Challenging yourself helps you to grow as an individual, boosts your self-confidence, and leads to better mental and physical growth.
This article, by author Ashley Harper, explains how challenging yourself also makes you aware of the skills and knowledge you have. If you don’t get out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself, you will not grow.
Challenging yourself is a key part of growth for any individual. Just as a child tries to stand on two feet and walk to progress into the next stages of life, any adult should seek out challenges. When we’re challenged, we learn lessons; the bigger the challenge, the bigger the lessons learned. There we find the formula for growth.
I think a large part of why humans struggle to maintain a good mood and outlook on life is largely down to humans settling and becoming stagnant in their growth.
Whether it be taking up a new hobby, training to run a marathon, learning a new language, or changing your current work location to an office with more opportunities.
These are the things I feel you need to seek to grow actively. And in my opinion, growth is the formula to consistent happiness and satisfaction, not all the fast/short-lasting satisfaction we now seek out too often in the west especially. However, when you look back and truly reflect, if you are honest to yourself, all these shiny things or substances will do is fill a void short term.
Reflection is a task everyone is capable of, and if you reflect on the last time you truly challenged yourself, I can assure you regardless of the outcome, whether it be positive or negative, growth was made. And I can pretty much guarantee it was a worthwhile experience regardless of what the challenge was and the lessons or skills learned are something that will serve you for your entirety.
Maybe the key is to accept that if you constantly challenge yourself and learn new things, no matter how big or small, there is a risk of failure. But in my opinion, the mentality when approaching challenging tasks should be if I am to fail, chances are I’m going to learn more lessons than if I were to succeed.
Think of something new or you feel will challenge you. Approach it as an opportunity to grow and learn more about yourself. And once you’ve done this a handful of times, watch your quality of life improve and your approach to everyday struggles and challenges change.
Benefits of Challenging Yourself
Challenging yourself every day can positively impact your life. The following are some of the benefits of challenging yourself.
Challenges Help You to Acknowledge Perspectives from Others
The fact that we refuse to acknowledge that other people have different views and methods of doing things is the root cause of a great number of problems, both big and minor. Taking on challenges is crucial if you want a less combative life with more peace and cooperation. You can view things from other people’s perspectives by challenging yourself.
For instance, challenging yourself to follow others on social media even if you disagree with them will help you better understand why others think the way they do. Additionally, being aware of their perspective enables you to cooperate rather than compete with one another and resolve problems rather than cause new ones.
Helps You to Grow as an Individual
Everything begins with you. By participating in competitions, you can learn more about your strengths, advance your knowledge and abilities in known areas, and gain insight into your weaknesses. Additionally, you can develop yourself by reflecting and being more impulsive, humble, honest, and spiritual.
Leads to Better Mental and Physical Health
You can mentally push yourself by reading more, picking up new talents, and participating in tournaments that will test your intellect. This differs from competing with others because it is more about challenging yourself.
You can also physically pressure yourself to work out more and eat healthily to achieve fitness. A healthy spirit results from a healthy body. A healthy mind will trigger you to stay physically healthy.
Improves Your Relationships
You must challenge yourself if you want to better your relationships. Every challenge can impact your interactions in one way or another.
For instance, if a challenge helps you acquire confidence, it will improve all of your relationships. You’ll be more eager to contribute your ideas, provide a hand, and carry out the necessary tasks more confidently.
Challenges Enhance Self-confidence
While you can inspire yourself with words and affirmations, challenging yourself is the only thing that will get you moving in action. You’ll prove that you are stronger than you think when you accomplish a tough challenge.
When you work to improve yourself by testing the limits, you’ll be astounded at how you will build self-confidence.
Bottom Line
Not everybody will look at fresh challenges and immediately feel like taking them on. But the challenge itself includes it as well. You’ll be more motivated to learn the best ways of challenging yourself as you realize that personal progress begins out of your comfort zone.
You should push yourself as frequently as you can. Every obstacle you overcome has the power to alter your life course. And even if it doesn’t, you’ll learn things about your abilities that will make your life more fulfilling, healthy, and successful. Keep challenging yourself.
