When we learn to accept challenges in life, we move from feeling overwhelmed to empowered. This is important because many individuals I work with share that their health challenges make them feel weak, inferior, incapable, or unconfident. Often, they begin to struggle with their ability to show up and do the work, and then they begin to doubt themselves. If you’re not fully accepting your health challenges, this might sound familiar.
It’s common to get overwhelmed by what I call “the cycle of setbacks.” This is when you are able to work productively for a period of time, making great progress, and then your symptoms or fatigue reemerge. At this point, it becomes a struggle to work productively, if at all. And this pattern keeps repeating! Resulting in more frustration, more overwhelm, and more unmanaged symptoms.
If you don’t want your health challenges to hold you back from success in your business and life, a shift needs to take place in how you perceive and feel about your health challenges. That shift is changing your relationship with your health to come from a place of acceptance, and it is the secret to building true resilience.
The Connection Between Acceptance and Resilience
Many people believe that accepting challenges in life makes us weak or passive, but the opposite is actually true. When we truly accept our circumstances, we stop wasting precious energy fighting reality and instead channel that energy into meaningful action and adaptation. This shift from resistance to acceptance becomes the foundation upon which true resilience is built.
Here’s what I’ve discovered in my work with countless achievers like you: this shift from resistance in accepting challenges in life to acceptance doesn’t diminish your strength—it actually amplifies it in ways you might never have imagined. When you stop exhausting yourself by fighting what already exists, you free up incredible energy that can be redirected toward creating positive change and meaningful solutions. This beautiful transformation from resistance to acceptance becomes your secret weapon for building unshakeable resilience.
Three Powerful Resilience-Building Strategies Through Acceptance
- Embrace Present-Moment Clarity. When you catch yourself acting out of denial, perhaps pushing through when you know you need rest, pause and ask, “What can I influence right here, right now?” This simple shift connects you to your actual power.
- Transform Challenges into Wisdom. Rather than viewing health challenges as personal failures or obstacles to overcome, begin viewing your health challenges as valuable teachers offering insights about what truly matters, what you need, and how you can thrive within your unique circumstances.
- Build Flexible Goals. Create goals that bend without breaking—aspirations that can adapt to your changing circumstances while still honoring your core values and desires, and that allow you to succeed on your own terms.
When you embrace acceptance as a pathway to resilience, you’ll likely notice a profound shift in your emotional well-being, moving from the exhaustion of constant struggle to the peace that comes from working with your life rather than against it.
Creating a New Relationship with Your Health Challenges Allows You to…
✔️ Re-Architect Your Life and begin developing new strategies and processes that will help you feel empowered.
✔️ Know That Your Health Does Not Define You. You are more than your health.
✔️ Have Fewer Setbacks & Emotional Distress. When we feel our health limits & defines us, we can feel depressed, shame, or weak. This emotional stress can trigger a flare-up or symptoms to manifest and create a setback. And the cycle continues on and on…
✔️ Build Resiliency & Confidence. With a new perspective, you can make lifestyle choices and incorporate a business model that supports you, and in turn, build your confidence and resiliency that you can conquer and overcome anything!
✔️ Set a Solid Foundation. A healthy relationship with your health is the basis for setting appropriate boundaries that support yourself. You are better equipped to practice self-compassion and to respect and support your needs.
Tips On How to Create a New Relationship with Your Health:
✔️ Start With Self-Compassion. We all have challenges in our lives. Suffering is part of human nature. When we acknowledge this, and we give ourselves the same compassion we give others for their challenges, and we begin to reset our relationship with our health.
✔️ Be Curious. Instead of viewing a health challenge as something that holds you back or that is attacking you, view it with curiosity. How can you work with it? How can you work around it? What changes can you make in your life or business to bring your strengths to the forefront?
✔️ It’s A Marathon Not A Sprint. Understand this process that takes place on multi-levels.
It’s surprising the solutions that can surface if you are willing to sit with the challenge, lean into it, and be open to other ways to accomplish the same goal.
A Lesson from My Entrepreneurial Journey
The year was 2012. I was in my fourth year of business, and my business was booming! BUT I was in complete overwhelm because I was suppressing, rather than accepting, my health challenges. I was in denial. My overwhelm caused more suffering, more symptoms, and more health problems.
Finally, I called TIME OUT!
I needed to change how I viewed these challenges. To do so, I leaned into accepting my illnesses, and my injuries and I became curious. I asked myself questions about what I wanted & needed in my life, and the RESOUNDING answer was… PEACE.
Suddenly, I had a new definition of what success meant to me.
I created a new business and lifestyle that made space for more peace and joy. I developed a business model that supported my well-being. Being overwhelmed and stressed was no longer acceptable. I used my health as an inner compass to direct my choices.
We each have our own inner compass. Our own unique combination of strengths, skills, beliefs and values, and yes, limitations. By slowing down and gaining awareness into each of these, you gain knowledge on the fundamental building blocks to fulfill your own needs. To gain this knowledge, you must slow down, listen and honor the information your body is sharing with you.
Take a moment and ponder, do you have a health issue that is holding you back from living fully? Or that is holding you back from achieving your work goals? Or that you are constantly trying to ignore, minimize, or push to the side? Ultimately, a challenge to which you are trying to deny its very existence?
Denial will never be the answer. You will continue to experience the same setbacks. Time and time again. Acceptance of where you are right now, at this very moment, opens the doors to creating a healthy and healing environment for you to soar.
While this article focuses heavily on health challenges, these same principles apply when we need to accept challenges in life of any kind.
Your Questions About Accepting Life’s Challenges
Absolutely not! Accepting your health challenges is the exact opposite of giving up hope. By ‘accepting’ your health challenge, you are letting go of denial. When we are in denial, we cannot make decisions that will best serve us. The day you claim your health challenge, “Yes, I have this xyz condition or challenge and it is impacting my life” is the day you empower yourself to acknowledge just how deeply this challenge has impacted your life, potentially all areas of your life. It is the day you begin being honest with yourself. From this position of awareness and acceptance, you can let go of pushing through solutions that don’t work and instead choose solutions and/or adapt changes in your life that support you in living your fullest.
When you’re in denial, you might try to push through work, social situations, and even having fun, pretending that ‘THIS’ time I’ll be okay. You then suffer a setback, which might look like pure exhaustion, increased pain or symptoms, or frustration of not being able to keep up with your work. You might criticize yourself for not being able to keep up, to do the things you used to do, or being behind because you’re tired.
With acceptance, instead of feeling strong during the ‘push through’ and then frustrated, overwhelmed, or angry after the setback, you feel empowered the whole time. There is more peace in your heart, and you know you are making decisions that will ultimately support you for the long run. You immediately begin to experience a greater sense of overall well-being.
Yes, it can be normal to go back and forth because we have been conditioned to be ambitious, to hustle, and to do more. Therefore, it is very common to begin to feel better and in greater control, and to then ‘overdo’ it. That’s where learning skills such as awareness of the signals your body shares with you, working towards inner balance, and building your business to support your well-being are so essential in sustainability. Many of the programs offered through BalanceUP Community and via private coaching or mentoring support you on this journey. Keep in mind, it is normal to go back and forth between accepting and denying many types of challenges in life.
Great question. The fact that you’re asking yourself this question is a great first step!
1) First , grab a piece of paper and a pen, and answer this question from a place of deep honesty: How is my health currently impacting my work, relationships, social life, and emotional well-being?
2) Second, identify one small area where you could honor your health needs this week – perhaps adjusting a meeting schedule or saying no to one social commitment.
3) Third, practice self-compassion when you notice yourself fighting acceptance. Remember, this is a process, not a destination.
If you realize your health is impacting your life more than you expected, additional support through our BalanceUP® activities or our BalanceUP® Lifestyle & Business Assessment and Feature Program: The Power of I Can’t® programs can help you develop these skills further.
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Original version of this post initially published on my LinkedIn Profile as Building a Successful Life Alongside Health Challenges Begins with Accepting Your Health Challenges.
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