Resilience & Mental Health Archives - The Art of Improvement

Turn Your Life Around in 7 Steps

Have you ever felt stuck, lost or overwhelmed in life? If so, you’re not alone. Some research shows that up to 75% of people have felt that way at one time or another.

When best selling author and speaker, Timber Hawkeye, realized he needed to make a big change in his life, he did some serious thinking about what he needed to do. He had been living a traditional life in Corporate America, with plenty of success and material possessions, including designer clothes and a sports car. But inside, he just knew something wasn’t right.

Rewrite Your Identity, Rewrite Fate

Start here: Browse the Self-Improvement Guides and pick the path that fits your situation.

“You idiot”

“Why did I do that?!”

“How did I get here?”

The things we say to ourselves matter. Even if you have people around you describe who you are and compliment your traits, if you don’t believe them, none of it matters. After all, no one is going to steer your ship for you – the person you want to be is a product of the actions you take and the choices you make.

Think of it this way. A car needs your hands at the wheel. Without your input, it will veer out of control. Your identity, and subsequently your future, require your hands at the wheel. Otherwise, you may end up feeling like you’re stuck living a life that isn’t yours, straying down a path you never intended to take.

Draw the Line: Simple Boundaries That Command Respect

“I respect you.”

As compliments go, that statement is incredibly affirming. The Oxford Dictionary defines respect as “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.”

Respect is garnered over time, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you need to have a deep relationship with someone to have respect. Respect is unique because it can be felt from afar without much, if any emotional connection. Your abilities, qualities, or achievements can all speak for themselves – how you are perceived is born out of those elements.

How to Become an Expert at Self-Control

Have you ever known someone who had an admirable sense of self-control?

No matter what the situation, they always seemed to know what to say or what action to take.

Not having self-control can feel just the opposite. Over indulgence or saying something without thinking inevitably can cause unwanted circumstances. But how do you get to that point of making choices based on intentional words and actions?

What qualities could help you to become an expert at self-control?

How Introverts Quietly Dominate Self-Improvement

In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain writes about Rosa Parks:

“I had always imagined Rosa Parks as a stately woman with a bold temperament, someone who could easily stand up to a busload of glowering passengers. But when she died in 2005 at the age of 92, the flood of obituaries recalled her as soft-spoken, sweet, and small in stature. They said she was ‘timid and shy’ but had ‘the courage of a lion.’ They were full of phrases like ‘radical humility’ and ‘quiet fortitude.’ ”

Rosa Parks’ legacy is weaved into the fabric of American history. Her revolutionary choice to not give her seat up for a white man was, at the time, cataclysmic. The boldness of the action and grandeur of its consequence could fool anyone into assuming Rosa Parks was a bold, seemingly extroverted person. That wasn’t the case. Her ‘timid and shy’ persona is not one you’d typically assign to someone looking to radically alter the way racial equality is perceived and addressed in America and around the world, but Rosa Parks was unassuming in her bravery, her introversion providing fertile ground for the ‘courage of a lion’ to feed, grow, and roar.

Build a Resilient Brain to Overcome Any Obstacle

When you are rejected, resilience is there. When life goes wrong at all – guess what? The resilience within picks you up, ready to fight another day. It’s found in the gritty, everyday situations you encounter on a daily basis, whether that’s forcing yourself out of bed or finding your seats in a dark cinema room. It takes inner strength to do what you need to do, let alone achieve success and happiness.

Success and happiness are quantified in different ways. Success may derive from reaching career goals, and happiness could come in the form of meaningful relationships. Whatever it is, the ability to rely on resilience lies at the core. As a result, it mustn’t be neglected. Building a resilient brain helps you overcome obstacles and thrive in life because it allows you to make risky decisions and take risks, all with the knowledge that no matter what happens, you will be okay. Acquiring that isn’t as easy as it seems, but not impossible. Resilience, after all, is a skill you can learn, not necessarily an inherent personality trait.

Building Iron Discipline: Achieve Your Goals with Unwavering Willpower

What do you think of when you hear the words, “Iron Discipline” and “Unwavering Willpower”? Superheroes? Some guys at the gym? A trusted Mentor?

Such qualities of great strength, endurance and self control can often seem out of reach. It might seem as if it’s something others are able to achieve, but may be too hard to find for ourselves. If you’re looking outside of yourself, you may struggle to find what you’re looking for, because those qualities come from within.

Why Successful People All Embrace Failure

What do successful people all have in common? Money? Fame? Fantastic lifestyles? Maybe! But one thing that really sets them apart from everybody else is failure. That’s right! Successful people embrace failure as a way to succeed.

It might seem counter-intuitive to think failure can aid in the path to success, but when you hear the reasons why successful people find failure to be helpful, you might start to rethink how you view failure in general.

How to Bounce Back from Hard Times

Life is full of challenges. Not everything we attempt or wish for will materialize the way we’d hoped. But seeing failure and adversity as part of the process can help put things into perspective.

Business woman Arianna Huffington said,

“We need to accept that we won’t always make the right decisions, that we’ll screw up royally sometimes – – understanding that failure is not the opposite of success, it’s part of success.”

Being resilient is not necessarily something you’re born with, but you CAN learn it. Even if you didn’t have the environment or opportunity to build skills of resilience as a child, it’s not too late.

How to Work on Yourself | 3 Key Strategies for Personal Empowerment

In the pantheon of self-improvement buzzwords, ‘empowerment’ feels among the boldest. To empower is to literally give power to yourself. It feels intimidating in its grandiosity – as if the act of personal empowerment requires a life-changing act (or something to remember, at least.) It may feel difficult, then, to actively push for a personally empowered life. However, misvaluing its importance in the grand self-improvement scheme of things is an error not worth committing. To personally empower yourself allows you to organically grow confidence as you can firmly say yes, I did choose myself today. Achievements become more likely when you instil empowering levels of confidence in your mindset.