(From a little thought book on my wife’s night stand titled “Created for Great Things”)

When you are confronted with challenges that are difficult to conquer or you have questions arise, the answers to which you do not know, hold fast to the things you do know.  Hang on to your firmest foundation, however limited that may be, and from that position of strength face the unknown.  ~

–   I really liked the idea of holding fast to the things we do know.   I remember hearing a wise leader talking to a group of us at a time when our organization was going through massive and disruptive change.   After detailing all that was changing and needing to change and addressing the drivers of why the change was necessary…..this leader then invited us to consider all that was not changing.  Things like, our core leadership team, our core values, the trust and relationships we shared, and our history of accomplishment and innovation. These were all things that we could hold on to,  that we could count on, build on, and that could serve as the foundation of the future we would work for and continue to create.

It reminds of an evening discussion with our family as my wife Rebecca led our family on an unusual activity where we focused on negative rather than positive things. She invited us to recall all of the hardest things our family had dealt with since our move to Georgia 7 years before.   Then she actually listed the hardships on poster board.  Our usual habit being to focus on the positives made this initially a slow discussion…but after some time she had a full poster board of some very hard things that we had been through as individuals and as a family.  When the list seemed complete she made a few remarks about it and then pointed out this obvious and profound fact that.   YES, these were indeed some very hard things, but we had survived them all.  We had not just survived but in fact these “hard things” had caused or allowed us to become a stronger family.   And of all the lessons we had learned from experiencing hard things… one of the greatest that she hoped we would never forget was simply that we could do them.  Throughout that evening Rebecca kept driving home a very important message ….”We can do hard things.”

Knowing that life would not be getting easier and that life is nothing more than a constant string of experiences influenced by choices, and that many of those experiences would be hard, Rebecca wanted our children and family to remember to face those experiences with confidence.   Remembering or “holding on” to what they KNEW…and facing the future or the unknown,knowing that we can do hard things seemed like a very wise thing to do.

That was nearly 2 years ago and still today our family still references the motto created on that night… “We are Weislers and Weislers can do hard things”

Consider this in your own life.  Are you now facing some pretty big challenges.  Are you dealing with hard things in your personal and professional life?  If the answer is yes…and the reality is that it either has been, is now,  or will be YES in the future…. then don’t forget that there is another and more powerful reality.  The reality is that you have already survived many previous hard things.  You have come through, perhaps with scars, but also with strength and wisdom born of the experience.  Let the remembrance of those past hard things strengthen your faith, your hope, and your resolve that yes indeed you will push through the present hard thing, and the next one as well.   Until finally you may end up greeting these hard things with something like… “Hard things? Heck, I eat those for breakfast!”  or “Doing hard things isn’t  just what I do, it’s what I do best!”    (Personally, I’m not there yet…but this much I know;  “I can do hard things!”)

Kirk Out