Suffering to Grow

I listen to a lot of easygoing music. Whether it is a summer beach song or an upbeat reggae song, I enjoy the relaxing nature of it. Sure, I enjoy a hard-hitting rock song but for me, I get more excited for the song of the rebel with a ska sound behind it than a wall of distorted guitars.

Sometimes the lyrics are a great description of the music. Other times, it seems to provide Jimmy Buffet style escapism to avoid life’s challenges and instead skip away to a tropical island for a beer and hammock or a joint and a concert.

It seems to portray the answer to all life’s challenges is to find a beach and some booze. Yet when I look back at my life, I always feel that the times I grew the most were the times that were most challenging, not those relaxing days off.

Once I was handed a project to turn around with a company struggling to maintain relevancy. I was put in charge of it and told that it needed to succeed, that failure wasn’t an option.

The problem was that it already failed. Twice. They launched the new program, and it was a dud. Then they redid the project, relaunched it with even more money behind it, and it failed to launch.

They decided too much was invested to invest any more, but because of the investment, it had to succeed. The executives saw that this was a sinking ship and quickly found ways to attach to other projects instead.

When I was handed it, I was devastated. As soon as the meeting ended where I was told it was me who would be in charge, I knew the gravity of the situation. I told friends and family that my time was numbered. The last 3 project managers no longer worked at the organization. I didn’t see any way to get it on track. I was being used as the fall guy, the scapegoat they could blame so their reputation remained unscathed.

This was some of the most stressful work I have ever done. I met with stakeholders who were furious with its state. I had to get insight from them to fix it and take every criticism and attack in the process.

After months of hard work, I was able to change the narrative. It didn’t become an overnight success. It didn’t provide immeasurable value, but it was no longer failing. It was on track and held potential for even more success to be extracted from the foundation we built.

In almost every way, this is the opposite of the laid-back summer music. Instead of escaping to find a bar to drown my sorrows in bloody Mary drinks, I had to face reality and work like I’ve never done before. I had to take everyone’s metaphorical punches and keep moving forward.

But something changed inside me from this experience. Instead of escaping, I overcame. I grew. Now I have that experience in my experience. I can reference it when times get difficult and seem impossible. I expanded my knowledge and grew my confidence to take on difficult assignments.

Growth from running away from a challenge isn’t possible. It might sound like the best thing to do is to run life’s difficulties, they provide the greatest opportunity to grow. Sure, it’d be more fun to get drunk on the beach, but I don’t know that growth has every come from that approach.

There is certainly time for relaxation just as there is time for work. Instead of being 100% on either side, we should realize that life is made up of both. They ebb and flow throughout life. If we accept this work through each work phase and enjoy each relax phase, we will better handle life’s challenges and continue to grow.