Page 26 - Leadership Secrets of Hillary Clinton

OVERCOMING AND THRIVING ON ADVERSITY

ticular situation and give you the motivation, courage, and
self-confidence to make the choice that is best for you
rather than letting the previous bad experience be the
deciding factor. This is resiliency: the ability to recognize,
in any challenging situation, what is true for you and use
this powerful knowledge as your navigation system.
Remember that trying something new can be difficult,
and that we can procrastinate and make excuses for not get-
ting out of our own patterns of behaviors and sometimes
beliefs about ourselves. Much of that is caused by our own
mindset (“I can’t do it well” or “doing it takes too much
work”), which allows our own voice to talk ourselves out of
whatever it is that makes us uncomfortable or frustrated.
However, I have found that we create our own obstacles
that are based on our own belief system or mindset.
Kate Johnson, senior vice president, service strategy and
innovation at Oracle Corporation, uses a sports analogy of
someone who has never worked out in his entire life but
starts working out at age 40. He feels overwhelmed at the
thought of even running around the block. The most
important thing to understand is that you don’t have to run
a marathon the first time. You may have a few stops and
starts, but at least you are taking steps to get there. It also
helps to break down your overall goal into little bites. Try
running for 10 minutes the first time and let yourself build
up stamina and endurance. Then run for 20 minutes, and
so on, so that you can build your new muscle naturally

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