Developing Inner Strength

Inner strength is the strength that give me the power to fight back with life or to stand up when I fall down or encounter difficulties in life.

The more ‘work’ you do, the more problems you have in life. A person who has no problems in life is a person who has no dreams and no ‘work’ at all.

Developing Inner Strength

Everybody has different views of what their strengths and weaknesses are. However, I feel that generally inner strengths are an invisible force within everyone that helps to propel you further in life, to support you and to allow you to carry on with life. Everyone of us, all human being and I believe animals have too, an inner strength that really enable them to carry on their life every day and for the better, especially when encounter with obstacles in life.

Life is not a bed of roses and nothing is ever perfect. In life, we face obstacles, trials and many other difficulties that slow down our pace, to achieve our goals and dreams. We encountered many unexpected circumstances, and many times life is not the way we want it to be. Inner strength is a strength in every living organisms ( I believe all living things, animals, plants, all have the power of inner strength in them), that keep urging them ‘not to give up’, it is a natural instinct, something that just come naturally when we encounter obstacles and difficulties, to empower ourselves stronger.

In my view, inner strength is an invisible force within an individual that motivates and encourages a person in life when facing daily life’s obstacles and failures. It is a motivational force within all of us that has a silent ‘message’ that says ‘don’t give up, you got to be….’ or ‘don’t give up, you have to…’, it is your natural silent motivational force within you.

How to develop this invisible motivational force of inner strength? It is all through cultivation, determination and knowing yourself better. Just like running or jogging, a person who just started running may find that he gets tired easily and he cannot run for long distances the first time. The next time, he trains himself to run longer and better each time. His stamina for running slowly increased. Soon he should be able to realize that he can run a longer distance and do not feel the strain as when he just started running. Similarly for swimming! Swimmers can increase their stamina through practice. All these people are able to do so because they have determination. They are clear of what they want and what they must do in order to have what they want. No pain, no gain. You sweat, you gain — you gain more stamina, you gain more strength — physical strength and inner strength, your endurance and persistence to complete your goal!

Only when you are faced with life’s problems, do you learn to appreciate things around you and to learn to cope with life’s difficulties. Being a spectator watching the runners running in the stadium, you would not know how it feels to be running and competing in the field. Seeing is easy. Only when you do it, you understand and you know. Similarly, it is only when one is face with difficulties, will one know how to challenge a situation, to counter attack life’s obstacles and to counterstrike every possibilities in order to ‘win’ or excel. It is during these encounter of failures and obstacles in life that every individual can be trained to develop their inner strength. Every failure and mistakes in life have its own lessons to be learned. It is through constant practice, discipline and determination that helps a runner develop an overwhelming stamina to complete a race within a short time. Similarly, our inner strength, can be developed as we try to gain more wisdom from our daily life’s problems. The runners’ obstacles are force of gravity and resistance. Our obstacles are all our life’s problems that we counter. And everyday, we are ‘racing’ against time, ‘running’ in our life daily. How much is your inner strength? Everybody should have inner strength, but it is a matter of how much (just like everybody has a capability to run, not mentioning a handicap person.)

However, the act of practicing and doing things blindly without knowing the knowledge of it, makes a person’s work harder. Just like running, if a person read up a book on how to run faster, then he would be able to understand how the body works, how he can reduce resistance etc to run faster. Thus for us, we need to read many books. Reading books, increase our wisdom and knowledge. Why people around us are like that? How to improve our life? There are just so many types of books you can read. Books help to broaden our thinking and by looking at things at a different angles, we gain strengths just like that — knowing more make you more confidence and this naturally increases your inner strength!

To sum up, inner strength is a silent and invisible motivational force in every individual that help a person to react and combat everyday’s life, especially in time of crisis to be able to handle it and to be able to adapt to life, to carry on with their life. To develop inner strength, it is like swimming. A swimmer with more practice will gain more stamina and be able to swim better than a beginner. Similarly a person with more exposure to life difficulties, will be ‘trained’ to gain more inner strength through their life’s experiences. And don’t forget to read widely, or learn from people!

Drive

Some folks are driven to excel, while others can’t seem to get out of ‘park’. Mediocrity is a dangerous malady that causes people to always settle for second best. For the most part, it is a personal choice. Mediocrity begins in the mind. It’s like a weed that winds itself around personal ambition and chokes it. If left to grow, it will prevent any personal growth. It even has its own language:”I can’t.” “I was never able to.” “I just don’t have what it takes.”

Mediocrity must be challenged like an aggressive enemy. Challenge it with education. Books, tapes, internet sites, and seminars are like swords that can be wielded against the crippling effects of mediocrity.

Challenge it with adventure. Try a new hobby. Plan a trip. Join an interest group. Step out of box into a brave new world. You’ll not only discover new interests and make a new friends; you’ll fight the enemy of apathy at the same time.

Put your life in “drive”, and you’ll get a lot farther down the road.

Challenge mediocrity.

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” ~ Joseph Addison