Strength in Adversity: Overcoming Life's Obstacles with the Wheelbarrow and Wagon Approach
The Wheelbarrow and Wagon Approach: Overcoming Obstacles and Finding Growth in Personal Challenges
As we navigate through life's journey, we face numerous obstacles that challenge our ability to grow and flourish. Most of the time those obstacles are not external but come from within even if we feel otherwise. The path to self-improvement often involves reevaluating the tools and supports we have available to us. And truth be told our own mindset. This can be exemplified by two simple yet powerful analogies that legit happened to me last weekend in a matter of minutes: a wheelbarrow wheel breaking while carrying heavy rocks and a wagon tipping over full of lumber. On a weekend day when I was just trying to do some Spring cleaning and organizing, I was hit with little challenges that lead me to consider some bigger ideas about life.
Let's dive into these scenarios and see what questions and lessons they can teach us about overcoming obstacles, analyzing our support systems, and working towards positive personal growth.
The Broken Wheelbarrow: Learning to Adapt
I have an old wheelbarrow. It is not fancy and one of the cheaper models you can buy so I am well aware of the risk I was running to begin with despite the idea that I had to carry a lot of weight down a hill of my yard.
With our new black lab puppy, Mabel, our strawberry patch that we have had for several years needed to be moved as she has literally dug up almost every plant and also loves to run and dig in the space. I was working to move the raised garden bed blocks and wood panels to set the context of this story. As I wheeled myself and the rocks down the hill the wheel legit just broke on the axle leading to a fun stumble and tumble of all the things.
Lesson Learned
Imagine carrying a heavy load of rocks in a wheelbarrow when suddenly, one of the wheels breaks. You're now faced with the challenge of finding a way to continue moving forward without the support you had relied upon. In this situation, we can ask ourselves the following questions:
What alternative solutions can I come up with to continue moving forward?
How can I adapt to this situation and use it as an opportunity to grow?
What other tools and resources do I have available that can help me overcome this challenge?
Most importantly, what can I learn about myself to determine how to overcome adversity when you least expect it?
As we apply these questions to our own lives, we begin to see the importance of adapting to changes and finding new ways to work around our obstacles. Being resilient and resourceful in the face of adversity allows us to keep moving forward, even when the circumstances are less than ideal.
And we have all been here in ways that go beyond some rocks tumbling down a hill. Most of us have stories that are much deeper, but there is something to this situation where the weight of the rocks we carry with us overtime wear us down and we simply can no longer keep moving towards our goals with them all piled up.
It reminds me a lot of Agile and Scrum that I have been working with schools and students to help organize how to manage a large task into manageable chunks. That is a post for another time, but thinking about how I took one block at a time to move it where it needed to go vs. all of them and then the collapse of the wheel is very much related to helping students tackle one task at a time vs. them all.
The Tipping Wagon: Identifying Weaknesses and Building Strength
Picture a wagon full of lumber, struggling to keep its balance. I was moving the firewood I had moved up to the garage during the winter to avoid having to walk out in the cold. I wanted to move it back down to the ravine area for the summer to clear space in the garage.
As I was pulling the wagon, the wagon tips over. The load it was carrying spills out. This is another prime example of what happens when our support systems are inadequate or when we fail to recognize our own limitations. More importantly when we try to take on too much. What happens is the burden of it all starts to fall apart. A log falls off here, another there where soon enough we trip over our own self-imposed obstacles. In the end we still are faced with all the “logs” but are now faced with how we are going to bundle them back up and move to where they need to go knowing that trying to take them all on at once is no longer working.
To overcome such challenges, consider asking yourself the following questions:
What areas in my life require more support or reinforcement?
How can I address these weak points to create a stronger foundation for personal growth?
In what ways can I enlist the help of others to support my growth and development?
How can I look inward to see that the current system of operation is not working?
How do we give ourselves permission to hit pause to reevaluate and design a new plan for success?
Acknowledging and addressing our weaknesses helps us develop a stronger foundation, enabling us to face obstacles with greater confidence and resilience. Furthermore, recognizing that we cannot always do everything alone is a vital step in fostering personal growth.
Connecting the Wheelbarrow and Wagon: Moving Towards Personal Growth
Both the broken wheelbarrow and tipping wagon teach us valuable lessons about overcoming obstacles, analyzing our supports, and continuously moving forward. By applying these lessons to our own lives, we can cultivate the resilience, resourcefulness, and adaptability required for personal growth. Here are some key takeaways:
Embrace change and learn to adapt: Life will always present challenges and obstacles. Instead of resisting them, learn to embrace them as opportunities for growth and self-improvement.
Identify and address your weaknesses: Recognizing your limitations allows you to work on building a stronger foundation for personal growth.
Seek help when necessary: It's okay to ask for help or enlist the support of others. A strong support system is crucial in overcoming obstacles and fostering growth.
Keep moving forward: Regardless of the obstacles we face, the most important thing is to continue moving forward on our journey towards personal growth and self-improvement.
In a nice little coffee style conclusion as I sit here in my basement drinking coffee waiting for the livestream of the game of my daughter, making a list of the 40+ things I need to get done this weekend and ensuring I build time to be with my other children I am thinking about how to keep embracing the lessons taught by the broken wheelbarrow and tipping wagon. We can better navigate life's challenges and pave the way for continued personal growth. Remember that the journey is just as important as the destination, and every obstacle is an opportunity for self-discovery and self-improvement.
Essentially, everything I try to bring to light in classrooms I need to apply to my own life.