Leaning In

I read an excellent article the other day. It is entitled How Emotionally Intelligent People Wisely Deal With Their Problems by Ayodeji Awosika. The whole premise of the article was that to solve your problems, you must lean in to them and tackle them full on. His most highlighted sentence in the article was this:

“Avoidance lets you off the hook in the short-term, but it doesn’t fix your problem, and often the problems you ignore compound and get worse.“

This was my favorite excerpt from the article:

“When you lean into your problems you more or less have this conversation with yourself:

“Okay. This is where I’m at. This is what happened. I’m responsible for the situation and addressing it head-on — while uncomfortable — will lead to either a solution or the peace of mind in knowing I did everything I could to improve it.” “

None of this is earth shattering information. We all know it. Everyone has problems. Everyone has been guilty of keeping their “head in the sand” from time to time. But the author is so correct in saying that the longer we avoid dealing with a problem, often the bigger it grows to the point of sometimes feeling insurmountable. We so often can be our own worst enemies in this crazy game called Life.

I’ll end with Awosika’s words:

“When you lean in, you build emotional muscles that grow as a result of the stress that comes with truly dealing with a problem. Not only can you produce a better outcome, but you get to put a deposit into your confidence & resilience account.

Do this often enough, and you’ll have the reward of being able to say “I’m someone who can handle my life.”

I like the last line: I’m someone who can handle my life. That’s a good mantra.