One of the most common complaints I get from people who attend my seminars is that they feel depressed all the time and find it hard to stay happy because their life is full of problems. Every time a problem is solved, another one seems to pop up.

They have money problems, family problems, work problems, health problems and relationship problems. They seem to think that people who are happy and successful in life are people with less problems than they have. In fact, one guy said to me, ‘Adam, you are so lucky to have everything going for you. You have all the money you need, a job you love, a successful business, loving family etc…’ EVERYTHING IS GOING YOUR WAY. No wonder, you are so happy with your life.

He got pretty surprised when I told him that I have problems everyday myself. In fact, many of my problems are so big that he would probably die of stress if he were to live one week of my life!

Face It… You Are Always Going to Have Problems

After meeting thousands of people in my life, rich and poor, young and old, successful and not-successful yet, I discovered that everyone has problems. Its just that our problems are different. The only people with no more problems are those people lying in the graveyard!

In fact, I have come to realize that successful people face more and bigger problems that anyone else! The more successful you are, the bigger your problems. Barack Obama may sure look happy winning the elections to become the new US president, but trust me, he has much bigger problems that you and me.

So, if life is going to be forever loaded with problems, how can we ever be at peace and happy? The answer I have found is to happily deal with our problems. Don’t take life so seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself and your problems and enjoy the journey.

We Need Problems. They Are There to Make Us Grow

So WHY is life full of problems. Why can’t everything go exactly the way we want? I believe that problems are there to make us learn and grow. Every time a problems comes up, it is a signal that we need to improve ourselves and change our thinking and behaviours. For example, if you are having a bitter fight with your spouse, it is a signal that YOU need to change the way you communicate and behave in the relationship (no matter whose fault it may seem to be).

If from this experience (i.e. problem), you decide to evaluate yourself as a husband/wife and choose to take some positive actions like appreciating your partner more, spending more time with them, listening with your heart, showing more love, forgiving, communicating with honesty, you would solve the problem and end up a BETTER PERSON as result. You would have grown.

Say, you have money problems. It is again a signal that you need to improve the way you manage your money. So, you start reading money management books, attend a money management program, start cutting unnecessary expenses, learn to invest prudently etc…Again, you would have grown into a BETTER PERSON as a result. So, problems are designed to make us grow into better people. only when we have GROWN, will life allow us to graduate to the next level of success, i.e. becoming a millionaire or having passionate love in our relationship.

Here is What Happens When You Ignore our Problems…

However, is this how most people deal with their problems? Nope. What many people do is that they avoid/ignore/or run away from their problems. For example, when they are having that bitter fight with their spouse, some people will just keeping blaming the other person, avoid them or leave them.

When some people are having money problems, they simply ignore it, letting their bills pile up and borrowing more and more money.

So, what happens when you ignore your problems? Well, they keep coming back, even bigger than before. If you do not learn the lesson that needs to be learnt and change yourself, that problematic pattern will keep repeating itself in your life UNTIL you do change.

Haven’t you notice that some people keep experiencing the same problem in every relationship they get into or in every company they join. They keep blaming everyone else for their problems when they don’t realize that they are the ones that are creating it subconsciously or consciously.

Problems Are Taps on the Shoulder

Another way to look at problems is that they are life’s way of tapping us on the shoulder, telling us that we need to change something. If we ignore the taps, life gets our attention by hitting us with a bat. If we still ignore the bat and refuse to change, life hits us on the head with a brick. If we still ignore and refuse to change, life will send a truck towards us.

Haven’t you seen this occur in every area of life? Relationship problems start off with small arguments. Ignore it and do the same thing and it turns into a quarrel. Keep doing the same thing, and it turns into a fight. Pretty soon, the relationship ends. We jump into a new relationship and find that the same problem comes back to haunt.

Kill The Monster When it is Small

I have found that the key to avoid disasters in life is to immediately learn the lessons and change your thoughts/behaviours when the problem is small. Act on the shoulder taps before they turn into oncoming trucks.

Start learning and managing your money, the moment you have small money problems. Start changing your diet ad exercising the moment your body starts to feel lousy. Start working on your people skills the moment you have relationship issues. Kill the monster when it is small.