Challenges and overcoming them.

Would you believe me if I told you that the draft of this original post decided to delete itself so I had to type it up all over again from memory? Typical technology or a bloody amazingly annoying coincidence considering the post is titled "Challenges and overcoming them"?

And breathe...
Anyway...
Short and sweet sentence to open this post right up.
There will be people (and situations; see above) you come across in your life that challenge you.

Here are a few personal examples of mine I will share with you in the hope that you will be able to relate and not feel alone especially if you are in a situation similar to these right now...

At my first ever job, as a waitress. The head chef, on a good day, would scream at you and put you down. Lets get a few things straight, this was my first ever experience in the workplace and I was 16 years old. People make mistakes, especially newbies! Especially, especially 16 year old newbies!! To every mistake I made while learning I received this response...

"Are you kidding me? Are you stupid?"

I'm sorry is that a trick question? 
Did I quit. No. Did I let this man bully me out of my first ever job? Hell no.
Yeah sometimes I went home crying or even cried while bringing peoples food to them (mmm extra salty) but I didn't let him win. 
I started giving sarcastic remarks back to his ridicule and didn't let it effect me anymore.
From this experience I've become a much stronger and more resilient person. 

The next experience of a challenging person in my life was a tutor for a course at uni. On the day of a big presentation he emailed my group and myself saying something along the lines of this...

"If you go ahead with what you have today you will receive a fail grade."

Excusez moi? You what?
We showed him our final product just less than a week prior to the presentation day and he decided to email us ON THE MORNING OF the presentation to say this! Not to mention when we showed him we specifically asked if it was all good to which he didn't have a single negative thing to say about it.
Anyways, with only hours to go we decided to go ahead with what we had.
And we passed.
After he told us "I wanted to challenge you".
Well buddy, you did that!
From this experience I've become more emotionally intelligent because even though at the time I wanted to SCREAM (I'm sure Emma and Annastasia did too!) I kept my cool and we aced it.

One final experience is one of the earliest I can remember. One day on a McDonald's playground a young boy was calling my little brother horrible names. So what did this 6 (7/8?) year old do? Punched the boy in the face and sent him crying to his mumma.
Okay, perhaps not the best example of how to overcome challenging people but I'm sure I taught that boy a lesson. You're welcome. 

The point of this post comes down to this. To these people who have challenged me, tried to put me down or have stabbed me in the back whilst twisting the knife, smiling and saying "I've got your back" I say...
Thank you.
Thank you for giving me these lessons that have allowed me to become a stronger more resilient person and to know what I know now about how real people can sometimes be and not to be naive to this. 

Bet you didn't think I would say that huh?

Brush it off. Deal with it. In my experience these type of people are insecure in themselves and very unsure of their own place. They are ususally very unhappy people.

If you are the type of person to give in to these people and to say "it's too hard, I give up", I'm sorry to tell you that if this is your mindset you will fail. They will win.
Don't worry that used to be me too! Until I started realizing that...

"Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”

― Henry Ford

Whatever it is. I believe in you. 

Now all you need to do is believe in yourself.

Kirsten :)