The Self-Improvement & Mental Health Guide: Cultivating a Flourishing Life

In the world of immense race & Rivalry where Lions compete for territory, bird species intensely defend their nesting territories against Invaders of the same species, Sprinting competition between Cheetahs & Hyenas, Baleen whales, such as humpbacks and blue whales, feed on krill. Since krill is a primary food source for these massive marine mammals, they compete with each other for the same food and even trees of the same species compete for sunlight.  So for us humans, it is also crucial to improve ourselves to the verge of success and compete with each other through a growth process to be known by everyone and be in the top 10% of men. Haven’t we played the video games before? What hooks up with every single AAA video game? Is it always the content? Or let’s think about the multiplayer online games where we create a profile and play to upgrade it daily rather than focusing on a specific storyline. Video games nowadays fascinate us by giving achievements through doing a specific task or completing goal. The algorithm is designed like people would crave to set their bar up and show it to others through profiles which is a common human behavior. Since we have come this far I think the brain already started to generate the significance of doing well in every aspect of life by keeping mental health at a suitable place. Once Ralph Waldo Emerson said "The greatest discovery in life is self-discovery. Until you find yourself, you will always be someone else. Become yourself."

There are some fundamentals, The pillars of a house where a house can not stand without pillars, it is vital to follow a step by step guide, Some basic process which will make us a better person. These are Physical Exercise & Workout, Prayer, Meditation and mindfulness, Gratitude Journaling, Skill development.

Physical Exercise & Workout

There's a popular quote that says

   'A man is not a man until he knows the beauty of his own strength.'

At the beginning of mankind's journey, human used to hunt down animals and species to make food and their necessary item to live and survive. Those who were strong were more useful in managing a family and more appealing to tribe women and other members of the tribe since only a person with massive physical strength could hunt down carnivores. The significance of physical strength is undeniable which brings us to this point. In 2020, I used to overthink a lot about my life and future goals as sitting at home and watching shows on Netflix was a counterproductive action. I was less focused on everything which caused me to decision making and task-handling problems. Then one day I discovered the significance of physical exercise. In a study conducted by (Macera,Hootman,Sniezek,2003), both men and women who reported increased levels of physical activity and fitness were found to have reductions in relative risk (by about 20%–35%) of death. There are two kinds of exercises, aerobic exercise and resistance exercise. Aerobic exercise is a cardio exercise that involves running, jumping, skipping, cycling, swimming, and many more. On the other hand resistance exercises are all kinds of strength and weight training where a person lifts weight to gain muscles and achieves muscular hypertrophy for stimulation. The day since I started working out I felt an increased level of testosterone in my body and I started feeling confident in every work. I realized that when you start pushing yourself to hard work, it makes your other daily work to complete easily since you have already done the hardest task.

Prayer, meditation and mindfulness

The first and foremost rule to enter into the journey of self improvement is being focused. If one is not focused on it's action or not conscious about it's work, they won't be able to reach their ultimate goal in the end. Working mindlessly is more like getting no result with huge effort. By being focused, one can make their work faster, easier to perform.It also attracts positivity. According to a study conducted by Alberts and Thewissen(2011), mindfulness may help people forget negative experiences. Participants who practiced mindfulness before memorizing words recalled fewer negative words compared to those who didn't practice mindfulness. So it is really important to stay focused all the time. Meditation and prayer trains us to master the art of focusing. Meditation is basically focusing on the breath and making the brain empty. Since in this destructive and chaotic world, it's hard to make a free space like outer space, focusing on deep breathing helps us to focus on a specific goal. Meeting the failure while focusing everytime is a normal incident throughout the whole process. Like muscles, it grows after every failure where after each failure we get mindful that we must focus on our deep breathing. And just by practicing like that we might reduce the unfocused duration and amount of unfocused times. One can improve it gradually.  At first one can start with just focusing for five minutes. And slowly one can extend it to half an hour or one hour. From my personal experience, to take this to another level, prayer is a must. Especially in “Salah” (Islamic Prayer) we move our body which makes it harder to focus on the recitation of quran. But the person who masters it won't get distracted by anything that easily.

Gratitude Journaling

Being grateful by the acknowledgement  of positive consequences and outcomes and writing it down to remind the outcomes is called gratitude journaling. It's a simple but a very effective step to improve mental health which leads to self improvement. It's a journal of all possible positive happenings of one's life. So in our bad times when we look at the journal we made, it makes us feel blessed and grateful. To start gratitude journaling, we just need a pen and a dairy or notepad to write down the points. A study examined by Emmons and McCullough (2003) shows how feeling grateful affects mental and physical health. Participants kept track of moods, coping mechanisms, health habits, and overall well-being. Those who focused on grateful things showed greater well-being compared to others. This suggests that being grateful can improve your mood and overall health.

Skill Development 

There’s a popular saying that says,

The more you know, the more you realize you don't know

In the modern era of constant change, adopting a learning mindset and acquiring new skills are crucial to staying current. The world evolves daily, introducing new concepts and innovations. The job sector seeks multi skilled workers rather than a professional on dedicated field. There are two kinds of skill, technical skill or hard skill and soft skill. Technical or hard skills are basically specific physical skill to acquire. These can be any kinds of sports, technology, farming, business, marketing related expertise. These skills are important to a industry or a company because to run a industry or company we have to solve many kinds of problems or sometimes we need professional workers on different fields to stand out from the crowd. On the other hand, way of speaking, convincing people, becoming a good speaker and being skilled on social interactions is called soft skill. It has the same important as hard skill since it is important to convince people through words.

So these are the points one should focus on even though the limit of improving oneself is endless. There is no fullstop of this adventurous journey.

References : 1.Macera, C.A., Hootman, J.M., Sniezek, J.E. (2003). Major public health benefits of physical activity. Arthritis Rheum .https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/art.10907 2.Alberts, H. J. E. M., Thewissen, R. (2011). The effect of a brief mindfulness intervention on memory for positively and negatively valenced stimuli. Mindfulness 2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3090568/ 3.Emmons, R. A., & McCullough, M. E. (2003). Counting blessings versus burdens: An experimental investigation of gratitude and subjective well-being in daily life. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=Emmons%2C+R.+A.%2C+%26+McCullough%2C+M.+E.+%282003%29.+Counting+blessings+versus+burdens%3A+An+experimental+investigation+of+gratitude+and+subjective+well-being+in+daily+life.+Journal+of+Personality+and+Social+Psychology%2C+84%282%29%2C+377%E2%80%93389.&btnG=#d=gs_qabs&t=1713063001757&u=%23p%3DHQAB6oPSUnUJ Image References: 1.https://images.app.goo.gl/9UiqKfAdFLzSqrCC6 2.https://images.app.goo.gl/MaTPJVqWXGUSqzB58 3.https://images.app.goo.gl/o494ZoMw4in2KUmb7 4.https://images.app.goo.gl/B8w9QVhQ7mpXb8Xa7 5.https://images.app.goo.gl/7EKv7wwkk7Ecrtec6