Sometimes your biggest disadvantage can be your advantage.

You have to find the opportunity, the edge.

According to world-renown author Malcolm Gladwell, author of the book Underdog Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants: David &Goliath history has proven that disadvantages do not impede success. In many cases, it has been shown that disadvantages have benefited those on their path to success. Gladwell refers to this concept as a desirable difficulty.  “The idea of desirable difficulty suggests that not all difficulties are negative”  (Gladwell 133).

Sometimes What seems like something that will hold you back is exactly what you need to propel you forward, but you have to change the way you look at things.

“For some reason, this is a very difficult lesson for us to learn. We have, I think, a very rigid and limited definition of what an advantage is” (Gladwell 25).

A disadvantage can equip you to achieve the very thing that is desired and turn out to be a bigger advantage than what was once realized. Often times a disadvantage is really a lesson that prepares you for what is up ahead.

Personal Anecdote

I had my last child two years ago almost 15 years from the birth of my last child., it was a much-welcomed gift but has taught me so much. Now it is no secret that I have at times had a hard time adjusting to change. But, nothing teaches you about adjusting to change like a child. Children are spontaneous, their schedules constantly adjust and readjust, at least for the first years of their life.  Your world and time revolve completely around them.

 

You sleep when they sleep or don’t sleep at all. You learn their schedule and try to work your day around their schedule especially if you want to get anything done.

In fact, a lot that comes with rearing a child from infancy to adulthood requires spontaneous change, the type of change that can completely alter plans.

You have to take what looks like a disadvantage in the way of time and turn it into an advantage. This is a lesson that can be applied to all of life. Not to say that it is easy to do but extremely necessary.

Find whatever seems like a disadvantage and use it in your favor.

You are not an underdog no matter what life throws at you, you have a real chance at success and achievement but you just have to believe it.

 

 

Gladwell, Malcolm. (2013). Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants:

     David and Goliath, London, England. Penguin Books.