The book "The Obstacle is The Way" is written by Ryan Holiday. Ryan through his wonderful writing has elaborated here that obstacles are not the end of your journey to success instead they ease your endeavors and make them more rewarding.
They teach you something you don't know. They make you a better person. You get new insight every time you face them. You come up with better solutions that make your journey to success more exciting. It is not the time to get depressed or demotivated once they come in your way but you must rejoice and find a new and better way to get going around them.
We all face problems every day by and this book is a gift to us to learn how to thrive with them.
Book Review of The Obstacle is The Way
Here is my review of the book "The Obstacle is The Way by Ryan Holiday".
The following key points from the book are worth mentioning that reflect great knowledge that you can apply and turn all negatives of your life to positives.
All the great people including John D. Rockefeller, Demosthenes, Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs, Edison, Barack Obama had faced obstacles in their ways but they found way out to obstacles and achieved the greatest success in their fields.
We must always lead our life with a cool head and avoid taking any steps in hurry. We must look at disasters like we're seeing it another way to a great opportunity ahead. We must develop a habit of practicing extreme calmness in times of greater chaos. This is the way to a successful life.
We must always lead our life with a cool head and avoid taking any steps in hurry. We must look at disasters like we're seeing it another way to a great opportunity ahead. We must develop a habit of practicing extreme calmness in times of greater chaos. This is the way to a successful life.
- The impediment to action advances action. What stands on the way becomes the way. Obstacles are not permanent, they are expected on every journey. In fact, if there is a journey, obstacles are there.
- Obstacles are there to test your vigor. You can't achieve anything significant until you prove your strength, caliber, and dedication. Every time you face obstacles and overcome it you become a better, learned, and proven person. Obstacles are milestones of a bigger achievement. Every obstacle is an opportunity to improve our conditions.
- But most of us face obstacles with fear, frustration, helplessness, depression, anger.
- All the great people including John D. Rockefeller, Demosthenes, Abraham Lincoln, Steve Jobs, Edison, Barack Obama had faced obstacles in their ways but they found way out to obstacles and achieved the greatest success in their fields.
- The things which hurt; Instruct. So, don't be fearful of your problems. Look at them, find ways to solve them. Change your perspective to any situation which seems impossible to handle.
- Every obstacle can be turned into a great opportunity by three critical steps; Perception, Action, and Will.
- We must always lead our life with a cool head and avoid taking any steps in hurry. We must look at disasters like we're seeing it another way to a great opportunity ahead. We must develop a habit of practicing extreme calmness in times of greater chaos. This is the way to a successful life.
- Obstacles are great teachers. They make you strong. They are exceptional ways to learn something unique that others miss because they don't like to face obstacles. The only thing that matters is how do you look at them and how do you react when they come on your way. If you are fearful of looking at them, your condition would turn to worse and if you look at them as an opportunity then you're going to be incredibly successful.
- We can find an opportunity in every disaster and turn that negative situation into education, or learn a skill that can make us thrive.
- Anything bad that happens to us allows us to learn and move forward rather than dwelling into the problems and wasting our time and energy on things that don't count on the path of success.
- Whenever you see an obstacle, you must try to be objective, seek goodness in the situation, and ignore what disturbs or limit others.
- No one can force you to give up for fighting for your dream life. You have full control of your perception. None has control over your thoughts, beliefs, and reactions. So, you're never powerless. Your thoughts are your power. Nothing is good or bad, it is your thoughts that make it.
- The best advice to stay focused in any circumstances is to practice cool-headedness and you would find a way to come out winning from any situation. The people around you always want to intimidate you and want you to get the job done on their terms without you going through all the details. When you're living with such conditions then you should practice calmness and get out of it.
- There is always a better way to get out of any situation and you would find that if you practice coolheadedness. So, never be worried, never be in stress and never accept that you can not win in tough situations. It is all our perceptions that make the conditions worse or better. So what would you choose?
- Never be in a panic because when you panic you lose coolheadedness, you're fearful, your brain does not work, you commit mistakes and make worse of simple situations. Anyway, control your emotions and control your life. When you panic, you lose focus, and when you lose focus, you lose all.
- Obstacles make you emotional and you think more bad things instead you must focus on finding solutions and turning the bad situations into better. Bad situations would not last forever like good situations so you need to never worry. That is part of our life. You're always in your control.
- If you can change your perspective to a situation you can change everything. Why do we worry about a situation and its possible bad outcomes when we can think about the same situation through a different angle? It is all with us.
- Opportunities are like buses; there is another one always coming. So, don't worry about that last important meeting you missed; Don't worry if you could not be promoted; Don't worry if you were rejected in your job interview. A better opportunity is waiting for you.
- You don't lose the game until you quit. And if you keep on trying and trying then you win. It is all up to you to work on and change the situations for good that comes under your control. Don't complain, Don't argue, and Don't wish the situations would improve instead attempt, attempt, and attempt to win.
- One step at a time. Focus on the moment and do your best. Don't look up at other things around you because they may distract your attention and you may not arrive where you want to be. Live in the moments and don't fabricate intimidating situations in your thoughts. Live in the present to make your future better. Always remember that "this moment is not your life but it is just a moment in your life".
- Don't be mediocre by working on small ideas. Aim high, think big, embrace your strength and you would soon realize that nothing is out of your reach. It is our thinking and confidence that decide what we are going to become in the future. Don't doubt your strength because you have more strength and you can achieve much bigger than you think. If you believe in things like" Be realistic, or you're thinking too big or it is not possible to do in such a short period" then you must change your thoughts because you can do much bigger than you're thinking now. Having such thoughts in your mind is like compromising on situations that you can easily conquer.
- Even the worst situations must have something good you can find if you look for them. So never worry or fumed when an obstacle is in front of you instead be cool, use your knowledge and expertise to get out of it. It would be a learning experience. You would not grow if you don't get out of the obstacle. If you're fumed then you're wasting your energy and you're going in the reverse direction of nowhere.
- Whenever we face any obstacles, we change our way rather than working on it, finding a new solution that we have not ever thought could be possible.
- When you need to change your situation, you need to think and act. If you fail to act, you fail to improve the situation. Action is more important than anything. It is not something that you need to wait to do but it the only thing you must be doing whenever you want to travel a path of success. Action impedes any impediment on your way to success.
- If you attack the obstacle with actions and try hard, you would win for sure. Action is very important. And without it, the obstacle is not going to get out instead it is going to get bigger and bigger unless you surrender and start living a life of compromises and failures. So, don't even wait for a second but start taking action now.
- We must be continuously looking for better ways to solve our problems and going ahead on the path of success. We will fail many times and this is the way the bigger success is achieved. If we fail and quit we lose and if we fail, look around and find solutions, we would achieve any goal we can aim.
- A big success is made of many failures and small achievements which have become so big that you got what you wanted in your dreams. You need to analyze every time you fail because when you fail, you have done something wrong and this is the thing you need to correct and move on. You need to take one step at a time. Just do your job, don't wait for taking actions.
- Try to give the best of your efforts for anything you do because the way you do something is the way you do everything. Does not matter if you're working on a small office job or handling big tasks on a multinational corporation, you must put all your efforts. You don't need to be the best in doing something but you need to be your best in doing things. Move ahead right now and don't wait for perfection.
- You have to put your head up and try to see around the opportunities where others find disasters. Looking at obstacles to find new ways to be successful in your deeds is a wonderful opportunity which many miss because they see the obstacle.
- If you delay starting something you want because of troubles on the way then you're not going to be successful because there is no path without obstacles.
- None can prevent you from trying. So why do you complain when you fail? You don't get anything complaining so don't do that. Instead, try one more time. Learn from the mistakes, and improve where you missed. This way you would be better prepared every time you fail and you would be closer to success.
- Sometimes, all your efforts fail. Whatever you do take you to the end of a road. You don't know what to do. But this is not the time to stop trying or looking on the brighter side of life. Keep on trying.
- "This too shall pass" is not it a great sentence to give you strength when you don't see any hope or you're surrounded by nothing but adversities and obstacles?
- We're living in a highly unpredictable world. Sometimes, even after toiling hard, you experience the biggest defeat. You do whatever you could do, but your efforts don't help you succeed. You start complaining, you start finding faults in yourself, in others. But, can it help you to get what you want? No, then what should you do? Get up and try one more time with full strength.
- You can turn any adversity into an opportunity if you're resilient, strong, fearless, and ready to do anything to grow.
- You're going to experience extreme pressure, stress, failures, hardships, negative criticism, and sometimes everything of your possession. And you need to be tough enough to bear the pain and get moving without self-doubting on your strength.
- Have you prepared for the worst, if not then anticipate and work out where you can go wrong so that you don't surprise when things don't go as you planned? Prepare for failure and work for success.
- We get better after every attempt. So, after every attempt, you have now more courage and strength to fight bigger problems. And keep in mind that obstacles are never going to be easier or they are going to be out of your way. Instead, you're never the same person after you overcome that obstacle. So, never be fearful, never feel low, never complain, never stop taking actions, and never stop moving.
Other books mentioned in the book:
The Gift of Fear by Gavin de Becker
The Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi
