz, whilst giving the audience a much more creative and engaging talk. I’ve since gone on to deliver the very same content in seminars, talks and the like. So the power cut actually helped me (and many others I’ve spoken to) rather than hinder me.

In 2009, I agreed to collaborate with Colin Hiles from ‘Finding Your Smile’ (a community for mid-lifers going through change) to support him with his mission to raise £550k (approx US $750k) for charity by the time he reaches his 50th birthday in 2014. The intention was for me to offer career advice and resources for Colin’s readers and workshops as they transitioned through mid-life. 

To kick off things, Colin planned to post an audio interview with me on his blog on how to reinvent your career without changing jobs or careers. But busy schedules, IT failures, diary mix-ups and illnesses conspired to create road blocks every time we arranged to speak.

But we persevered and last week finally completed the interview. At which point we laughed and reflected on the journey we’d had to record a simple 30-minute call on how to reinvent your career.

But we then reflected on how the journey we went through to record the call was similar to reinventing your career - or in fact achieving any other worthwhile goal – big or small. And how there were in fact many career lessons buried within our stumbling attempts to complete the interview:

The lessons:

1.  Expect brick walls (and then climb over them)

Whenever you attempt anything worthwhile in life, you will have brick walls and set-backs come your way. It’s life’s way of testing you. Of seeing how badly you really want to do something. So if you're hitting (what seems like) brick walls in your search for a new job or career, don’t give up. Just get climbing so that you can keep working towards your goal.

2.  Choose goals which you are passionate about

In each of the above situations, I was pursuing something I wanted to achieve with a passion. So when I faced what seemed like a brick wall, the passion gave me the fire in my belly to scale the wall and treat it as a hurdle rather than something that would defeat me.

So pursue career and lifestyle goals which you’re passionate about. That energize you. Goals which you’re totally committed to.  Because when the going gets tough (and it will), you’ll need that passion and energy to rise to the challenge.

3. Have faith

Whether you come at this from a religious, spiritual or intellectual angle comes down to personal choice.  But when you develop an unwavering faith and belief that things will work out, you often find that they do. Sometimes not always in the way you thought or intended, but in the long run you'll see that they turn out for the best. 

So the next time a brick wall comes your way, keep reminding yourself that it’s not a brick wall, but just a hurdle to overcome. If you’re pursuing a career, job or lifestyle which you’re intrinsically motivated to do, something that comes from you’re gut (and not your head), something you’re passionate about - then DON’T GIVE UP.

Be flexible, be open to different paths and routes which may open up - just don’t give up.

Just keep telling yourself “It’s just a hurdle, not a brick wall.”

By Sital Ruparelia, 

@SitalRuparelia

Comments

[Norine Dagliano]

Sital,

Great post and great analogy. Brick walls are funny sorts of things - sometimes we see them when they are not really there and other times we erect them ourselves so we can hide from our dreams (which is not as scary as failing to achieve them.) Thanks for the reminder that we can choose to stop dead in our tracks, or climb over!

[Sital]

thanks Norine!
yes you're right we often do erect the walls ourselves at it's safer (in the short term) to hide hide behind them...

[Ernie Perez]

Great meaasge for those who experience the ups and downs of job search

Ernie Perez

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Brick walls are just challenges. For me it's something to overcome.

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Truly an inspiration. We usually have no courage to get carry on when we knew it was hard to do. We're not aware about this thing, but we are the one who make such wall. And we discourage ourselves thinking that we're not capable to face it. We think negative, we build our own walls. It's something that we should overcome.

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I STILL WANT TO GIVE UP!!!

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