Things can get tough during your college years, whether it is a bad grade in a class or test you studied hours on end for, rejection from a job you wanted, or problems with friends, family, or significant others. Sometimes these problems can be minor, or they can feel like the end of the world. Have you ever taken time to step back to look at the effect that the loss had on your life? By stepping back out of the initial emotions, you can always identify the positive impact the event had on your life.

In the moment, it may have seemed like no good could come out of it. By stepping back, you can see that without the event occurring in your life, you wouldn’t be the person you are today. You wouldn’t have the strength, passion, and drive that spurred you on from that event. If you received a bad grade on a test, perhaps that led you to study twice as much the next time. Or maybe you found a new way to study which proved to be beneficial in that class and future classes as well.

If you hadn’t been rejected from a job you thought was your dream job, you might have never found the current company and position you are in. You might have never made the valuable connections, built the work ethic, and developed important skills you did within that position. If things hadn’t gone wrong in a friendship or relationship, your bond with that person might have never grown to the strength it did once resolved or you may have never met the person you were supposed to meet after.

The timeline for identifying these outcomes is different for every situation. Sometimes you can see how it worked out for the better the next day or the next month, but sometimes you won’t be able to understand it until years down the road. Everyone is on a different path, and sometimes the path you want to be on isn’t the one you need to be on.

I challenge everyone to reflect on their personal setbacks in the past. In the moment, they might have seemed like the end of the world. I guarantee you can identify how it made you a stronger person or redirected your life for the better. If you find a problem that you can’t find a positive outcome for, dig deeper.  Analyze how your attitude towards something was changed or how you changed your course of action as a result of the event. If you still can’t identify anything within the previous statement, the timeline for determining the positive outcomes may not have come to fruition yet. Give things time and you will be able to draw it to a positive outcome.

I am not claiming the world is all sunshine and rainbows and everything is perfect. I am, however, encouraging you all to be optimistic and find the good in everything. There is always something positive to identify in any event of your life. Finding it will bring you comfort and a sense of calm amidst all situations big or small, especially in college when you have so many opportunities to reinvent yourself and change your surroundings. So, when things get tough, just remember, everything works out in the end!