Challenges and Hardships Outside of the Workplace

In this article I want to discuss challenges and hardships that every one of us experiences outside of the workplace. Whether you’re an employee, manager, or business owner, life happens. Challenges can come from very positive events like marriage, childbirth, and buying a new house. I refer to these as challenges because, even though they are very positive, they also cause added stress or become financially taxing. Hardships are generally not so positive. Serious injury, medical problems, devastating weather, and loss of loved ones are just a few hardships all of us have faced or know someone that has. Challenges and hardships are part of life; they define who we are, and they also sculpt our personalities. They change the way we think, how we react to situations, and even define our beliefs. How we deal with challenges and hardships helps to define our character, not only to ourselves but to others as well.

The Workplace Challenge

When life is good or great, personally and at work, the best comes out of each of us. But what happens when things change? Starting with having a hard time at work—maybe there is a disgruntled customer that is your responsibility, or a co-worker that you’re not getting along with, or some kind of audit that isn’t going your way. All of these challenges affect your behavior outside of work, with friends and family, and with positive events. Focusing on life outside of work becomes taxing and hard to focus on. At the same time, when there are challenges or hardships outside of work, focusing and excelling at work is nearly impossible. The day turns into “making it to 5 o’clock” rather than a series of positive outcomes and jobs well done. Basically, anything—positive or negative—has an impact on both life at work and life outside of work.

Motives

Motives are the driving force behind action and change. Understanding motives in yourself and others should be the first step to positive change and resolution. Motives change based on circumstances. They also change based on desired outcome. When it comes to challenges and hardships outside of the workplace, motives are simple. The workplace depends on production and efficiency. Therefore, when someone is not at their best at work, production and efficiency suffer. The business needs to adjust to keep up with the demands of the business. Customers will call or come to the business, production expectations remain constant, and business expenses keep coming in. In short, work is inevitable. At the same time, when personal hardships happen, motives for the individual change. Being your best at the workplace is no longer as important. Being productive and efficient at work gives way to focusing on the hardship. There is no doubt, when you’re focused on a personal hardship, it is nearly impossible to be the productive and efficient person you want to be at work. Your motive is now to deal with the hardship in front of you.

Talking from Experience (Part 1)

I want to share one of my recent experiences. Three years ago I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. I knew something was off for a while but didn’t want my career to suffer from it. Finally, I had to get medical attention. At that time, I had been working for the same business for 34 years. I had many roles and had advanced through the business very consistently over the years. I was in charge of a very busy service department with over 30 employees. The service department was repairing 70–80 vehicles per day. We were taking over 100 phone calls per day. All of a sudden, I’m in a position where my health was at serious risk. I had no choice—I had to step away from my role to focus on my health. Whether I was there or not, the business still had all of those phone calls coming in and all of those vehicles to fix. The business had to adjust. For the first few months, my co-workers shared my responsibilities to take care of all of that business. After the first few months, reality was setting in. The possibility of me returning was looking less and less likely. My co-workers were running the service department the best they could; however, it was becoming more and more apparent that the extra workload was not sustainable. The business had to adapt again to fill the void I had left. A new manager was appointed to keep up with the needs of the business. That left my future with the company in question. While all of this was happening at work, my health was still on a rollercoaster ride. Not only was I receiving treatments for cancer, I was fighting pneumonia. Finally, after five months, I was extremely fortunate and had won this battle with cancer. After seven months I was getting well enough to return to work in a limited capacity. During that seven months, I wasn’t working, I wasn’t bringing the steady income I had become accustomed to. That alone created a different set of hardships. Along with medical bills coming in, there was still a mortgage and car payment, and there were still utility bills. I truly empathize with anybody faced with a similar challenge.

Dealing with Challenges and Hardships

There is no magic answer to deal with challenges and hardships. Every situation is different. Every person is different. However, every human being is born with the capacity for empathy. Life teaches us the value of being able to adapt. By nature, we want to be helpful to those in need. From the day we are born, we are gifted with the ability to learn. We start learning to communicate from our first breath. These core abilities allow us to overcome challenges. They allow us to face hardships. I believe you will find at the core of every hardship is a learning curve. We learn through communication. Communication with the workplace is paramount. Businesses are there because of people—most importantly, people with empathy. Through 200,000–300,000 years of human evolution, hardships have been affecting us. Chances are that it won’t take long to find someone you can learn from. Honesty is always the best policy. Be honest with yourself and honest with people you communicate with. Don’t isolate yourself. Isolation leads to poor decisions and a lack of the ability to learn about your hardship. As humans, we thrive on socialization. Give yourself the opportunity to thrive through the hardship. Drugs and alcohol are depressants. Hardships are usually depressing enough—why add to it? Try to focus on what life looks like when you get through your hardship. Do you need to set new life goals? Always stay looking to the future.

“Hardships shape us, challenges refine us, and resilience defines us.”

Talking from Experience (Part 2)

I was truly fortunate to have beaten cancer. The outcome could have been completely different. I did everything I could to learn from my doctors and learn from what I could outside the medical office. Although I have some side effects that will stay with me as long as I live, I get to live. My family and friends were there to help me learn and to help me heal. Just having them near helped my mental state and kept me fighting. Years before my diagnosis, I signed up for a simple short-term disability insurance policy that covered my mortgage while I couldn’t work. The policy was made available through my workplace. The policy gave me the ability to stay in my home and focus on getting better. I did end up selling my vehicle to lessen the car payment expense. I stayed in contact with my workplace. When I was able to come back to work, they created new roles for me. Those roles allowed the flexibility I needed for a full recovery. I am truly fortunate to work for a company with the best owners and managers anybody could ask for. Three years later, I am back to the same quality of life I had before. I will be replacing the vehicle I sold very shortly. I am not blind to think that everybody has all the same resources I did. I’m sharing my experience to show that challenges and hardships can happen to anyone at any time. They are a part of life. Being honest with myself and my workplace promoted an empathetic and positive outcome. Support from family and friends supported the same positive outcome. The one thing I learned is it all started with me. I could have made very different choices and let that hardship control my life. I made the choice to get through it and have the rest of my life to look forward to.

Final Thoughts

Challenges and hardships are unavoidable parts of life, and they don’t stop at the door of the workplace. Whether they come from joyful milestones or unexpected struggles, they test our strength, reshape our priorities, and influence how we interact with others. What defines us is not the challenge itself, but how we respond to it—with honesty, communication, empathy, and resilience. By leaning on those around us, maintaining perspective, and focusing on the future, we not only endure hardships but also grow from them. In the end, these experiences shape our character, strengthen our relationships, and remind us that we are never truly alone in facing life’s difficulties.