How to Overcome Adversity: Transforming Setbacks to Stoke

I have spent a lifetime learning how to overcome my adversity. This shirt tells my story in seconds. A dark blue T-shirt displays seven tally marks next to ‘fell down’ below that it says ‘got up’ with eight tally marks next to it.

This shirt honors the grit, pain, and patience it took for me to go from a bullied and beaten disabled kid to a stoked surfer.  

I’ve faced many hurdles due to being born with Cerebral Palsy. Each experience taught me valuable lessons that fueled my resilience to move forward. The American Psychological Association says that our resilience is built by our thoughts, behaviors, and actions, this means that we all have the ability to be resilient.

If I can do this, you can too.

Here are tools that I use to keep charging for my dreams and goals.

Our attitude is the key to viewing setbacks as opportunities for growth rather than unbreakable barriers. 

My mentality is seeing setbacks as problems that can be solved, this transformed my fear of uncertainty into solving problems one day, and one step at a time.

Within my attitude I value my discipline and minimizing entitlement. When we have unpredictable setbacks, mental/physical fatigue that slows us down to a sloth’s pace, or when our doubt seeps into our minds eroding our hard-fought self-belief and confidence.

We must make a choice to apply our self-discipline because every small step of progress matters when adversity hits.

At my worst I felt not good enough for a home, a car, a job, family, friends, or even love. It feels miserable, and lonely, but I did something about it with my attitude. I refused this imposed reality and created my own. Before I made Team USA, I missed the mark on making the team 6 years in a row, I made it on the team in my 7^th attempt.

Having the right attitude means I’m doing the work when no one is watching, so when things get tough I keep moving forward. 

When my alarm goes off at 5:15am for training to prepare for the World Surf Championships, every bone, and muscle in my body is begging for 5 more minutes of sleep. A calm whisper floats into my ear: “I’m relying on you, nothing’s guaranteed”.

Those words minimize any sense of entitlement, I act by getting out of bed and getting to work on the day.

When I’m faced with a challenging project, or goal. I track my journey by writing down the work completed and my thought process. It is cathartic when my mind and emotions begin to drift during difficult days.

The bonus to writing down our thoughts/progress/goals is we are 62% more likely to accomplish what we put on the digital, or physical page. I purchase pocket journals every few months as an investment into myself.

If I can learn how to overcome my adversity, so can you. Keep Charging for your dreams and goals.

In part 2, how my relationships keep me going when I feel not good enough.