I know you see it on the guestbook all the time–people encountering adversity. Some people handle it well, and others are overwhelmed by it. The person’s response to adversity often bears little relationship to the nature or complexity of the adversity. For some, even just forgetting their meals for that day can throw them into a complete tizzy, and for others even very grave problems or injuries become simply situations to be dealt with. One thing’s for sure, we’ll all encounter it at some point during our challenge, so let’s take a look at how to deal with it.

Adversity can take all kinds of shapes, anything from an injury to working overtime, sickness of a loved one–there’s no way to anticipate all the different types you might encounter during a challenge, but a bit of good planning and preparation will get you through.

PRIORITIZE: If your adversity involves the health, welfare and safety of your family members, clearly you owe it to yourself and them to take whatever time and attention is required to tend to their needs. Your health is important, but health maintenance or improvement certainly should take second to health emergencies. Your own injuries and illnesses deserve the same as family. In other words, if you’re too sick or hurt too much to work out, DON’T! Get yourself well enough to do it right, and then get back in the game. The tricky areas are in the “other” categories. For example, you’re a guy and it’s your anniversary, but it’s also not a free day. What then? If you really don’t know, you’re probably not going to be married very long anyway! If your wife doesn’t suggest moving the celebration to a “free day,” you just move your free day without even mentioning it! By the way, I also wouldn’t advise telling your wife that you consider the occurence of your anniversary during a week day to be “adversity!”

PREPARE: Some adversity can actually be nullified by prior preparation. For example, I mentioned above that forgetting your food can be a near tragedy for some. Well, I have done that, so today I ALWAYS have backup food at work. It’s canned tuna, and packaged oatmeal, so it’s always “fresh” and I can eat it if I have to! We have grandkids whom we like to see when we can, and when something comes up that provides an excuse to go there, it is sometimes when the dog kennel isn’t open or is full. We found a dogsitter who could come at almost any time when we called her, and today she is our number one choice when we want to jump in the car and drive to Iowa! Adversity averted!

HAVING THE RIGHT MINDSET! Though it seldom feels that way, almost nothing in our lives happens without a reason. Our first thought when the car won’t start or the bad news telephone call comes is: “Why me, Lord?” A minute’s reflection would tell you that this isn’t helpful, but somehow we think we just had to feel that way. But we don’t. We can control our feelings by controlling our thoughts through a process of consistently and purposely meditating on positive things. Tommy Newberry, in a wonderful little book called “The 4:8 Principle” uses a bible passage as a guide that instructs us to meditate on things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent and praiseworthy. These “things” can be blessed events in your life, or the fact that you are loved unconditionally. Your spirit will guide you to the powerful thoughts that can help with the right response to adversity.

Learning the right ways to deal with adversity is one of the great fringe benefits of your BFL challenge!