Resilience in life is as important as life itself. It is Resilience that helps us to overcome challenges of all kinds–trauma, tragedy, personal crises and bounce back stronger.

When we tackle obstacles, we find hidden reserves of courage and resilience.
– A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

Challenges, difficulties and issues are present in everyone’s life, you can’t escape them.  You can do two things when you have such problems ahead of you – run away from it or face it. If you run away the problems will haunt you and chase you. So be man enough to face them and show them who stands tall.  Often, we are told by friends, ‘Be strong, you’ll get through this’, or ‘You need to be more resilient’ but what does being resilient really mean? This post on resilience in life aims to tell you what it is and why it is important for a meaningful life/

What is Resilience in Life?

Being resilient means being able to adapt and bounce back when you face difficult situations in life. Simply put, it’s the ability to pick yourself up after a traumatic experience in life. It can be anything like an accident, a failure in exam, a divorce, loss of someone close, health issues and the list is endless. It is an acquired strength that a human develops over time. And it is very important that we help ourselves to develop a certain level of resiliency to cope up with life. Let’s look at resilience as a psychological tool to help ourselves in moments after crisis.

Why is Resilience in Life Important?

When you are facing a difficult point in life you can only think of it getting worse, you going spiraling down – but in reality what you need to do is swim against the tide, find your balance and recover from the problem.

1. Resilience helps us to maintain balance in life
2. It protects us from adverse mental health difficulties
3. Reduces risk taking behaviors – suicide, inflicting pain on self
4. Reduces substance and alcohol abuse risk -such as excessive drinking, smoking or use of drugs.
5. Increases involvement in community, family

How to Develop Resilience?

For any introspection to occur understand how you ended up in that situation. It gives you perspective to think.

1. Make lifestyle changes
2. Make time to spend with family and friends
3. Develop interests and hobbies
4. Try to relax – make time for yourself – that can be in form of music, walking, spa r even working out at the gym
5. Read inspiring motivating stories of real people
6. Asses balance of life – one area at a time
7. Eat healthy balanced diet
8. Be physically active
9. Get good sleep at night
10. Forgive yourself and resolve conflict with others. Forgiving is very therapeutic.

It is in human nature to develop resilience, no one can get stuck at one thing and lose the battle of life unless it is completely avoidable. There are many cancer survivors who are doing great work in their interests. There are amputees who are climbing Mt. Everest and taking part in Olympics, there are acid attack survivors who are running businesses and walking the ramp, there are Blind CEOs and makeup artists on Youtube! The battle is never lost if you make up your mind not to lose it.

I am taking part in the A to Z Challenge 2017. Are you?

1. Amazing Life
2. Believe in Your Self
3. Celebrate Life
4. Dare To Dream
5. Enjoy Life
6. Freedom in Life
7. Grow in Life 
8. Hope in Life
9. Inspire & Be Inspired
10. Joy in Life
11. Kindness in Life
12. Love in Life
13. Mindfulness in Life
14. Needs of Life
15. Optimism in Life
16. Principles in Life
17. Quality in Life

 Drop by my food blog Twinkling Tina Cooks where I am sharing 26 Dessert Recipes.

Just when everyone is running after quantity in life, you can never undermine the importance of quality in life, can you?

In the battle between Quality vs Quantity, quality wins at the end, every time, and you can’t deny that. For a meaningful and sustainable life you always choose quality over quantity. And I’m not merely talking about the material things in life. I am talking about the deeper aspects of life that demands Quality in Life.

Importance of Quality in Life

Quality time with family and friends

Do you want to spend an entire weekend with your family doing household chores, or watching TV or do you want to go out on a walk, read to your kid, play with your baby, have conversations with your spouse or parents? I am sure you will choose the second one. More than what you say, it’s important how well you listen.

Find ways to do meaningful activities with your family and friends – they can be outdoor activities or even indoor board games or even conversations over food. Have your meals together. A family that dines together stays together – that’s a saying, I am just reminding you. It’s always the contribution of quality in life that sees you through.

Quality Education

Instead of joining the heard, think what you want to be, where your flair lays and get education in that field. Don’t fall in the trap of good campus, good facility and other promotional materials of the institution. Look into the quality of students the institution has produced; look for the quality of teachers.

Quality Activities

Everyone is busy and everyone is short of time after work, family etc. But don’t forget to look after yourself. The quality of your health and life matters the most. Make time for your health and work outs, if you hate the gym (like me) go out for brisk walks, go hiking on weekends, attend a workshop, enrich yourself.

And of course I don’t need to mention the importance of quality over quantity in material things. Instead of 100s of dresses get a few good ones which you feel are great and are worth spending, just saying!

A meaningful life is always guided by principles. No one can undermine the importance of principles in life.

Principles are like your guidelines for life. They are your internal compass that shows you the path.  It is the principles that will help and guide you when you tend to feel lost and go astray. Principles – which are a combination of honesty, integrity, and proactivity – stand the test of time. They have always worked from time immemorial.

What is the Importance of Principles in Life?

1. Principles are internal mechanisms which help to commit to long-run beneficial behavior in the face of short-run temptation.
2. They are well thought out, justified and trained thoughts – they always help in the long run
3. They make you a better responsible person
4. Principles help you in decision making

Basic Principles to live by Everyday

1. Say no to Anger – It is the most volatile emotion which ends up hurting you. Whenever you are angry, remember you are hurting yourself the most. Learn to manage anger.
2. Being Yourself – You are unique and an individual. Be the best version of yourself than trying to become something like someone else
3. You are Beautiful Within – Physical beauty is beautiful, but doesn’t last a lifetime – it comes with a timeframe. But your inner beauty is the true reflection of you.
4. Accept and Learn from Faliure – Just like without making mistakes you won’t learn something new, failure is very important for every success story. Every success is preceded by a great failure. Allow it to teach you a lesson
5. Discard Fear – Don’t let fear bow you down. Rise up and face it, when you discard your fears it sets you free
6. Value Real Friendships – Friendships are bonds which you should value. Work towards keeping the long friendship alive in life and not just on social media.
7. Giving & Receiving – Live in gratitude, give love to people, give respect to people when you give more you get back love and respect
8. Say no to Judgement – Seriously if you are not in the judiciary don’t indulge in judging people.
9. Let Go– There are times when you have to let go things or people from life to move forward, don’t try to cling to it even when you have realized it’s time to say bye
10. Meaning of Life – Create meaning in your life. You can either treat life like it has no meaning or see it as this amazing opportunity to do something good.

Optimism is a choice to view life through true reality’s lens. You can’t escape from realizing the Importance of Optimism in Life.

Optimism is not just one of the key aspects of looking at life, it is often the most important thing that boosts our confidence. While on one hand optimism brings positive changes to one’s mind it also helps a person to overcome various challenges in life – both physical and mental.

 ‘A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.’ What do you see? Sir Winston Churchill

Importance of Optimism in Life

1. An optimistic man is always hopeful. He never loses hope in even the most adverse time. And that maintains his self-confidence.
2. An optimistic person deals with challenging situations better than a pessimist or a skeptical person
3. People tend to like positive, optimistic people. No one likes hanging out with someone with negative thoughts.
4. Optimistic and positive thoughts keeps anxiety and stress at bay.
5. Optimistic people tend to do better in all phases of life – education, work, love
6. Optimism promotes bonding between individuals and leads to healthy and successful relationships

How to develop Optimism in Life

1. Set realistic goals and expectations
2. Acknowledge human imperfections. Imperfections make you beautiful and an individual
3. Don’t believe in hopelessness
4. Listen to both your heart and mind and be true to yourself
5. Network with people who are positive and optimistic in life
6. Believe in your dreams

I am taking part in the A to Z Challenge 2017. Are you?

1. Amazing Life
2. Believe in Your Self
3. Celebrate Life
4. Dare To Dream
5. Enjoy Life
6. Freedom in Life
7. Grow in Life 
8. Hope in Life
9. Inspire & Be Inspired
10. Joy in Life
11. Kindness in Life
12. Love in Life
13. Mindfulness in Life

 Drop by my food blog Twinkling Tina Cooks where I am sharing 26 Dessert Recipes.

Life has always been the tug of war of needs and wants. We all fall prey to the wants because that is glamourous. But do we really give a thought to the actual needs of life?

We all have the basic needs of life in food, water, shelter – the quintessential ‘roti, kapda aur makaan’ proverb. But seriously are these the only basic needs for us to survive? When you give it a serious thought – then it’s way more than these three.

A safe Environment

This is a necessity of life to survive. With the given rise of pollution and smog in almost every city, the day is not far when practically we all have to carry oxygen masks everywhere. While you need industries and vehicles, you need the basic air to breathe.

A Basic Level of Education

We are still in a country where it’s not made compulsory to send every child to a school for basic education. This is not a choice it is one of the most important needs of life. The situation in our rural areas is so bad that the teachers appointed have half-baked knowledge. A few years back a TV channel was doing the rounds in rural schools in Bihar and UP where it was found that the primary teachers in Government schools didn’t know the spellings of Wednesday or Friday! And someone was teaching A for ‘Apil’ instead of Apple! When asked about simple GK questions these teachers even failed that.

Education and knowledge are your biggest asset and to see that kids are being deprived of this need at the basic level is very disheartening.

A Supportive and Safe Community

As much as we need a safe environment to breathe in – a safe and supportive community and society is one of the basic needs of life. The country right now, is probably in one of its darkest phase when it comes to the safety of women and children. Instead of mothers teaching their son’s to respect women, they are teaching their daughters what not to wear, how not to speak on a cell phone! Is it too much of an asking if a woman/ girl just wants to live? Isn’t it a basic need to have a sense of safe and supportive community to live in?

Will you be leading a meaningful life without any of the above? I think not.

I am taking part in the A to Z Challenge 2017. Are you?

1. Amazing Life
2. Believe in Your Self
3. Celebrate Life
4. Dare To Dream
5. Enjoy Life
6. Freedom in Life
7. Grow in Life 
8. Hope in Life
9. Inspire & Be Inspired
10. Joy in Life
11. Kindness in Life
12. Love in Life
13. Mindfulness in Life

 Drop by my food blog Twinkling Tina Cooks where I am sharing 26 Dessert Recipes.

Mindfulness is a novel way of paying attention to little things around you. Mindfulness can help you cope up with everyday life and make you aware of many things that you might not notice normally.

What exactly is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness, as the name suggests, is you asking yourself to pay attention to little things in life, training yourself to pay attention in a specific way. When you are mindful you live and absorb the present moment, you concentrate on what’s happening around you. It makes your present meaningful.

We spend a lot of time in thinking about our future. Securing your future is undoubtedly good, but not living the present is equally bad. Do not forget to appreciate the moments you are living NOW. Mindfulness also helps you to relax and relieves you from stress.

You have absolutely beautiful blooms around the city currently – pinks and lavender, yellow and reds. Did you notice that around you or are you too busy in walking and checking your Whatsapp? I went on a 2km walk day before yesterday and thought of being mindful. I absorbed so much of my surrounding – I didn’t even know earlier that all these places were there around my house! Instead of walking on the road I walked through an abandoned land which resembles a field at the moment. The way every square inch is being developed into a multi-storied complex, it’s better to walk through the greenery till it lasts!

How to practice Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is an ancient concept and you will find it’s mention in almost every religious scripture. It’s all about how you focus. You can do meditation for some time, every day to control your mind, your thoughts and sharpen your focus. First few days of meditation means realizing how dynamic your mind is and how it wants to gallop like a wild horse!

Yoga is a good way of practicing mindfulness. It helps you in concentrating on the moves you are making, the calm surroundings, you probably can even pin point which muscles in your body are getting the pressure. That is basic mindfulness.

Do you need Mindfulness for a meaningful life?

You need a clear mind to focus on anything. Let’s see what all mindfulness can help you with

1. Mindfulness can help you lower anxiety
2. Mindful people are less angry or moody
3. Mindfulness helps you to have a better memory
4. Mindful people tends to be happier
5. Mindful people tends to get better sleep

That’s reason enough to start practicing mindfulness in life and be a better version of yourself.

I am taking part in the A to Z Challenge 2017. Are you?

1. Amazing Life
2. Believe in Your Self
3. Celebrate Life
4. Dare To Dream
5. Enjoy Life
6. Freedom in Life
7. Grow in Life 
8. Hope in Life
9. Inspire & Be Inspired
10. Joy in Life
11. Kindness in Life
12. Love in Life

 Drop by my food blog Twinkling Tina Cooks where I am sharing 26 Dessert Recipes.