Life is a tumultuous roller coaster. You may either accept it and enjoy the ride, enjoying learning from your experiences along the way, or you can rebel against all of life's problems, resenting every step of the way. The latter prevents you from growing or developing, whereas the former allows you to learn from your struggles and become a better person as a result of them.
While the term "better" is subjective, one thing is certain: "better" denotes "improved." There is always space for progress, no matter where you are. Even a monk strives every day to better himself, to become a better person.
Life's challenges are unavoidable, and they can be exploited to your benefit. Each one provides an opportunity for personal development and self-improvement. The ultimate goal is to apply what you learn as you mature to become the best version of yourself.
6 Life Challenges You Need to Grow Through
Here are six frequent life problems to conquer on your path to become a better person:
1. Loss
Loss is an unavoidable aspect of life, whether it is a job, an opportunity, or a relationship.
A loss, no matter how it occurs, is one of life's most difficult problems. It can feel abrupt and upsetting. However, losing forces you to consider what is genuinely important in order to keep moving forward.
Losing something you had or desired can be a helpful wake-up call. When you suffer a loss, you must ask yourself, "What about what I lost was valuable to me?" And ask yourself "What am I willing to do to get what I want?"
By examining your loss through the prism of these questions, you can determine the genuine value of what you lost as well as why you value it. Understanding what you value and why you value it is critical to becoming a better person because it gives your words and actions meaning.
2. Failure
There is not a single person living who has not failed. You must fail in order to grow. Failure provides a natural milestone on your journey, allowing you to examine your recent behavioral choices and make corrections. When you fail, you have the opportunity to analyze your decisions and behaviors, similar to how an athlete reviews video footage between games.
Examining the decisions and behaviors that led to your failure is an important exercise. Understanding how your decisions lead to specific behaviors and actions can help you avoid repeating the same mistakes. This type of analysis can also disclose critical information that you overlooked the first time, allowing you to adopt a better and more informed approach the next time.
Failure leads to the development of compassion, empathy, and sympathy. Your experience connects you to anyone else who has had a similar experience. Because they help others to feel comfortable and noticed around you, those three emotions are vital tools on your quest to becoming a better person.
3. Setbacks
Mistakes, monkey wrenches, and unforeseen situations are all names for them. However, setbacks are unavoidable on our path to become a better person.
We've all encountered a stumbling block, obstacle, or delay on our journey. The difficulty is determining why the delay occurred. What caused our progress to slow or stop?
You can know all the right things to do and say academically, but there are times when your humanity gets the best of you. Despite your greatest attempts to be a better person, you do or say something that you later regret. Perhaps you react negatively or in ways that are inconsistent with your goal to improve yourself. IT'S ALL RIGHT!
Setbacks are opportunities for growth. Knowing what types of factors may stymie your progress will allow you to avoid and anticipate them.
Overcoming setbacks can lead to increased resilience. The path to becoming a better person necessitates mental fortitude. Setbacks are a natural approach to develop mental fortitude while still retaining integrity in your actions and a sense of emotional awareness that provides a safe environment in which people feel noticed.
4. Moral Compass
Identifying right from wrong for yourself is a constant life issue. You might agree with one ideology today and a different one tomorrow. It is your right to change your mind, and it is your obligation to decide where you stand. The two are inextricably linked.
Choosing what you believe is critical on your path to being a better person. Your sense of right and wrong is fundamental to self-improvement. Most people act on the basis of their principles and beliefs. Giving yourself permission to evolve as a person entails revisiting them both. You can discover that your values and beliefs are no longer in sync with your ultimate aim.
Fortunately, your assessment of the misalignment will lead you to take the required steps to re-find your true north. Your skill to self-correct will be useful to you on your path.
5. Mastering Your Mind
Your thinking can be a powerful impediment to growing as a person. When things aren't going well, it can come up with all kinds of negative criticism and have the capacity to derail you with doubt and dread if you let it. Mastering your thoughts is one of life's most difficult undertakings.
Your mind shapes your viewpoint; it influences how you absorb and interpret information from the world around you. Unlike other things that can be mastered in a short period of time, the mind can take a lifetime to master. The difficulty is to show up every day willing to undertake the work of mind mastery while being fully conscious of the limitless nature of this task.
You can't hide from yourself since you are everywhere you go. It will be difficult for you to become a better person if your mind is unruly and nasty, mostly because you are not better to yourself.
Fortunately, there are numerous approaches to beginning the practice of mind mastery. The idea is to make time for oneself in a healthy way that fosters growth.
6. Overcoming Your Story
Everyone was a child once. There are things that happened to you that were beyond your control, and no matter how serious they were, those experiences stayed with you. Those encounters become a part of your story. Overcoming the tale you tell yourself about your own experience can be a lifelong struggle.
It influences how you go through the world if you grew up impoverished, didn't have a lot of affection in your house, or didn't feel seen. There are facts about these encounters and fuzzy borders where our minds fill in the spaces.
For example, if you declare, "I grew up poor and I'm always going to be poor," that is an example of your story taking control.
In comparison, suppose you claimed, "I grew up poor, but I work hard now. "I'm doing everything I can to make sure I have everything I need and am comfortable," even if it's difficult, is an example of conquering your tale.
I grew up in an apartment complex, worrying about money and feeling unworthy because of what I saw around me. I assumed that struggling was normal and that survival was the default mode of existence - it became a part of my tale. However, as an adult, I had to choose between allowing my past experiences to form my current narrative and focusing on the conditions of the present as a reflection of my current reality.
While the decision is clear, the action required to change the narrative is difficult. It necessitates deliberateness and self-awareness. You must be willing to let go of stories that no longer serve you in order to fully experience the present moment. Carrying stale, negative narratives limits your ability to participate in positive self-reflection, which is the foundation of personal growth.
When you abandon your past in favor of living in the present, you inspire others to do the same. Overcoming your tale allows you to see this time as an opportunity to construct a new story - one that you control. On the path to becoming a better person, focus on what you can manage and let go of the rest.
Final Thoughts
These difficulties are typical throughout life. If you want to become a better person, no matter who you are or where you are, you will face these six problems in some way or another.
Fortunately, you are now equipped to face them with grace and strategy. Remember to let go of what you can't control in exchange for being present in the moment, to make space for healthy self-reflection, to give yourself permission to reexamine your values and beliefs, to embrace the resilience that comes from experiencing setbacks, to allow your failures to be the source of compassionate resonance, and to let loss teach you about what you value.
