Fola Daniel Adelesi: Tough Times Come in Phases

Now I know this is not the kind of topic you expect to see from a motivational speaker but I’ve got to be real with you. I also understand that this is contrary to the popular quote of  Robert Schuller who said, ‘Tough times never last but tough people do.’ Maybe by the time you are done reading you may think that we really don’t disagree after all.

Why will people out there make you think that tough times will only come once in a while, but in your lives you have seen so many tough times? I guess you wonder what is happening?  I want to set the records straight.

Sometimes, many of us misinterpret what we hear from our speakers or we only pick a few lines out of context. In some other cases, it is possible that the speaker did not fully express what was intended. So the blame may not always be on the listener.

I hope you are ready for the truth. So long as you are alive there will be tough times. There will be hard times to face. Someone said men are in sizes, and life is in phases. As long as life is in phases you need to note that you will meet different challenges at different phases of your life.

Think about when you were in primary school. You eagerly wanted to get into secondary school. When you got into a secondary school, you started looking forward to getting into a university. All of that would not have happened if you did not scale the hurdles that you had to just to get to the next level.

You will write exams in primary school and just as you are getting so excited about your promotion, your new teachers start preparing your mind for the next level or the next challenge. So you already scaled one tough time writing a promotional exam and you got the promotion. If you want to go to the next level then you must start getting ready for the next tough promotion exams

The interesting thing again is that as you go higher, the exams get tougher. The reason the exams get tougher as you go higher is because you are getting bigger promotions and you are also expected to have known more.

Let’s bring that examination scenario into our personal lives. You will see that as you are passing one test in life, you are getting a big break. And as you are getting the big break, you are facing a bigger test in life. If you can face the bigger test then you are ready for a bigger break.

You may not like to really hear this but there will be tougher times in some higher levels and that is not to scare you. It is to prepare your mind so that you know what you are up against. It is better to know than to be shocked when you have to face it without any option to turn around.

Remember that the tough situation or time is not the real issue. As I said in the article ‘focus on the goal,’ you can scale through all the tough times if your eyes are on the bigger break waiting for you rather than thinking more about the examinations you have to face.

So instead of saying that tough times never last, and that does not mean I am not optimistic, I simply say, ‘tough times are in phases and tough people can face them all.’

Are you ready to face the next tough time? Bear in mind that it may come with your next big break.

Photo Credit: Dreamstime | Zdenka Darula