Choosing Joy When Everything Feels Hard

In this third episode of the Workplace Happiness mini-series, Jill breaks down Pillar #4: Embracing Adversity. When life feels overwhelming, stressful, or heavy, choosing joy can feel impossible. In this episode, Jill O’Boyle explores the surprising connection between faith, adversity, and emotional resilience — and why joy isn’t something you wait for, it’s something you choose… especially in hard seasons.

Whether you’re a high-achieving woman, a busy professional, or navigating a challenging season, this episode offers practical tools, biblical truth, and research-backed insights to help you reframe struggles, build resilience, and rise above overwhelm.

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Transcript

Jill O'Boyle (00:03.01)
Hey friends, welcome back to Your Life, Your Story, Rise Up podcast. I'm your host, Jill O'Boyle. If you've been following along for a little while now, you know that we are in a middle of a mini-series called Workplace Happiness. So today we're gonna be diving into pillar number four, which is embracing adversity. But if you haven't been with us the last two episodes, I wanna just catch you up real quick and kind of give you a little bit of the first three pillars that we talked about.

So we're unpacking this theory on workplace happiness, an episode that Melissa St. John brought to me a few weeks ago. And I thought it was really fascinating and thought, let's take a deep dive into each one of these pillars and really go deeper into what does the research actually say about workplace happiness, as well as what is the biblical truth and what does scripture have to say? How does this support?

Or how is this being supported in scripture because as you know everything is backed up in the Bible, right? So if you have missed those episodes, I would encourage you to go back and listen to them. But just a quick replay The first one we talked about in uncovering true workplace happiness is one you have to know your strengths You have to know your strengths You have to know what gifts God's equipped you with and how you show up in those strengths Then we talked about number two

Blend those strengths with your passions. When we can blend our strengths with the passions, there is a thing that happens in our body that just is called pure joy, right? We blend the two of them together. So we talked a little bit about those. And then the third pillar that we talked about was this ability that you have to know that who you work with matters. We are the average of the five people that we spend the most time with.

So if we're spending time with these five people, they better match our character, our values, they better be lined up with who we want to become, right? We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with. So we spent some time unpacking basically those first three pillars. And if you, again, if you've missed those, go back and listen to them. But today I wanna dive into the fourth pillar, which is embrace adversity.

Jill O'Boyle (02:24.622)
Yes, friends, this is good news. We can discover happiness even in the midst of adversity and suffering. And so I love how Melissa St. John kind of wrapped this up and tied a bow on it in the original episode about workplace happiness. She shared this story, this personal story of her where she was attending the Indianapolis 500 with her dad. She is an avid race goer. She went to the race.

time and time again, year after year with her dad. And then one day she sees Lynn St. James walk onto the track, a woman standing on the track in a place that as you would see is traditionally a male dominated industry, right? And she basically on the podcast said, I just lost it. Like I had so much passion. I had so much respect at so much inspiration.

from this lady because I saw firsthand adversity. I saw what it looks like to run straight towards adversity. When everybody else says you can't do something, she was running straight towards it and she was like, go out and watch me do it. Watch me do it. And she said, you know, that moment really sparked something inside of me, something that I couldn't ever shake or forget. And because of that, every single day,

I am waking up with this mentality of embracing adversity. And so she said, do something that no one else is doing. Like quit coloring inside the lines. Like get a little crazy, get a little messy. Fail if you need to, but just keep pushing yourself beyond the limits that people think you should stay in, right? Sometimes I think in life we have to...

We think we have to stay in this pretty little box and that is so wrong to think, right? God has given us strengths and talents and abilities to go out and do an amazing things. And many times those things that he's going to ask you to do are going to be outside of the box. Right? So I just wanted to just take some time to just really dive deeper into this pillar number four about embracing adversity, because honestly, this is the spot.

Jill O'Boyle (04:45.696)
where growth and courage and purpose is really going to come alive. I know that to be true because well, I have lived it my own self, but because the Bible teaches us that very clearly in the word, Jesus teaches us the ability to embrace adversity. James 1, 2 or 4 is probably one of the scriptures that I had played on repeat.

in my mind and actually had a post-it note in my journal probably for most of 2024. So I want to bring that word and that truth to you as well. So James 1 2 through 4 says Dear brothers and sisters when troubles of any kind come your way consider it an opportunity for great joy for you know that when your faith is tested your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow.

for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.

needing nothing. For when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing. So I think it's good to just kind of break this down. Like what is Jesus teaching us in this, in this paragraph in James under faith and endurance, as well as honestly what Melissa St. John was saying in this workplace happiness and embracing adversity.

Well, one, think as we break it down, one is hard things help us grow. Right? If life was easy, right, where are we growing? know, hard things are going to require us to have faith and it's going to help us to grow. So if you think about growing, like let's think about exercising, right? I don't know if there's too many people that truly have a joy for exercising. Maybe you do, but like

Jill O'Boyle (06:52.088)
For me, it's usually really hard. Like it's really hard to put the workout pants on, to go downstairs, to get my workout in, but I do it, right? Because I know that when I do, I'm gonna get stronger, I'm gonna feel better, I'm going to grow, right? So the same thing, like when you start working out and when you start showing up to your mat every single day and you have that consistency, like your muscles just get stronger. It's called muscle memory, right? It's so.

It's in your body. says, okay, I can do this. I've done it before. I can do it again. And I think that same thing applies in this verse that Jesus is teaching us. Like our faith muscle gets stronger when we go through things, when we go through hard times. Like we are constantly building this faith muscle that says, I went through this again. It wasn't easy, but I had faith and I got through it.

And so I think that's number one, a lesson in this scripture. think number two, what it's telling us too is, hey, we can choose joy. Like we can choose joy in our suffering. We can either sit here and mope and complain and we can let this challenge define us or we can simply turn it around and we can say, you know what, God is with me. God is with me in this challenge. And if God is with me, then who can be against me, right? No one.

So we have this opportunity to choose joy in times of suffering, knowing that this endurance is going to produce great faith and strength and grow us. And then lastly, I think it just sums it up as just saying like, don't give up. Like just don't give up. I think so many times we are trying to achieve something in life and we are feeling like we're pushing something up a mountain.

And it just gets too hard. And that is when we give up. And that is the point where God is like, why did you give up? You were so close. Right? So just, we need to just keep trusting God. Like step by step, we have to learn that we can do these hard things. We can do it because Jesus is with us. And as we do these hard things, we can do even more hard things and more hard things. Right? So I love that verse. I think it's a great idea for you to write that verse down, James 1, 2 through 4.

Jill O'Boyle (09:14.526)
meditate on that verse, remind yourself to just consider it pure joy, right? Consider it pure joy. I love also Romans 5, if we want to just sink it in a little bit more how happiness and adversity can go together. Here it is. Romans 5 verse 3, we can rejoice. There it is, rejoice.

Yep, rejoice when we run into problems and trials for we know that they help us develop, there it is, endurance. And endurance develops strength of character and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. Not making this stuff up. Bible will tell us how to endure adversity because it's going to help us. It's going to create steadfast strength in our times of trouble.

And when they come again, we're gonna be able to say, I went through that before I can do it again, right? So rejoice, rejoice and rejoice I say, amen, rejoice. Okay, so this is the truth, right? This is the truth. This is the Bible. This is the word. Okay, so how do we apply this? And how do we bring these same principles into our day-to-day operations? How do we bring this into our work?

So let's think about this. When challenges or tough projects like come your way at work, like I think number one is we gotta remind ourselves of that scripture, but remind ourselves, like don't just endure them. Like don't just kind of go through the motions or grumble about them, but see them as opportunities. Look at this project and this challenge and think, okay, how are these experiences building me up?

Where am I growing in this challenge? Right, because they're gonna build up your perseverance and then your perseverance strengthens your character and then that's gonna strengthen your skill sets so that you can keep going and he just keeps building those strengths and skill sets up because there is going to be a purpose in all of this. It always is. So over time, this growth is going to lead to greater confidence. You're gonna have more resilience. You're gonna have this hope for

Jill O'Boyle (11:33.302)
When the next thing comes, I'm gonna be able to handle it way better than I might've just handled it because I've done it once, I can do it again. So every problem that comes across your desk today or this week and that you face as you work through them, it's going to strengthen your ability to handle this. So don't lose your composure. Don't get all angry.

Maybe just take the five second rule that Mel Robbins teaches us. If you never listen to Mel Robbins, go listen to her podcast. She has the five second rule, right? When anything happens, she just says five, four, three, two, one. Just that pause is huge as well. So I think it just helps us to just start to begin to reframe challenges as not really setbacks or challenges, but honestly opportunities. Opportunities for us to grow professionally.

and personally. And so when you think about it, when I think about it like that, think adversity also teaches us humility, empathy. Like have you ever watched a leader that is so humble and empathetic, like when they have challenges and they go through them and they admit their faults or, I went through this and I failed, like that to me speaks so much volume that they have character.

of humility and empathy. That's a leader worth following, right? And honestly, those are great qualities that also Jesus just teaches us, right? It reflects the very, very heart of Jesus is he is a...

cute, humble, empathetic. He's always leaning in with curiosity. He embraces adversity over and over again.

Jill O'Boyle (13:23.82)
So what is one challenge right now? If you would think about it, what is a challenge right now that you're currently facing in your work?

in your work, in your personal life.

What is it teaching you? If you look at this challenge and you don't just sit in the challenge with anger or why me again and you reframe it to say, what is this teaching me? How can I grow through this? What is this teaching me? How can I grow through it? Like, what is that? That is somebody that has a

growth mindset, right? They're looking at opportunities of saying, why is this happening? Not why is this happening to me, but why is this happening for me? Like, what am I supposed to learn out of this?

There is a professor, Dr. Carol Dweck. She is a Stanford University psychologist who is famous for her work on mindset. And I think her work really applies to what I'm talking about here. Like she shows us that people with a mindset, right? Those who believe their abilities can develop through effort and learning and persistent actually tend to be

Jill O'Boyle (14:50.432)
more resilient, they take on challenges, they keep growing, they keep improving, right? Because they're constantly thinking about what does this teach me? Versus the other hand, if you've heard people or somebody say fixed mindset, right? Those are people that believe their abilities are just set. Like it's been this way, it's always this way, nothing's ever gonna change. It's just all set in stone, right?

kind of mindset will make them avoid challenges. Well, it didn't work before, not gonna work now. They have this instant fear of failure. Like don't even wanna try because if I try and I fail, what will other people think about me? So what this ultimately does is if people have this fixed mindset, they're gonna keep feeling stuck.

And so the lesson and the key takeaway here is when we adopt a growth mindset in all areas of our life, personal and professional, we can then start to start to look at life a little bit different. We can say, okay, God, this is no surprise to you. What are you trying to teach me? What are you trying to show me? What lesson am I supposed to be learning in this?

Because I guarantee you there always will be one. And so stop thinking about life just happening to you. Start to reflect on why is it happening to you? Why is it happening for you? What's the lesson? What's the takeaway?

So I want to speak to the person right now that's listening that feels like life is just throwing everything at you right now. Like your work is so full of challenges. Maybe life is just really, really hard. Like I get it. Life is hard. It is not easy. That's also biblical, right? There will be trials. But rest because I have overcome the world. But honestly, I would have you go back right now.

Jill O'Boyle (16:54.912)
and just meditate and write it on a post-it note and remember that James 1, 2, 3, 4 verse and as you do, I would ask that you just continue to just seek God on what is he speaking to you in this season right now? What is he asking you to learn and grow and walk with him in and trust? But in addition to that, I also am a firm believer of just like faith in action. Like so go to the Lord and have faith in him.

But don't just have faith that it's gonna work out, it will. But also add that faith in action. Like, faith is powerful when it's best combined with action. So seek God, but then take the risk, take the step, next step. Do the next obedient thing that he's asking you to do. Try something new, even if failure is possible. Try it anyway. So faith in action plus embracing adversity.

Right? So that's going to look like showing up, taking your shot, learning from what happens next. Michael Jordan famously said, and we've all heard this, right? He made the most shots in the NBA, not because he never missed, but because he took the most shots. I love that. Remind yourself of that. He didn't miss. He probably missed a thousand times, right? But he took the most shots.

He kept coming back. I was listening to a sermon the other week with Torrin Wells and I love how he said it. He said, one day is found in your every day. I'll repeat that. Your one day is found in your every day. So that consistency of showing up even when you don't feel like it, even when it's hard, even when it's tough.

You just keep showing up because one day, your one day is found in your everyday. It's in those repetitions and the hard work and that muscle memory of keep embracing adversity because your one day is found in your everyday. So I love how he spent that way too. So embracing adversity means courageously stepping into the challenge and taking your shot and growing through that process because through that process you are learning something you're

Jill O'Boyle (19:20.578)
You're learning, you're growing, you're having perseverance. So keep showing up consistently. It is not wasted. And I know if you were listening to this and you're that person that feels like life is throwing everything at you, I am not saying that life is easy. Believe me, I know I've had my own set of adversity, challenges and setbacks. But I'm saying lean into those challenges that God places before you and full heartedly just trust him and just take

the next intentional action to just grow through them. Because I can sit here today and I can testify that every challenge, every risk, every shot you take, even the ones that don't go as planned, for you control freaks out there, I promise you, it is shaping you. It's building your resilience. It's strengthening your character. It's preparing you for the next season.

this next season that you don't even know what's about to come. But God is preparing you. So just keep taking that next obedience step. So today I want you to really walk away with this. I want you to step up. I want you to embrace adversity. I want you to take your shot. Trust God through that process and begin to seek him and ask him, what are you teaching me, Lord? What is this teaching me, Lord?

What lesson are you trying to show me? And then...

Faith in action is also being still. Like stillness is a form of action. Because I don't think we know how to be still in this world. Most of us do not. We don't want to take time to pause. We live in a very hustle world. So it's gonna take faith in action for you to actually sit your butt down.

Jill O'Boyle (21:17.642)
Actually pull out that Bible verse that I told you probably three times to go read. Meditate on that. Seek Lord. And then don't even do anything but just listen and let the Holy Spirit talk to you. That takes a lot of action. It takes a lot of action because I think most of us, what we really want is we have suffering and most of our prayers are like, God, please remove this. If it is your will, would you please remove this? And that's a great prayer too.

But sometimes I think God is wanting to reveal something in us. He's wanting to open our hearts to truly hear him.

and he's trying to teach us this. And I say that because I am very thick in this myself of trying to really listen and pay close attention to what are you trying to teach me? What are you saying to me?

Jill O'Boyle (22:13.358)
So listen and be obedient to what he shares with you.

All right, friends, so I hope you are enjoying this mini series that concludes the embrace adversity portion. We are gonna be back in two weeks with our final completion to this series, which is building your race team. We all know that we need a great race team in our circle to run our race, but also in our workplace and happiness, we have to have the right people around us. So what is your race team?

So we're gonna talk about that in the upcoming episodes. So don't forget to miss that. If you're not subscribed to the podcast, make sure you hit subscribe now so you'll be notified when that episode goes live. All right, well thank you for being a part of this podcast. If anything resonated with you or hit home, please consider leaving a review or sharing it with a friend. Until next time, be you, love life, and keep rising up.