Overcoming Obstacles of the Life

By Phillip A. Johansen

Are you tired of constantly encountering obstacles and challenges in your life? Do you wonder how to overcome them and achieve your goals successfully? If so, you can find the solutions in this book titled "Overcoming Life's Obstacles: The Value of Effort and Perseverance."

In this book, we will fully explore the themes of effort, perseverance, and persistence. You will discover how these fundamental values can be your best allies to overcome any obstacle that stands in your way to success and personal fulfillment.

In the pages of this book, you will immerse yourself in the fascinating world of the growth mindset. You will learn how to change the way you think and adopt a mindset that allows you to see challenges as opportunities for growth. You will discover how to develop a positive attitude in the face of obstacles and failures, and how to transform them into springboards for success.

But that is not all. I will also guide you through effective strategies to overcome obstacles and failures. You will learn how to set effective goals that are clear, achievable, and meaningful. I will teach you the importance of discipline and habit in achieving your goals, and how to cultivate these qualities in your daily life.

Procrastination and stress are two common enemies we face on our journey to success. In this book, I'll give you practical tools to beat procrastination and manage stress effectively. You will discover how to stay motivated and inspired along the way, even in the most difficult moments.

The goal of this book is to give you the tools and motivation to become the best version of yourself. I want you to discover your inner power and face life's challenges with confidence and determination. Together, we will overcome obstacles and reach new heights of success and personal fulfillment.

Don't waste any more time-fighting life's obstacles. It's time to take control and move towards your goals with strength and perseverance!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Editorial Anuket
• Release date: Jul 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223371403

Book preview

Overcoming obstacles

of the life

The Art of Effort and Perseverance

––––––––

Phillip A Johansen

Editorial Anuket

Freepik cover image

Content:

Foreword

Chap. 1. Effort, perseverance, and persistence

Chap. 2: The growth mindset

Chap. 3: Overcoming obstacles and failures

Chap. 4: Effective Goal Setting

Chap. 5: Discipline and habit

Chap. 6: Inspiration and motivation

Chap. 7: Procrastination and stress

Foreword

To start this exciting topic, I would like to give you a beautiful Buddhist story about life's obstacles, called The Challenge.

"Long ago, an old farmer, tired of having to suffer to protect his field from storms or drought, decided to talk to God:

— Listen to me, God, I need to ask you something.

-What do you want? He answered.

— I am tired of working the fields every day and often losing the wheat harvest due to a storm or a relentless wave of drought. People end up starving... Maybe you don't know like I, a farmer, what the weather should be like for a successful production. Let me decide for a year and you will see how poverty and hunger disappear.

God looked at him compassionately and nodded.

"Okay, I accept the challenge. You will tell me for a year how you want the perfect climate for the field to be.

And so it was: for a whole year, the peasant was asking for sun or rain as he wished. And everything was very calm. He barely had to work and in the spring, just a year later, he went to talk to God. The wheat had grown a lot, more than any other year, and the farmer was proud:

See how right he was? said the old man. The wheat is so high that we will have food for several years.

I see, answered God, true, it has grown a lot. But... Have you made sure that the grains are good?

The peasant then took a grain of wheat and opened it. He was empty!

-How is it possible? asked the farmer, alarmed.

—Without obstacles, it is impossible to grow. Without challenges, storms, thunder, or hail, the wheat does not get stronger. You made everything so easy, that the wheat grew soulless, empty...

The peasant then understood everything".

––––––––

Yes, the challenges in life are necessary, as well as effort and perseverance, because ultimately they are what help us mature and grow as people.

No achievement is achieved without challenges: An athlete who wins a race savors the honey of triumph because before achieving it he had to overcome an arduous training full of errors and corrections, and of course, several defeats in previous competitions. Life is a race of obstacles, falls, and frustrations that help us mature, grow, improve, and improve ourselves every day.

The soul of wheat is your essence: When this story talks about the soul of grain, it is used metaphorically to talk about our interior. We are definitely like that wheat and just like him, we need the unforeseen storm to keep us alert, the harshness of a hail to make us stronger and more resistant, or the intense drought that helps us encourage ingenuity. Surviving is that, ultimately: making an effort, persevering, overcoming a setback, falling, and getting up a thousand times. If there were no obstacles, it would happen to us like wheat, and we would all end up settling down to the point of being completely emptied.

Obstacles make us strong: It is not about wanting to suffer, but it is true that the trials and obstacles we encounter along the path of life make us resilient and fill our interior with wisdom. From all this we learn and with all this we model ourselves. We must learn to value life by facing the difficulties that living implies.

Chapter 1

Effort, perseverance

and persistence

––––––––

Perseverance is a human quality that refers to the ability not to give up, to stay committed to a specific agreed goal, and to continue without interruption, regardless of difficulties, feelings, and emotions.

Take the following example: The student constantly complains that he cannot learn wisdom. The teacher convinced him that only a strong wish was enough, but the student is not convinced. One day, while they were walking by the river, the student started this conversation again and the teacher pushed him into the water and held him down. After a while, the sage released the young man, and after the pupil recovered, he asked him:

—When you were underwater, what did you want the most?

-Air! Just air!

Wouldn't you have preferred riches, health, power?

—No, Master! I was just short of breath at that moment, nothing more.

Well, if you want wisdom as badly as you wanted the air, you will have wisdom.

Perseverance is immunity to noise, it is the ability to withstand failures here and now. The boxer shows endurance, tries to resist