"Handle with Care": Discovering the Champions in Our World
"How we handle our tough times stays with us for a long time..." - Max Lucado in "Facing Your Giants"
I have often wondered what makes an individual great. If you're like me, visions flash before you of individuals you have come to deeply honor and respect. There is an "epitomic" view we each have of what a great individual looks like. We each have what is called an Implicit Personality Theory (IPT) about people; that is, our own sets of hypotheses about what people are like. Armed with our IPTs, we envision what these Champions of Life look like and set our lives against that mold and standard.
The common thread, for the Champions of my world, is tied very closely to how they each handle(d) tough times. That is, what they did when:
- They stumbled...over and over again
- They lost things and people important to them
- They encouraged themselves when discouraged by failure
- They were disappointed and betrayed by others
- The machinery of life simply would not cooperate in their favor
How these individuals handled these and other situations ranks high in my IPT of great individuals. See, I believe that to traverse the world leaping from one mountaintop to another builds less backbone than having to ascend and descend multiple mountains while spending large amounts of time in the valley. To me, the Champions of Life are those individuals who have learned how to handle tough times with clarity and sensitivity to the effects that the decision(s) at hand have for the future...
Our IPT builds on previous and current experience; equally, our ability to handle tough times improves with each tough time. If we can handle tough times with maturity (please note that I did not say we will handle them without fading, failing or falling), we set ourselves up for even better performance the next time another tough time comes. So, today I have two questions for you:
What's your IPT about Champions of Life?
How are you handling tough times?
©2018, Dr. Kozhi Sidney Makai. No part of this blog post may be reproduced or stored in a retrieval system without the written consent of the copyright holder.
