challenges in workplace essay

JD enjoys teaching people how to use ZoomShift to save time spent on scheduling. He’s curious, likes learning new things everyday and playing the guitar (although it’s a work in progress).

• Feb 02, 2024

12 Common Workplace Challenges and Solutions

There are many challenges that come with working in an office. From the sometimes overwhelming feeling of being overworked to the hidden stressors such as having to be “on” all day, it’s not always easy for employees. However, there are ways to overcome these obstacles and get more out of your workday.

In this article, we’ll explore some common workplace challenges and share ideas for how you can turn them into solutions.

12 Workplace Challenges and Solutions

If you look at most challenges in the workplace, they’re not unique to any one business. This is good news because it means there’s plenty of advice out there to help you find a solution!

1. Insufficient Training

A lack of training leads to a number of workplace issues. The most obvious one is that employees aren’t able to do their jobs as well as they would like, but it goes deeper than this.

Poor training is a leadership challenge in the workplace that can also lead to increased frustration because employees don’t know what it takes to improve their performance or excel in their roles. If left unchecked, this can lead to employee burnout, which can be very damaging for the employee and the business. Eventually, this may turn into the biggest challenge at work.

It’s important to see training as an investment. When you make training a big part of your culture, it will come back to you in improved efficiency and productivity.

Make sure it’s an open process by involving your employees in the conversation. Ask them what skills they think they need to work on.

2. Schedule Inflexibility

People lead complicated lives that don’t always fit with the Monday to Friday, 9-5 work schedule. While some businesses need their employees to work a fixed schedule, there are many that don’t.

Scheduling inflexibility can lead to higher stress levels, and affect your workers’ ability to do their best work.

Flexible schedules might seem complicated, but with the right scheduling software, they’re actually easy to manage. You can still keep track of your employees’ time (if you feel it’s necessary), and you can give your staff greater responsibility for their schedules.

The easiest way to do this is with employee scheduling software from ZoomShift. This will allow you to effortlessly create schedules (including rotating shifts and split shifts ) and track your employees’ time, but most importantly, it provides flexibility.

Employees can easily request time off, trade shifts, and track their PTO, all of which gives them a great sense of flexibility.

3. Poor Work-Life Balance

If you have a work-life balance problem, it is the biggest challenge at work. We all know balancing work-life balance is tricky. From the CEO down to the new entry-level employee, we can all find it tricky to get this right.

As a business owner and manager, important thing to remember is that more time spent at work doesn’t necessarily mean you get more work done, and it certainly doesn’t guarantee quality. If you’re expecting your employees to spend all their hours at work and rarely grant time off, then it’s going to start to affect their health and their performance.

Work-life balance starts with culture. If you’re conveying a message that the way to success is to spend as much time as possible in the office, then it’s not surprising that people are going to lack a proper work-life balance (even if your scheduling is flexible).

Celebrate time off and the idea that rest and relaxation are essential to peak performance. Invest in employee wellbeing , and encourage people to switch off when they leave the office (don’t expect people to constantly reply to emails and messages outside of office hours).

4. Lack of Motivation

Motivation isn’t something you can just magic up. There will always be some days where your employees feel motivated and others where they don’t.

What is a problem when there’s a persistent lack of motivation across your entire workforce?

Motivation is a common workplace challenge, and thankfully there are lots of solutions to it.

Communicate with your staff! A great place to start is by asking what factors they find most motivating. Create a list of factors such as pay, time off, goals, and bonuses, and ask them to rank them in order of importance.

This will help you understand what gets the most out of your employees, allowing you to implement new motivation techniques .

5. Lack of Communication

A lack of communication is a common problem in the workplace. But without communication, it’s difficult for employees to know what’s expected of them. It also means that other problems go unreported, rather than getting fixed, they begin to stack up.

Poor communication will hurt productivity and lead to more errors, so it’s important that businesses find ways to improve in this area.

… Or you can try using a platform like ZoomShift. It offers a centralized space for announcements, shift swaps, and sharing files. You also get both group and private messaging, which makes it easy to address various team communication needs efficiently. Sometimes this can be as simple as finding the right platform to communicate on. For example, you might be doing everything through email, when instead, what you need is something more instant like Slack, that integrates well with your project management tools .

6. Trust Issues

When it comes to workplace challenges and solutions, trust issues can be one of the most difficult to solve. This is because trust is generally eroded over a period of time, and it takes time to win it back.

If employees feel like their employers can’t be trusted, or that they’re not trusted to do their job, then it’s a recipe for unhappiness.

One of the easiest ways for trust to break down is through a lack of communication. People can’t read minds, so when they’re not getting the information they need, they start to fill in the blanks themselves, and often not in a good way.

Sometimes businesses have to deliver bad news, but if you’re open and honest about it, it’s going to help build trust.

One way to get people to communicate and trust each other again is to encourage team-building activities .

7. Little Recognition

It’s natural that people want to be recognized for the hard work they do. It’s easy to get into the mindset that an employee’s pay is their recognition, but often it’s the small details that really matter.

When someone does great work, it’s an excellent opportunity to boost morale and build trust, so don’t miss out on it.

Create employee rewards like employee of the month , and keep track of milestones like birthdays and work anniversaries. Demonstrate that your employees are valuable to your company, and recognition shouldn’t be a problem at work.

8. Staff Conflict/ Bullying

Staff conflicts happen, it’s a part of life, and it’s a part of the business. People have different opinions, and that’s a great thing, but it’s how communication is handled that matters.

When differences of opinion spill over into outright conflict, and even bullying, it can be terrible for employee morale, performance, productivity, mood, and everything else.

You can overcome this common workplace challenge by creating an open environment where employees can express themselves in a structured way. By promoting teamwork, encouraging feedback, addressing negative attitudes, and asking about the biggest challenges at work, you can create a more harmonious environment.

9. No Potential Growth

Everybody has goals. As much as your employees might enjoy their jobs, they also want to progress their careers and take on new challenges in the workplace. If your business doesn’t appear to offer these opportunities, then it’s going to be a top issues in the workplace.

Set a career progression map that shows your employees the opportunities that are available. Discuss what criteria need to be met for raises, and help your staff plan their career trajectory .

The other important aspect is to follow through with what you talk about. Show that you promote from within and offer raises to high-performing employees.

10. Lack of Technology

It can be endlessly frustrating when you don’t have the right tools to do your job.

Choosing the right technology can be difficult, particularly for small business owners who have limited resources. However, there’s some technology that pays for itself in the long run, and without it, you just can’t keep up with the competition.

One of the best things you can do is create a technology plan. This looks at your current and future needs to decide which technology is a priority and which can wait.

Make sure to get feedback from your employees, as they’re the ones that will be working with the technology on a daily basis. Ask them what problems have you faced during the work and what technology can help resolve that.

You’ll find that technology like ZoomShift can save employees precious time, freeing them up to spend more time on the most important tasks.

ZoomShift can help you streamline your employee scheduling and keep a track of who is working when and where .  Track your employee’s time and attendance with ease, eliminate costly time tracking errors, calculate work hours, and run payroll in minutes, not hours . On top of all, your team can effectively communicate with one another from a single platform. 

Start your 14 days free trial with no credit card required. You get full access to employee scheduling, time tracking, timesheet, team communication, and everything else required to manage a team.

11. Overwhelming Workload

An overwhelming workload can lead to burnout, decreased productivity, and a negative impact on employee health and happiness. It’s common for some employees to feel burdened by the sheer volume of tasks they’re given, leading to a decline in workplace satisfaction.

The first step is to check if the workload is evenly distributed among employees. Are there any team members who are consistently overloaded with tasks while others have a lighter load? If so, it may be time to redistribute tasks to create a more balanced workload. This can be easily done through a visual project management tool like Trello or Asana.

Once tasks are evenly distributed, consider implementing time management strategies and setting realistic deadlines for projects. Encourage employees to take breaks and prioritize their mental health to avoid burnout.

If the problem persists, consider hiring additional help or delegating tasks to other departments.

12. Boring and Unfulfilling Work

People want to feel like their work matters and they make a difference. If employees are stuck doing monotonous tasks that don’t challenge them or align with their goals, they may become disengaged and unproductive. This can also result in high employee turnover rates as your team seeks more fulfilling opportunities elsewhere.

One way to combat this is by providing employees with opportunities for growth and learning. Encourage them to take on new challenges and offer recognition when they go above and beyond.

Another way to combat boredom in the workplace is by promoting a positive work culture that values creativity, innovation, and fun. Plan team-building activities, celebrate achievements, and encourage collaboration among team members.

Final Thoughts

Leadership challenges in the workplace are a part of the business. There are always going to be new workplace issues, but the important thing is that you can work through them in a logical, timely way.

These are some of the most common workplace challenges and solutions. As you can see, they’re very solvable. Often, the key is communication, and with the right technology, you can normally find a simple solution.

If you have any unique challenges at work examples, please comment below. We shall try to address them with the best possible solution to resolve your workplace issues.

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COVID-19’s impact on work, workers, and the workplace of the future

What will the world of work look like, post COVID-19? A paper co-authored by Dyson School faculty member Kevin Kniffin along with 28 other researchers and scholars from around the world — “ COVID-19 and the Workplace: Implications, Issues, and Insights for Future Research and Action ” ( American Psychologist ) — includes a preview of how COVID-19 may change work practices in the long term and offers projections about the workplace of the future.

Kniffin and his co-authors took a broad view of the pandemic’s many impacts on the workplace, encapsulating existing research, predicting a few likely outcomes, and pointing to new questions worthy of study. “By organizing our experiences as researchers in a wide array of topical areas,” they wrote, “we present a review of relevant literatures along with an evidence-based preview of changes that we expect in the wake of COVID-19 for both research and practice.”

“‘Sensemaking’ was the first value generated by this extraordinary collaboration, which we undertook because of the extraordinary impacts associated with the emergence of COVID-19,” says Kniffin. “With so many dimensions of work and life changing rapidly in relation to COVID-19, a clear and succinct assessment was our first task—and a foundation for charting roadmaps for future research and action.”

A new normal: Working from home

When the pandemic hit the U.S. hard in March, millions of workers began working from home – an unprecedented and ongoing phenomenon “facilitated by the rise of connectivity and communication technologies,” Kniffin and his co-authors note in the paper.

The authors project that working from home will not only continue for many workers, but that “COVID-19 will accelerate trends towards working from home past the immediate impacts of the pandemic.” This will be driven, in part, as organizations recognize the health risks of open-plan offices. “As we now live and work in globally interdependent communities, infectious disease threats such as COVID-19 need to be recognized as part of the workscape,” write Kniffin et al. “To continue to reap the benefits from global cooperation, we must find smarter and safer ways of working together.” Organizations will also appreciate the cost-savings of replacing full-time employees with contractors who can stay connected digitally, note the authors.

In light of this anticipated shift, one goal of the paper is to guide future research to “examine whether and how the COVID-19 quarantines that required millions to work from home affected work productivity, creativity, and innovation.”

Best practices for high-functioning virtual teams

Virtual teams were already growing in number and importance pre-COVID-19, as noted in the paper. Now, many workers participate in a variety of remote teams, via synchronous and asynchronous digital communication. Since virtual teams are here to stay for many workers even post-pandemic, it’s important to recognize the challenges and adopt best practices. For example, the authors point out that “traditional teamwork problems such as conflict and coordination can escalate quickly in virtual teams” and offer recommendations based on prior research, including:

• Build structural scaffolds to mitigate conflicts, align teams, and ensure safe and thorough information processing.
• Formalize team processes, clarify team goals, and build-in structural solutions to foster psychologically safe discussions.
• Provide opportunities for non-task interactions among employees to allow emotional connections and bonding to continue among team members.

Greater appreciation for woman leaders?

“A feminine style of leadership might become recognized as optimal for dealing with crises in the future,” write Kniffin et al. They point to high-profile woman leaders who have grappled with COVID-19 effectively, including Angela Merkel, chancellor of Germany, and Tsai Ing-wen, president of Taiwan. And they list several feminine values and traits that can be effective in crisis management (pointing to the relevant research regarding each trait), including:

• a communal orientation in moral decision-making,
• higher sensitivity to risk, particularly about health issues,
• higher conscientiousness, and
• more attentive communication styles.

Creating roadmaps for new patterns of work

In addition to the sudden shift in working from home, “COVID-19 and the Workplace” touches on many other aspects of the pandemic’s impact on workers and organizations. They point to the economic, social, and psychological challenges and risks for workers deemed “essential” as well as for furloughed and laid-off workers. They touch on fundamental changes brought about in some industries, and new opportunities in others. Regarding impacts on workers, they discuss increases in economic inequality, social distancing and loneliness, stress and burnout, and addiction. The authors also refer to factors that moderate the impacts of workplace changes brought about by the pandemic, including age, race and ethnicity, gender, family status, personality, and cultural differences.

By drawing on existing research to help make sense of the crisis and highlighting topics ripe for new research, the authors hope to clear a path to guide studies focused on building positive, productive interactions that will aid in the ongoing transition to new patterns of work. “We hope that our effort will help researchers and practitioners take steps to manage and mitigate the negative effects of COVID-19 and start designing evidence-based roadmaps for moving forward.”

“When we started this project,” Kniffin added, “it wasn’t clear how long COVID-19 would persist as a force of disruption and destruction. As the pandemic has persisted, though, it’s increasingly clear that COVID-19 should be considered for its impact in relation to almost any work-related practice. On top of that, the many ways in which COVID-19 has variably and disparately impacted people and work around the world warrants close attention, concern, and action.”

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Tim Iorio, Ph.D.

I am working on a book concerning survival in Corporate America: Lessons Learned (my memoirs), including chapters on how COVID-19 has changed the landscape. Your research is needed and invaluable, and I look forward to following it. I will more than likely do some Qualitative Research myself on the subject. Thank you.

Rachel Frampton

From my point of view, businesses must invest in workplace covid management software that will protect their employees. Well, I agree with you that they must provide smarter and safer ways of working together. We also share the same opinion about the importance of providing virtual consultations and meetings.

Comments are closed.

More From Forbes

Four common challenges in the workplace and how to address them.

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In our day-to-day activities, challenges may inevitably arise in the workplace. How we deal with these challenges has a lasting impression not only on how others view us, but on our ability to manage our people and mitigate risks that may lead to things like burnout, feeling stuck in the same job with no growth, or simply being at odds with co-workers.

So what are some common workplace challenges? Here are four, with tips on how to address them.

Lack Of Transparency From Leadership

Transparency is critical to company success. If you are a leader who isn’t transparent with employees about problems or changes within the company, you’re creating a sense of unknown that sits in your employees' minds and has an impact on every decision they make. With transparency comes openness, honesty, and a true shift in how you, as a leader, communicate every day with those you interact with in your work environment.

When you are transparent, employees and teammates view you as approachable and trustworthy, which helps to create a psychologically safe environment and a culture where information flows freely.

To create an environment of greater clarity, start with simple talks via town hall meetings, all-hands meetings or live chat meetings to address changes in the workplace that affect everyone and how they do their jobs.

Overwhelming Workloads 

We all sometimes feel overwhelmed due to an increased workload, not having enough hours in the day, or simply feeling like there's too much going on in our everyday lives. When I speak with clients and colleagues in and out of the workplace, one of their biggest challenges is managing and prioritizing their time. So what can you do to help manage your time better?

First, make a to-do list, and prioritize what needs to be done now and what can be done another time. This will shift your mindset of clutter to be more organized, helping you to be more productive and efficient.

You can also reach out to your manager to discuss what support you might need and what’s within your bandwidth. Working closely with your manager to decide the best approach or a course of action will help take some of that burden off your shoulders. It’s important that your manager knows what struggles you're facing, so don’t be afraid to ask for help for fear of looking incompetent.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to say no to extra projects or stretch assignments that you don’t have the capacity for. Remember, work-life balance is important, and so is your mental health.

Workplace Conflict

It’s easy to think that all relationships at work are harmonious, but we all know that’s not true. Workplace conflict can be as simple as a miscommunication during a meeting or while working on a project.

Sometimes emotions run high. It’s important to make sure when issues arise that they are addressed and not ignored. Issues that are swept under the rug don’t resolve themselves. So what can you do to resolve conflict at work?

First, take a step back to calm down and reflect on ways to work it out. Reach out to the individual to set some time to discuss the issue in private. Find commonalities to show that you understand the other person's point of view to gain common ground. Build on your relationship, and be quick to forgive.

If you are still not able to resolve it this way, it may be best to seek out a conflict resolution specialist at your company who can work with both parties to create positive change and achieve a satisfying outcome.

Stagnant Career Growth

Everyone wants to advance in their career, so why is it that most struggle with growing their career? Is it a lack of passion? A struggle with work-life balance? Regretting missed opportunities? Never having taken the opportunity to create a support system?

Don’t worry; you are not alone. When it comes to your career, it’s important that you create an Individual Development Plan (IDP) to help guide you. Work with your supervisor to help map out what your next role looks like and what steps you need to get there.

If you’ve applied for a job and were passed over, ask for feedback on what you need to improve on, and add this to your IDP. Seek in-house or external training, and acquire new knowledge and skills to keep yourself up to date and marketable. If your company has a mentorship program, take advantage of it, and make sure it’s the right fit.

Most importantly, remember no one is more of an advocate for you than you , so practice humble self-promotion to increase your value visibility.

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Workplace Ethical Issues Essay

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Workplace ethics refers to moral principles and values governing proper behavioral conduct in the place of work (Barry & Shaw, 2013). Work ethics guide the managers as well as employees to do the right thing even if doing the wrong thing can equally be rewarding and satisfying. Therefore, workplace ethical issues involve a plethora of ethical dilemmas and ethical abuses that come into play in any job.

An ethical issue is defined as an illegal, unethical, or irresponsible act made against the employer, and it jeopardizes the employer’s business. Ethical issues arise when workers including the managers and the subordinates are given the responsibility of making decisions about alternative courses of action. This paper discusses a few ethical issues that arise in the workplace.

Harassment of the co-workers or clients is one of the major workplace ethical issues that involve violation of the employers’ workplace ethics policy. Harassment in any workplace may involve unsolicited sexual advances, interferences with work performance through intimidation, or non-compliance with the conditions of work. Sometimes illegal harassment can be based on sex, religion, age, disability, race, or color.

Johnson (2007) provides that harassment does not only involve violation of business ethics, but also involves a breach of the federal laws. Sexual harassment is the common ethical issue many workers experience at their workplaces and it is propagated by both the management and regular employees.

Basically, sexual harassment of any nature makes the workplace hostile and causes distress among the sexually abused employees. According to Bredeson and Goree (2011), the most common ethical issue within sexual harassment is a dual relationship that involves sexual relationships between employees who share professional responsibilities.

Furthermore, sexual harassment occurs when employees engage in unethical intimate relationships, which in turn affects their professional decision-making process. Consensual relationships at workplace between a senior employee and a junior employee can become dangerous.

This may happen because a senior employee has more authority to affect the working ability of the junior employee if their intimate relationship breaks.

However, if this happens, the subordinates should report the act to the relevant authorities because it is improper for any person to use his/her authority to demand favors or create a hostile work environment (Barry & Shaw, 2013). Therefore, it is advisable to avoid consensual relationships with co-workers to combat ethical dilemmas and workplace distress.

Substance abuse is another ethical issue that crops up at many workplaces. It may involve dependence on stimulating substances such as alcohol and other addictive intoxicating drugs. Addiction to any substance becomes a workplace ethical issue when either a manager or a regular employee’s work performance and productivity are impaired until they use the substance (Johnson, 2007).

Alcohol is the most abused substance, and when the employees carry alcohol to workplaces or use in the workplace, it raises serious ethical questions. Generally, substance abuse can be a serious ethical issue if not handled with care since it can create a hostile work environment, and consequently jeopardize the productivity and performance of the entire workforce.

In addition, confidentiality is a workplace ethical principle that becomes a familiar ethical issue when it is violated (Johnson, 2007). For instance, the disclosure of an employee’s personal information or the employer’s business strategy to rival organizations is a major violation of the workplace ethics.

Actually, protecting the employees from privacy invasion creates trust and perhaps increases their productivity. However, when confidentiality is violated, serious ethical implications may occur, which affect the business negatively. Work ethics require that the clients’ private information or the co-workers personal information be accessed by authorized individuals only.

Conflict of interest is another common workplace ethical issue. It refers to a situation whereby an individual’s interests affect or influence his/her workplace judgment, actions, or decisions. Conflicts of interest are virtually unethical and illegal because they negatively affect workplace performance, decision-making process, and relationships with other participants (Bredeson & Goree, 2011).

Conflict of interest is a serious ethical issue, which should be avoided or resolved immediately it appears because it may result in professional misconduct in the workplace. Despite workplace ethical issues being endless, organizations can devise moral or ethical policies to protect their employees from ethical violations.

For instance, an organization can develop a workplace policy based mission, vision and code of conduct, and ensure that each employee understands the code of ethics.

In addition, the organization can provide workplace ethics training for employees, create a legal office to deal with employees ethical issues, and research all federal and employment laws relating to whistle blowing to avoid making decisions that lead to negative ethical implications (Bredeson & Goree, 2011).

In summary, ethical issues exist in almost every workplace because workers often face situations, which involve ethical dilemmas. Moreover, when ethical issues are not resolved in time, they result in a hostile work environment making it harder for the employees to give their maximum potential.

Thus, it is imperative for employers to respond appropriately to every ethical issue that arises in the workplace to make the workplace safe and friendly.

Barry, V., & Shaw, W. (2013). Moral Issues in Business (12th Ed.). Wadsworth: Cenage Learning.

Bredeson, D. & Goree, K. (2011). Ethics in the workplace (3 rd Ed). New York: Cengage Learning.

Johnson, C. (2007). Ethics in the workplace: tools and Tactics for organizational Transformation . London: Sage Publications.

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The future of the workplace: Embracing change and fostering connectivity

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June 21, 2021 COVID-19 has changed the workplace as we have known it. While the physical space still exists, the overall idea of what a workplace is and what it is for needs to be reimagined. Organizations must deliberately address the changes wrought by the pandemic and the rapid pace of technological investment to enable remote and flexible work. In particular, organizations must take three key actions.

Embrace the hybrid model. The post-pandemic outcome is clear: a hybrid work model in which part of the workforce works outside of the traditional office for part of the time. The more important question: Which portion of the workforce needs to be present in the office, and when, and for what reason?

Employees are craving clarity  about what is coming next in terms of work arrangements. It falls on organizational leaders to chart the path for managers and employees. Transparent and frequent communication, with managers playing a key role, can help ensure that the organization moves in unison.

In a recent survey, we found that organizations that articulated more specific policies and approaches for the future workplace have seen employee well-being and productivity rise . More specifically, organizations that have clearly communicated post-COVID-19 work arrangements have seen a two-fold increase to employee-reported feelings of support, a three-fold increase to feelings of inclusion, and an almost five-fold increase to reported feelings of individual productivity. Attempting to force a one-size-fits all solution can have detrimental effects  on the workforce, particularly on women, people of lower socio-economic status, and people in less advanced economies.

Reimagine the physical space. The office of the future requires organizations to consider the altered footprint and layout that will emerge from a hybrid work model. Since in-person work will look substantially different, organizations need to make sure that their physical space is in tune with the objectives of the people within it. Pre-pandemic cubicle setups may be a thing of the past, making way for areas of collaboration, innovation, and community-building.

Real-estate footprints of many organizations will also change significantly. Already, we have seen many companies move to new geographies to tap new talent pools. For example, a large technology company recently announced some roles could remain remote indefinitely, allowing them to leverage talent from around the country. Others, such as a large financial company that is planning on having 60 desks per 100 employees, are rethinking their real-estate spend as they move to hybrid working models.

Manage fundamental human needs. The overnight shift to remote work has been one of the most notable real-time social experiments of recent times. It has shown that remote work does not necessarily come at the cost of productivity. In fact, many companies have reported increased productivity. A McKinsey analysis found that more than 20 percent of the workforce  could work remotely three to five days a week as effectively as from an office.

However, remote employees complain that it is difficult to feel connected to colleagues and manage work-life boundaries . Some companies are adamant about the value of remote work while also being concerned about its effect on employee well-being. One online retailer, for example, is addressing these concerns  and is acquiring over 900,000 square feet of new office space across six U.S. cities. The gradual return of in-person work alongside the newfound importance of virtual workspaces means organizations need to figure out ways to increase connectivity and a sense of belonging, regardless of where employees are.

The relationship between employees and the workplace has changed in ways that require organizations to invest seriously in helping people navigate through their vision for the hybrid workplace and any changes to the physical workspace. Doing so can help employees balance productivity, well-being, and a sense of connection in the evolving future of work.

This blog post is part of a series on the future of work post-pandemic, exploring three symbiotic elements of work , the workforce , and the workplace .

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How to Write the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay + Examples

What’s covered:.

• What is the Overcoming Challenges Essay?
• Real Overcoming Challenges Essay Prompts
• How to Choose a Topic
• Writing Tips

Overcoming Challenges Essay Examples

• Where to Get Your Essay Edited

While any college essay can be intimidating, the Overcoming Challenges prompt often worries students the most. Those students who’ve been lucky enough not to experience trauma tend to assume they have nothing worth saying. On the other hand, students who’ve overcome larger obstacles may be hesitant to talk about them.

Regardless of your particular circumstances, there are steps you can take to make the essay writing process simpler. Here are our top tips for writing the overcoming challenges essay successfully.

What is the “Overcoming Challenges” Essay?

The overcoming challenges prompt shows up frequently in both main application essays (like the Common App) and supplemental essays. Because supplemental essays allow students to provide schools with additional information, applicants should be sure that the subject matter they choose to write about differs from what’s in their main essay.

Students often assume the overcoming challenges essay requires them to detail past traumas. While you can certainly write about an experience that’s had a profound effect on your life, it’s important to remember that colleges aren’t evaluating students based on the seriousness of the obstacle they overcame.

On the contrary, the goal of this essay is to show admissions officers that you have the intelligence and fortitude to handle any challenges that come your way. After all, college serves as an introduction to adult life, and schools want to know that the students they admit are up to the task. 

Real “Overcoming Challenges” Essay Prompts

To help you understand what the “Overcoming Challenges” essay looks like, here are a couple sample prompts.

Currently, the Common Application asks students to answer the following prompt in 650 words or less:

“The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?”

For the past several years, MIT has prompted students to write 200 to 250 words on the following:

“Tell us about the most significant challenge you’ve faced or something important that didn’t go according to plan. How did you manage the situation?”

In both cases, the prompts explicitly ask for your response to the challenge. The event itself isn’t as important as how it pushed you to grow.

How to Choose a Topic for an Essay on Overcoming Challenges

When it comes to finding the best topic for your overcoming challenges essays, there’s no right answer. The word “challenge” is ambiguous and could be used to reference a wide range of situations from prevailing over a bully to getting over your lifelong stage fright to appear in a school musical. Here are some suggestions to keep in mind when selecting an essay subject.

1. Avoid trivial or common topics

While there aren’t many hard-and-fast rules for choosing an essay topic, students should avoid overdone topics.

These include:

• Working hard in a challenging class
• Overcoming a sports injury
• Moving schools or immigrating to the US
• Tragedy (divorce, death, abuse)

Admissions officers have read numerous essays on the subject, so it’s harder for you to stand out (see our full list of cliché college essay topics to avoid ). If events like these were truly formative to you, you can still choose to write about them, but you’ll need to be as personal as possible. 

It’s also ideal if you have a less traditional storyline for a cliché topic; for example, if your sports injury led you to discover a new passion, that would be a more unique story than detailing how you overcame your injury and got back in the game.

Similarly, students may not want to write about an obstacle that admissions committees could perceive as low stakes, such as getting a B on a test, or getting into a small fight with a friend. The goal of this essay is to illustrate how you respond to adversity, so the topic you pick should’ve been at least impactful on your personal growth.

2. Pick challenges that demonstrate qualities you want to highlight

Students often mistakenly assume they need to have experienced exceptional circumstances like poverty, an abusive parent, or cancer to write a good essay. The truth is that the best topics will allow you to highlight specific personal qualities and share more about who you are. The essay should be less about the challenge itself, and more about how you responded to it.

Ask yourself what personality traits you want to emphasize, and see what’s missing in your application. Maybe you want to highlight your adaptability, for example, but that isn’t clearly expressed in your application. In this case, you might write about a challenge that put your adaptability to the test, or shaped you to become more adaptable.

Here are some examples of good topics we’ve seen over the years:

• Not having a coach for a sports team and becoming one yourself
• Helping a parent through a serious health issue
• Trying to get the school track dedicated to a coach
• Having to switch your Model UN position last-minute

Tips for Writing an Essay About Overcoming Challenges

Once you’ve selected a topic for your essays, it’s time to sit down and write. For best results, make sure your essay focuses on your efforts to tackle an obstacle rather than the problem itself. Additionally, you could avoid essay writing pitfalls by doing the following:

1. Choose an original essay structure

If you want your overcoming challenges essay to attract attention, aim to break away from more traditional structures. Most of these essays start by describing an unsuccessful attempt at a goal and then explain the steps the writer took to master the challenge. 

You can stand out by choosing a challenge you’re still working on overcoming, or focus on a mental or emotional challenge that spans multiple activities or events. For example, you might discuss your fear of public speaking and how that impacted your ability to coach your brother’s Little League team and run for Student Council. 

You can also choose a challenge that can be narrated in the moment, such as being put on the spot to teach a yoga class. These challenges can make particularly engaging essays, as you get to experience the writer’s thoughts and emotions as they unfold.

Keep in mind that you don’t necessarily need to have succeeded in your goal for this essay. Maybe you ran for an election and lost, or maybe you proposed a measure to the school board that wasn’t passed. It’s still possible to write a strong essay about topics like these as long as you focus on your personal growth. In fact, these may make for even stronger essays since they are more unconventional topics.

2. Focus on the internal

When writing about past experiences, you may be tempted to spend too much time describing specific people and events. With an Overcoming Challenges essay though, the goal is to focus on your thoughts and feelings.

For example, rather than detail all the steps you took to become a better public speaker, use the majority of your essay to describe your mental state as you embarked on the journey to achieving your goals. Were you excited, scared, anxious, or hopeful? Don’t be afraid to let the reader in on your innermost emotions and thoughts during this process.

3. Share what you learned 

An Overcoming Challenges essay should leave the reader with a clear understanding of what you learned on your journey, be it physical, mental, or emotional. There’s no need to explicitly say “this experience taught me X,” but your essay should at least implicitly share any lessons you learned. This can be done through your actions and in-the-moment reflections. Remember that the goal is to show admissions committees why your experiences make you a great candidate for admission. 

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the g arb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This essay is an excellent example because the writer turns an everyday challenge—starting a fire—into an exploration of her identity. The writer was once “a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes,” but has since traded her love of the outdoors for a love of music, writing, and reading. 

The story begins in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. One of the essay’s biggest strengths is its use of imagery. We can easily visualize the writer’s childhood and the present day. For instance, she states that she “rubbed and rubbed [the twigs] until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers.”

The writing has an extremely literary quality, particularly with its wordplay. The writer reappropriates words and meanings, and even appeals to the senses: “My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.” She later uses a parallelism to cleverly juxtapose her changed interests: “instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano.”

One of the essay’s main areas of improvement is its overemphasis on the “story” and lack of emphasis on the reflection. The second to last paragraph about changing perspective is crucial to the essay, as it ties the anecdote to larger lessons in the writer’s life. She states that she hasn’t changed, but has only shifted perspective. Yet, we don’t get a good sense of where this realization comes from and how it impacts her life going forward. 

The end of the essay offers a satisfying return to the fire imagery, and highlights the writer’s passion—the one thing that has remained constant in her life.

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

While the writer didn’t succeed in getting the track dedicated to Coach Stark, their essay is certainly successful in showing their willingness to push themselves and take initiative.

The essay opens with a quote from Coach Stark that later comes full circle at the end of the essay. We learn about Stark’s impact and the motivation for trying to get the track dedicated to him.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The essay goes on to explain how the writer overcame their apprehension of public speaking, and likens the process of submitting an appeal to the school board to running a race. This metaphor makes the writing more engaging and allows us to feel the student’s emotions.

While the student didn’t ultimately succeed in getting the track dedicated, we learn about their resilience and initiative: I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Overall, this essay is well-done. It demonstrates growth despite failing to meet a goal, which is a unique essay structure. The running metaphor and full-circle intro/ending also elevate the writing in this essay.

Where to Get Your Overcoming Challenges Essay Edited

The Overcoming Challenges essay is one of the trickier supplemental prompts, so it’s important to get feedback on your drafts. That’s why we created our free Peer Essay Review tool , where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays. 

If you want a college admissions expert to review your essay, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools. Find the right advisor for you to improve your chances of getting into your dream school!

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How to Write the Overcoming Challenges Essay + Example

April 17, 2023

At some point, most college-bound students are tasked with writing an overcoming challenges essay. The prompt crops up in various forms, as a supplemental short essay about overcoming a challenge, and in as the main essay itself.

Some students may feel inclined to write about a dramatic experience (say, spotting a grizzly bear outside the kitchen window), mistaking the drama of the moment for a significant challenge. Others may get to work, only to realize they don’t have much to say about the time they got a C in P.E. (that dreaded frisbee unit). Students who’ve overcome unspeakable difficulties, like a death in the family, may find that reducing the tragedy to 650 words feels insufficient, or worse—as if they’re attempting to profit from suffering. One or two students may stare down the blank computer screen as their entire existence shrinks to the size of a 12-point font. Should they write about the challenge of writing about the challenge of writing an overcoming challenges essay??

Don’t worry. Focusing first on how to tackle the essay will help any student decide what they should write about. In fact, how the essay is written will also prove more influential than the challenge itself in determining the strength of the essay.

Decoding the Prompt

Let’s take a look at the overcoming challenges essay question included among the seven 2023-24 Common App Essay Prompts :

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Notice how the prompt places an immediate emphasis on the “lessons we take,” rather than on the obstacles themselves, or any potential success. This is because the challenge itself often says less about the student than the way the student chose to tackle it, or the way they now reflect on it. In other words, obstacles often come at us randomly; it’s our personal response to the circumstances which reveals something of who we are.

While studying a prompt for clues, it’s helpful to think from the perspective of the admissions officer (the essay reader). What can they glean from an overcoming challenges essay?  A lot, actually. A thoughtfully written essay may tell them about the student’s personality, as well as things like problem-solving techniques, rigor, persistence, creativity, and courage. These insights can work to prove to the admissions officers that the student has what it takes to overcome challenges in college, too. These future challenges may range from the inevitable academic obstacles that occur with heavy courseloads, to social and moral challenges that arise as college students form their adult identities.

Picking Your Topic: A Brainstorming Activity

With the question of identity in mind, let’s now approach the overcoming challenges essay backwards, by brainstorming the final message the student wants it to contain.

For this three-part exercise, the student will first set a five-minute timer. With the clock ticking, they’ll jot down character traits, values, and any descriptive words or terms that say something about who they are. If stumped, change perspective. The student may imagine what their best friends, parents, coaches and siblings would say. (For example, tenacious , logical , scientific , peacemaker .) Even mild criticism can be helpful, as long as it’s not cruel. While a student’s brother may call him a “perfectionist,” perhaps this word will trigger other relevant words, like persistent and detail-oriented.

Next, the student will set the timer for another five minutes, pull out a second sheet of paper, and jot down any challenges, obstacles, setbacks, failures, and achievements that come to mind. Don’t hold back here or overanalyze. (For example: underdog at state swim meet , getting lost on the family hike , petitioning for a school compost system …)

Lastly, the student will place the two pages side by side, and draw lines between the items on the list wherever connections occur. One student may draw lines between persistent , curious , gamer , passionate about electronics , and saved the day during the power outage. Another set of lines might connect caring, observant, creative thinker , and helped sister leave abusive cult . Whatever ideas are sparked here, the goal is to identify which challenges will demonstrate something essential about the student to an admissions officer.

Topics to Avoid

The internet is rife with advice on what not to write when writing an overcoming challenges essay. Yet this advice can be confusing, or downright hypocritical. For instance, some may advise against writing about death. Yet a student who lost their father at an early age may be capable of writing a poignant essay about their search for an alternative father figure, and how they found one in their soccer coach.

I suggest avoiding guides on what not to write until after the student has done a thorough round of brainstorming. Otherwise, they risk censoring themselves too early, and may reject a promising idea. Once they’ve narrowed down their list to three ideas or less, they may want to check our guide on College Application Essay Topics to Avoid .

The reason why certain types of overcoming challenges essays miss the mark is that they emphasize the wrong aspect of the experience, which turns the topic into a cliché. While it’s generally a good idea to avoid trivial topics (again, that C in P.E.), any topic has the potential to be compelling, if it’s animated through personal opinions, insight, and description. Details bring an experience to life. Structure and reflection make an essay convincing. In other words, how the story is told will determine whether or not the topic is worth writing about.

So, rather than avoid specific topics, consider avoiding these scenarios: if you can’t show the essay to your best friend or grandmother, it’s probably not ready to show a college admissions officer. If you must write a clichéd topic, don’t choose a typical structure.

Techniques to Hone

Techniques that animate an overcoming challenges essay are the same ones used in storytelling. Think setting, visuals, sounds, dialogue, physical sensations, and feelings. “Showing” instead of “telling.” Crafting the essay with these inner and external details will bring the challenge to life, and catch the reader’s attention.

Another technique which works well when trying to avoid the trappings of cliché involve subverting the reader’s expectations. In storytelling terms, this is a plot twist. The student who got a C in P.E. may actually have a stellar essay on their hands, if they can break away from the “bad grade” trope (working harder to improve their grade). Perhaps this student’s story is actually about how, while sitting on the bleachers and not participating in the game, they found themselves watching the frisbee spin through the air, and realized they had a deep interest in the movement of astronomical bodies.

Some of the strongest overcoming challenges essays demonstrate what students have learned about themselves, rather than what they’ve learned about the obstacle they confronted. These essays may show how the student has come to see themselves differently, or how they’ve decided to change, thanks to the challenge they faced. These essays work because the reflection is natural and even profound, based on the student’s self-awareness.

Writing the Overcoming Challenges Essay, or Drafts, Drafts, Drafts

Everyone writes differently, some by outlining (never a bad idea), some by free-styling (good for capturing sensations and memories), some by lighting a candle—but don’t procrastinate too much. The only “must” is to revise. After a first draft, the student should begin to look for several things:

1) Clarity and Detail. Is the challenge recounted with precision? Is it personal?

2) Structure. Consider mapping the structure, to visualize it better. Does the structure suit the story? Can it be changed for clarity, or to keep the reader more engaged?

3) Cliché. Identify words, sentences, and ideas that are dull or repetitive. Mark them up, and in the next draft, find ways to rewrite, subvert, condense, and delete.

4) Lesson Learned. Has the student reflected adequately on the lesson they learned from overcoming a challenge? To add more reflection, students might ask themselves what they have felt and thought about the experience since. Would they do something differently, if faced with the same challenge? Has their understanding of the experience evolved over time?

By the final draft, the experience and the reflection should feel equally weighted. To get there, it may take five or six drafts.

Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample

The Happiness Hotline

First there were reports. Then we were told to stop socializing, go inside, wait. Covid struck. Everyone knows what ensued. It probably looked different from where we were all (separately) standing, even though we faced the same thing. Those first weeks, I stood at my bedroom window. It was dark by early evening in Oregon. The weirdest part—after the fact that we were collectively sharing the loneliest experience of our lives—was the silence.

… it was really quiet.

So quiet, I could hear my mom sigh downstairs. (So quiet, I couldn’t remember if I’d hummed aloud, or if I’d just heard myself in my head.) When I looked out the window, I could hear the stoplight at the end of our street. Green to yellow. Click.

Before going on, you should know three things. First, this is not a Covid essay. This is about melancholy, and the “sadness that has taken on lightness,” to quote Italo Calvino. Second, from my bedroom window, I can see down a row of oak trees, past the hospital, to my friend Carlo’s house. Third, Carlo is a jazz singer. Maybe that sounds pretentious, a freshman kid being a jazz singer, but that’s Carlo, and I wouldn’t be me without Carlo being Carlo. He’s someone who appreciates the unhinged rhythm of a Charlie Parker tune. He’s an extrovert who can bring introverts like me out of my shell. He convinced me to learn trombone, and together we riff in the after-school jazz club.

In the first month of the pandemic, we called each other nightly to talk rap albums, school stuff. At Carlo’s house, he could hear a white-crowned sparrow. He could also hear his parents talking numbers behind the bathroom door. The death toll was mounting. The cost of living was going up too. As the month wore on, I began to hear something else in our calls, in the way Carlo paused, or forgot what he was saying. Carlo was scared. He felt sad, isolated, and without his bright energy, I too, felt utterly alone.

Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample (Continued)

After some dark days, I realized that to help ourselves we needed to help others. It was pretty obvious the more I thought about it. People are social creatures, supposedly, even introverts. Maybe our neighbors needed to remember the noisiness of life.

We built a happiness hotline. That sounds fancy, though essentially, we provided three-way calls on my parents’ landline. The harder part involved making flyers and putting them up around town, in places people were still going. Grocery stores, the post office. We made a TikTok account, and then—the phone rang. Our first caller.

For months, if you called in, you could talk to us about your days in lockdown. People went really deep about the meaning of life, and we had to learn on the spot how to respond. I’d become a journalist and a therapist before becoming a sophomore. After chatting, the caller would request a song, and if we knew how to play it, we would. If not, we improvised.

Now we’re seniors in high school. Carlo visits the hospital with band members. As for myself, I’ve been working on a community music book, compiling our callers’ favorite tunes. I don’t want to forget how important it felt to make these connections. Our callers taught me that loneliness is a bit like a virus, a bit like a song. Even when it stops it can come back to haunt you, as a new variant or an old refrain. Still, sadness can take on lightness when voices call through the dark: sparrows, friends, strangers. I learned I’m good at listening into the silence. Listening isn’t only a passive stance, but an open line of receiving.

Analysis of the Overcoming Challenges Essay Sample

This student uses their musical passion to infuse the essay with vivid detail. There’s a focus on sound throughout, from the bird to the stoplight. Then there are the callers, and the clever way the student conceived of breaking through the silence. The narrator’s voice sharpens the piece further, elevating a clichéd Covid essay to a personal story of self-discovery.

In fact, the essay briefly breaks with structure to tell the reader that this is not a Covid essay. Although techniques like this should be used sparingly, it works here by grabbing the reader’s attention. It also allows the student to organize their thoughts on the page, before moving the plot along.

Outwardly, the student is overcoming the challenge of loneliness in a time of quarantine. Yet there seems to be an inner, unspoken challenge as well, that of coming to terms with the student’s introverted personality. The essay’s reflection occurs in the final paragraph, making the essay experience-heavy. However, clues woven throughout point to the reflection that will come. Details like the Italo Calvino quote hint at the later understanding of how to alleviate loneliness. While some readers might prefer more development, the various themes are threaded throughout, which makes for a satisfying ending.

A Last Word on the Short Essay About Overcoming Challenges

The short essay about overcoming a challenge requires the same steps as a longer one. To write it, follow the same brainstorming activity, then focus more on condensing and summarizing the experience. Students who’ve already written a longer overcoming challenges essay can approach the short essay about overcoming a challenge by streamlining. Instead of deleting all the extra bits, keep two interesting details that will flavor the essay with something memorable and unique.

• College Essay

Kaylen Baker

With a BA in Literary Studies from Middlebury College, an MFA in Fiction from Columbia University, and a Master’s in Translation from Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis, Kaylen has been working with students on their writing for over five years. Previously, Kaylen taught a fiction course for high school students as part of Columbia Artists/Teachers, and served as an English Language Assistant for the French National Department of Education. Kaylen is an experienced writer/translator whose work has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Hybrid, San Francisco Bay Guardian, France Today, and Honolulu Weekly, among others.

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Essays About Challenges: Top 11 Examples and Prompts

We come across many challenges we must endure throughout life. If you want to write essays about challenges, start by reading some of our top essay examples.

Everyone has had to deal with obstacles or challenges at some point. Some people can overcome hurdles with confidence and bravery, while many others have difficulty trying to face them. However, the challenges we have faced are, without a doubt, a central part of who we are today. Overcoming challenges can make you a better person. The lessons you learn from them are essential for future success, and as with all other experiences, these challenges help form you into the person you are today. They can also be exciting to some, as they test your skills and capabilities. 

If you are writing essays about challenges, look at our featured essay examples below. 

1. Personal Challenges by Delores Goodwin

2. life’s struggles make us stronger – and happier – if we let them by helen g. rousseau, 3. how to overcome your challenges with openness and courage by tony fahkry.

• 4.  ​​Life: full of challenges by Vaibhav Jain

5. Challenges Facing Public Schools by Lewis Rios

1. challenges i have faced, 2. lessons learned from challenges, 3. how to change your attitude towards challenge, 4. helping others overcome challenges and adversity, 5. challenges faced in your home country, 6. challenges the world currently faces.

“A challenge will tell an individual more about themselves than anything else in life. Am I a quitter? How much adversity can I take? How badly do I want this? What is my breaking point? Where does my loyalty end? Challenge can ask us hundreds of questions and forces us to answer honestly. Challenges end the talk and make one walk the walk. Create challenges for yourself, it will cause you to see who you really are.”

Challenges are a necessity of life despite the hardship and stress they come with, and Goodwin discusses this in her essay. A great accomplishment cannot be made without a challenge. Without challenges, one becomes complacent, so we must keep facing challenges to keep us mentally and physically strong. Goodwin encourages readers to challenge themselves more to help them delve deeper into who they are. For more, check out these essays about life challenges .

“Every human being has been in this place at one time or another. Sometimes depression can make it more difficult to get away from the edge but any spark of light or encouragement should be used to seek help physically, emotionally or spiritually. When we face a crisis, it effects the all of who we are and thus must be met with our total beings.”

Rousseau reflects on overcoming adversity, recalling when she met with two former coworkers. They talked about their lives, families, and struggles during lunch. They could bond over their shared positive, confident mindset, allowing them to overcome challenges. Rousseau clarifies that if you put your mind to it, you can overcome anything and closes her essay with two of her poems about resilience. 

“Instead of running away from your emotions, lean into them and experience them fully. This transforms your fears and anxiety into empowering emotions. Let go of what you believe life owes you. It owes you nothing since you are the expression of life. Rise to your challenges armed with courage and an open mind. Remain confident that your experiences are serving your personal growth.”

Fahkry explains how to face challenges without stress and suffering. He reminds us that, first of all, we have free will, so we do not have to feel the way we do if we put our minds to it. We cannot change our reality once it is already there, so feeling sad or angry for prolonged periods is useless. If we change our mindsets for the better, we can overcome all adversity. Our fear and anxiety can be turned into confidence, empowerment, and courage. Check out these essays about competition .

4.  ​​ Life: full of challenges by Vaibhav Jain

“A person who has not encountered difficulties in life can never achieve success. Difficulties test the courage, patience, perseverance, and true character of a human being. Adversity and hardships make a person strong and ready to face the challenges of life with equanimity. There is no doubt that there can be no gain without pain. It is only when one toils and sweats it out that success is nourished and sustained.”

In his short essay, Jain writes about the wonders of life as well as its challenges. He likens life to a bed of roses, complete with painful thorns. In general, life is good, but adversity and challenges are prevalent. These two concepts seem different, but one cannot exist without the other. As with the previous essays, Jain explains that challenges make us stronger and help us feel successful and relieved: “there can be no gain without pain.” Without challenges, we take the better parts of life for granted; if we accept and overcome our struggles, we can live life to the fullest.

“In conclusion, public educational institutions experience many challenges ranging from budgetary constraints, student violence and low parental involvement. Much research needs to be done to establish why these problems exist in the first place and lasting solutions for these institutions.”

Rios’ essay explores challenges in an education system; he proposes research on the constraints of the U.S. public school system. Public schools face several economic and social challenges, such as insufficient funding and lack of parental involvement due to many students’ working-class backgrounds. Rios wishes for more research on these problems and possible solutions. 

Writing Prompts On Essays about Challenges

In this essay, write about a challenge you previously encountered and how you dealt with it. Provide context by describing the events leading up to it, how it happened, and, most importantly, how you overcame it. Then, describe how you felt after- were you relieved, stressed, or tired? You can also discuss how this experience has affected you today. 

Challenges can teach us a lot about life and the world. Reflect on a challenge you faced previously and what you learned from it, whether positive or negative. As with the previous prompt, feel free to include ways in which the lesson you learned affects you today. 

How can you best handle the challenges you may face? Describe the ideal attitude one would need to overcome complex challenges. For example, what qualities would you need to have- courage, prudence, or sensibility? Regardless of what type of attitude you choose to write about, your essay will be substantive if you can adequately support your argument. 

In your essay, you can write about a time you were able to help someone facing a challenge. Who did you help- a friend, family member, or someone else? Then, write about how you helped them, how it made you feel, and how it has impacted your life. 

Research one particular challenge your country is facing today, whether that be an economic, social, or political issue. Discuss how this challenge occurred and what began the difficulties. If applicable, include multiple viewpoints on the issue and include information from credible sources. You can also propose possible solutions to this issue. 

Humanity faces challenges on a massive scale, from a climate change crisis to possible third world war to a global pandemic. Choose one challenge the world faces today and write your essay about it. As with the previous prompt, write about the causes and responses to this challenge, and feel free to propose a solution. 

Check out our guide packed full of transition words for essays .

ProWritingAid is one of our top grammar checkers. Find out why in this ProWritingAid review .

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Surgeon General: Parents Are at Their Wits’ End. We Can Do Better.

By Vivek H. Murthy

Dr. Murthy is the surgeon general.

One day when my daughter was a year old, she stopped moving her right leg. Tests found that she had a deep infection in her thigh that was dangerously close to her bone. She was rushed off to surgery. Thankfully, she’s now a healthy, spirited young girl, but the excruciating days we spent in the hospital were some of the hardest of my life. My wife, Alice, and I felt helpless and heartbroken. We got through it because of excellent medical care, understanding workplaces and loved ones who showed up and reminded us that we were not alone.

When I became a parent, a friend told me I was signing up for a lifetime of joy and worry. The joys are indeed abundant, but as fulfilling as parenting has been, the truth is it has also been more stressful than any job I’ve had. I’ve had many moments of feeling lost and exhausted. So many parents I encounter as I travel across America tell me they have the same experience: They feel lucky to be raising kids, but they are struggling, often in silence and alone.

The stress and mental health challenges faced by parents — just like loneliness , workplace well-being and the impact of social media on youth mental health — aren’t always visible, but they can take a steep toll. It’s time to recognize they constitute a serious public health concern for our country. Parents who feel pushed to the brink deserve more than platitudes. They need tangible support. That’s why I am issuing a surgeon general’s advisory to call attention to the stress and mental health concerns facing parents and caregivers and to lay out what we can do to address them.

A recent study by the American Psychological Association revealed that 48 percent of parents say most days their stress is completely overwhelming, compared with 26 percent of other adults who reported the same. They are navigating traditional hardships of parenting — worrying about money and safety, struggling to get enough sleep — as well as new stressors, including omnipresent screens, a youth mental health crisis and widespread fear about the future.

Stress is tougher to manage when you feel you’re on your own, which is why it’s particularly concerning that so many parents, single parents most of all, report feeling lonelier than other adults . Additionally, parents are stretched for time. Compared with just a few decades ago, mothers and fathers spend more time working and more time caring for their children , leaving them less time for rest, leisure and relationships. Stress, loneliness and exhaustion can easily affect people’s mental health and well-being. And we know that the mental health of parents has a direct impact on the mental health of children.

All of this is compounded by an intensifying culture of comparison, often amplified online, that promotes unrealistic expectations of what parents must do. Chasing these expectations while trying to wade through an endless stream of parenting advice has left many families feeling exhausted, burned out and perpetually behind.

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Research: How Bias Against Women Persists in Female-Dominated Workplaces

• Amber L. Stephenson,
• Leanne M. Dzubinski

A look inside the ongoing barriers women face in law, health care, faith-based nonprofits, and higher education.

New research examines gender bias within four industries with more female than male workers — law, higher education, faith-based nonprofits, and health care. Having balanced or even greater numbers of women in an organization is not, by itself, changing women’s experiences of bias. Bias is built into the system and continues to operate even when more women than men are present. Leaders can use these findings to create gender-equitable practices and environments which reduce bias. First, replace competition with cooperation. Second, measure success by goals, not by time spent in the office or online. Third, implement equitable reward structures, and provide remote and flexible work with autonomy. Finally, increase transparency in decision making.

It’s been thought that once industries achieve gender balance, bias will decrease and gender gaps will close. Sometimes called the “ add women and stir ” approach, people tend to think that having more women present is all that’s needed to promote change. But simply adding women into a workplace does not change the organizational structures and systems that benefit men more than women . Our new research (to be published in a forthcoming issue of Personnel Review ) shows gender bias is still prevalent in gender-balanced and female-dominated industries.

• Amy Diehl , PhD is chief information officer at Wilson College and a gender equity researcher and speaker. She is coauthor of Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work (Rowman & Littlefield). Find her on LinkedIn at Amy-Diehl , X/Twitter @amydiehl , and visit her website at amy-diehl.com .
• AS Amber L. Stephenson , PhD is an associate professor of management and director of healthcare management programs in the David D. Reh School of Business at Clarkson University. Her research focuses on the healthcare workforce, how professional identity influences attitudes and behaviors, and how women leaders experience gender bias.
• LD Leanne M. Dzubinski , PhD is professor of leadership and director of the Beeson International Center at Asbury Seminary, and a prominent researcher on women in leadership. She is coauthor of Glass Walls: Shattering the Six Gender Bias Barriers Still Holding Women Back at Work (Rowman & Littlefield).

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Biophilia and adolescents’ sense of place in australian vertical schools.

1. Introduction

2. biophilic design and schools, 2.1. biophilia, 2.2. the biophilious person, 2.3. biophilic design, 2.4. research into biophilic school design, 2.5. the benefits of natural elements in schools.

• The presence of natural features, with young people perceiving the restorative effectiveness of school playgrounds in correlation with the number of trees and volume of vegetation present [ 17 , 18 ].
• Diminished psychological stress at schools that are ‘greener’ [ 19 ].
• Views through windows to green landscapes, increasing student attentiveness and assisting with stress recovery [ 20 ].
• Contact with nature at school, promoting cognitive ability and enhancing working memory [ 21 ].
• Exposure to natural stimuli, as opposed to urban stimuli, improving working memory [ 22 ].

3. Adolescent Identity Formation, Biophilia, and Place

4. connecting theories to explore adolescents’ biophilic place relationships, 5. a brief introduction to place theory, 5.1. origins of place.

The basic meaning of place, its essence, does not therefore come from locations, nor from the trivial functions that places serve, nor from the community that occupies it, nor from superficial or mundane experiences … The essence of place lies in the largely unselfconscious intentionality that defines places as profound centers of human existence.

5.2. Place as Complex Adaptive Assemblage

An assemblage is a whole that is formed from the interconnectivity and flows between constituent parts wherein the identities and functions of both parts and wholes emerge from the flows, alliances, and synergies between them. For Deleuze ‘It is never filiations which are important, but alliances, alloys’ [ 43 ] (p. 69) and ‘Don’t ask what it means, show how it works’ [ 33 ] (p. 22).

“Places can be understood as complex adaptive systems where over time a regime or identity with certain characteristics emerges, settles down and becomes more or less resilient. Resilience is defined as the capacity of the system to adapt to change without crossing a threshold into a new ‘regime’ or ‘identity’ [ 46 ] (p. 32)” [ 33 ] (p. 28).

6. Research Design

6.1. case study design, 6.2. case study sites, 6.3. biophilic design of the case schools.

Click here to enlarge figure

7. Data Collection Method

• Workshop One: Photovoice ethics; the power of photography; photographic composition.
• Workshop Two: Developing themes in photography; storyboarding and how to create a photographic essay; accompanied photography at school.
• Workshop Three: Identifying the ‘issue’; examples provided of artists and professional photographers who communicate an important issue through a collection of photographs; further storyboarding and emergence of themes; second accompanied photography to refine images.
• Workshop Four: Strengthening and personalising the message through editing and composition.
• Workshop Five: Presentation of photo essays and group discussion, providing the researcher the opportunity to ask clarifying questions.

8. Analysis

9. place as complex adaptive assemblage: a twofolds analysis, 10. biophilia and adolescents’ sense of place in two vertical schools, 10.1. city school, 10.2. drawn-tight boundaries and restricting access to biophilia.

There’s obviously the idea of freedom because we can go out at lunchtime. But it also feels restricting because we have a security guard and stuff. There’s a freedom of being in the city yet restricted by the gates. Isolated from the rest of the city … there’s obviously the idea of freedom, but it’s kind of restricted at the same time and there isn’t that much connection between us and the community.

10.3. Strong Visual Connection to Biophilia and a Resonance between the "Green" and the “Grey”

My first photo shows a super extreme … like hard … view of the city. And it’s like a really bad rainy day with the whole sky grey. Yeah, but I like the centre … the image has City Gardens, which is always like super green. I’ve never seen it like sad … except the trees in winter. What I like is that it conveys what it is like being schooled in the city, because it’s with super contrast with all the other buildings.

Here, nature and the man-made environment have come together and we’re lucky enough to have access to both … like an urban city and the materials from there and we’ve also got City Gardens as a natural park that we can go to hang out.

There’s like chairs and stuff which you would like. Sometimes at lunch you can go there and eat and you have this nice-nice view. It’s really just about how we’re not totally disconnected from nature because we can still … it’s right next to us and we do go there like during lunch if you want to. It’s pretty colourful and it’s not totally isolated. You can see lots of City Gardens as you walk along Level Eight past the mirrors, which means you see lots of the gardens.

I am really grateful that we get to have such a different view from all the other schools … that would just have views of ovals and the ground level … While we have views of the cityscape … and City Gardens as well. The security measures taken when I enter the school make me feel safe and comfortable. I think the gates displayed at the front emphasise how much the school cares about the wellbeing and safety of its students, which brings me joy.

10.4. Inner-Suburban High School

10.5. forceful domination of manufactured parts over natural parts.

This is red, which is sort of like the opposite of green, if you think about it … So, it’s kind of like the red is the opposite of the greenery and it does not belong there. That is a bush out of the bush. So, the nature is confined to the space too and even where it is confined it still has things entering its space. It’s basically the artificial things can go wherever it wants, but the nature can’t go where it wants.

When I first came to this school, I found it rather scary, then when I came for a second time, I was terrified again … it was … pretty scary because like, you know, it was loud, it was big. It’s a big school, and it’s very tall, which is rather different from other schools. So yeah, doesn’t really have the feeling of a school.

10.6. Resonance between Permanence and Precision of Manufactured Parts Versus Suppleness, Growth, and New Possibilities

Abra and I added the lines because it’s got the horizontal lines. I’m kind of a perfectionist, so I like when they’re exactly parallel, but the plants breaking it up is kind of nice. So it’s a bit less harsh, because our school is quite harsh materials. Yeah, I do like lines. Why? I don’t know. When they’re parallel and they’re perfect it makes me calm. It’s weird because I like plants which are imperfect, but I like lines that are perfect. So I’m kind of contradicting myself there.

This photo is called “Trees in the Sky” because it’s what it looked like … it’s like a very specifically planned school … like all of the buildings in the background are very much architecturally planned, with the main plant in the front, that we have no way of planning where it’s gonna go. Like, it’s just gonna go wherever it wants to go. So, it’s kind of showing the way that even though everything can seem very precise, it’s always something you never know what’s going to happen.

So, the levels are kind of parallel and then there’s stairs and green plants sticking out, and I guess that reflects me as a person. I seem neat sometimes, but then I have things sticking out and not perfect.

10.7. A “Foresty Vibe” Frames Manufactured Parts

You can see the light crawling in from the right-hand side. This place never really had a meaning to me. Every morning, I would walk by it and like never pay attention to it. But when I got sent out to take photos, I really started paying attention to small spots of the school and realizing how beautiful they are. Although the school can be one of the places that most stress me out, moments that I capture like these really help me calm down.

You can really see the green, and it’s not a very bright photo. I love dark photos a lot, like shady places, and you can really see the contrast of the colours and the green leaves. It really kind of gives a foresty vibe. In this photo, the leaves kind of framed the building, I guess. And you can see all the contrast, much like all my other photos, with the blue sky and the railings and the green leaves.

11. Discussion

12. limitations, 13. conclusions, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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Baber, T.; Cleveland, B. Biophilia and Adolescents’ Sense of Place in Australian Vertical Schools. Architecture 2024 , 4 , 668-691. https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture4030035

Baber T, Cleveland B. Biophilia and Adolescents’ Sense of Place in Australian Vertical Schools. Architecture . 2024; 4(3):668-691. https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture4030035

Baber, Tim, and Benjamin Cleveland. 2024. "Biophilia and Adolescents’ Sense of Place in Australian Vertical Schools" Architecture 4, no. 3: 668-691. https://doi.org/10.3390/architecture4030035

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