Hardship Makes You Stronger Quotes

Whatever doesn't destroy you, makes you stronger. Hardships have a way of toughening us, if they don't kill us.

You are closer to Destiny than ever, wiser than you have ever been, because you’ve learned from the ups and downs you have experienced. You are stronger than you’ve ever been because you have endured hardship, hurt, and betrayal of false friends, and are still standing. You are closer than ever because you’ve figured out who you are and who you are not. You know what you want and where you belong. You have let go of the people and the circumstances that have no role in your future. You’re closer than ever because you live in ever-growing awareness of what matters in your life and what does not. Smell and taste your destiny. You know you are close because you are striving. Soon the entire unfolded journey will make sense.

Things like "Everything happens for a reason" and "You'll become a stronger/kinder/more compassionate person because of this" brings out rage in grieving people. Nothing makes a person angrier than when they know they're being insulted but can't figure out how. It's not just erasing your current pain that makes words of comfort land so badly. There's a hidden subtext in those statements about becoming a better, kinder, and more compassionate because of your loss, that often-used phrase about knowing what's "truly important in life" now that you've learned how quickly life can change. The unspoken second half of the sentence in this case says you needed this somehow. It says that you weren't aware of what was important in life before this happened. It says that you weren't kind, compassionate, or aware enough in your life before this happened. That you needed this experience in order to develop or grow, that you needed this lesson in order to step into your "true path" in life. As though loss and hardship were the only ways to grow as a human being. As though pain were the only doorway to a better, deeper life, the only way to be truly compassionate and kind.

No pain, no gain." You can hear the phrase in the world of physical exercise and conditioning. Muscles that feel no pain are probably getting neither stronger, nor more flexible. It presents an analogy for the exercise of the heart. Those who run the risk of genuine love alone must worry about emotional pain. The more friends; the more good-byes - and the more wakes to attend, the more graves to visit, the more deaths to share. Those who truly live life to the fullest will bear the full cup of suffering. Only those who are willing to pay the price in pain and anguish find life full to the brim. Happy people also suffer; they are no more lucky than the rest. They create their own happiness. That's the rule of thumb. Some thumbs, however, don't seem to rule very well. Slogans and catch-words, for all their conventional wisdom, fail to carry the whole weight of truth; they leave too much room for false inferences. "No pain, no gain" may leave one with nothing but pain - an intolerable amount of it. There is simply no guarantee that pain will bring gain, that hardship will yield happiness, that suffering will make one a better person. It may; but it's not inevitable.

Being vulnerable isn't a flaw. It is the most beautiful thing in the world. If you were invincible, being brave would be easy. It's the fact that it isn't easy, that we have to constantly work and work at it. Make ourselves believe in our own strength even when it feels like we're worth nothing, have nothing, can do nothing - that's power. That's resilience. There is nothing stronger than people who endure the worst hardships in the world, and still raise their fists at the start of a new day, to fight all over again.

If we have something to aim for, then the unavoidable struggle will have a sense of meaning to it. Hardship stretches us and enables us to realise our potential. This is how we grow. We don't grow without pressure. But if we are unable to find meaning in hardship; we just wither. Do we see hardship as a meaningless way to make us suffer, or do we see it as a meaningful way to make us stronger?

Getting honest with ourselves does not make us unacceptable to God. It does not distance us from God, but draws us to Him—as nothing else can—and opens us anew to the flow of grace. While Jesus calls each of us to a more perfect life, we cannot achieve it on our own. To be alive is to be broken; to be broken is to stand in need of grace. It is only through grace that any of us could dare to hope that we could become more like Christ. The saved sinner with the tilted halo has been converted from mistrust to trust, has arrived at an inner poverty of spirit, and lives as best he or she can in rigorous honesty with self, others, and God. The question the gospel of grace puts to us is simply this: Who shall separate you from the love of Christ? What are you afraid of? Are you afraid that your weakness could separate you from the love of Christ? It can’t. Are you afraid that your inadequacies could separate you from the love of Christ? They can’t. Are you afraid that your inner poverty could separate you from the love of Christ? It can’t. Difficult marriage, loneliness, anxiety over the children’s future? They can’t. Negative self-image? It can’t. Economic hardship, racial hatred, street crime? They can’t. Rejection by loved ones or the suffering of loved ones? They can’t. Persecution by authorities, going to jail? They can’t. Nuclear war? It can’t. Mistakes, fears, uncertainties? They can’t. The gospel of grace calls out, Nothing can ever separate you from the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord. You must be convinced of this, trust it, and never forget to remember. Everything else will pass away, but the love of Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Faith will become vision, hope will become possession, but the love of Jesus Christ that is stronger than death endures forever. In the end, it is the one thing you can hang onto.

Hardship, in forcing us to exercise greater patience and forbearance in daily life, actually makes us stronger and more robust. From the daily experience of hardship comes a greater capacity to accept difficulties without losing our sense of inner calm. Of course, I do not advocate seeking out hardship as a way of life, but merely wish to suggest that, if you relate to it constructively, it can bring greater inner strength and fortitude.[15] ―The Dalai Lama

Our souls are like blisters,” he said, a whisper of smile flavoring the words. “The irritant, the hardship, the pain, will make your skin tougher. Stronger.” He delicately touched the sore spot. “But take that away, and you take away the growth.

Optimists Optimism is normal, but some fortunate people are more optimistic than the rest of us. If you are genetically endowed with an optimistic bias, you hardly need to be told that you are a lucky person—you already feel fortunate. An optimistic attitude is largely inherited, and it is part of a general disposition for well-being, which may also include a preference for seeing the bright side of everything. If you were allowed one wish for your child, seriously consider wishing him or her optimism. Optimists are normally cheerful and happy, and therefore popular; they are resilient in adapting to failures and hardships, their chances of clinical depression are reduced, their immune system is stronger, they take better care of their health, they feel healthier than others and are in fact likely to live longer. A study of people who exaggerate their expected life span beyond actuarial predictions showed that they work longer hours, are more optimistic about their future income, are more likely to remarry after divorce (the classic “triumph of hope over experience”), and are more prone to bet on individual stocks. Of course, the blessings of optimism are offered only to individuals who are only mildly biased and who are able to “accentuate the positive” without losing track of reality. Optimistic individuals play a disproportionate role in shaping our lives. Their decisions make a difference; they are the inventors, the entrepreneurs, the political and military leaders—not average people. They got to where they are by seeking challenges and taking risks. They are talented and they have been lucky, almost certainly luckier than they acknowledge. They are probably optimistic by temperament; a survey of founders of small businesses concluded that entrepreneurs are more sanguine than midlevel managers about life in general. Their experiences of success have confirmed their faith in their judgment and in their ability to control events. Their self-confidence is reinforced by the admiration of others. This reasoning leads to a hypothesis: the people who have the greatest influence on the lives of others are likely to be optimistic and overconfident, and to take more risks than they realize.

You never know where life may take you. You just have to have patience and trust that it will all work out. You have to believe that the challenges, hardships, all the moments that will absolutely bend you in half are just making you stronger, more resilient, and absolutely more badass for life on the other side.

Whether you like it or not, everything is to make you stronger and wiser. And the sooner you see it as such – i.e. the sooner you stop running from your pain and start asking the pain and the gods in what ways this hardship is the greatest blessing of your life – the sooner you become a more powerful and more compassionate agent of God's love in the world.

Dear Brave People, I realise that it appears I'm fearless. I can make that presentation with ease, I can stand near the edge of the cliff and look down, and I can befriend that spider in the bathroom. (He's called Steve). But recently I've realised that's not what makes people brave. Brave has a different meaning. I'm afraid of people leaving. After I watched my best friend become someone else's and I was forced into befriending my childhood bully, I realised I don't want to let myself go through this again. I see my fear come through when questioning my boyfriend;s affections. I see it when I distance myself from my friends who are going to leave for university. Isee it in my overanalysis of my parents' relationship and paranoia over a possible divorce. I don't want to be alone. I'm afraid of failure. I aced my exams and the bar has moved up again. I have those high expectations along with everyone else, but I know now that maybe the tower is just too tall, and I should've built stronger foundations. I act like I know what I'm doing, but really I'm drifting away from the shore faster and faster. I don't want to let anyone down. I'm afraid of change. I don't know where I lie anymore. I thought I knew what to do in my future, but I can't bear to think that I'm now not so sure. I thought I was completely straight, but now it's internal agony as I'm not so sure. Turns out I thought a lot of things. I don't want my life to not be the way I expected. I may not be scared of crowds. Or the dark. Or small spaces. But I am afraid. I am afraid of responsibility; I am afraid of not living up to expectations, of the changing future, of growing up, not knowing, sex, relationships, hardship, secrets, grades, judgment, falling short, loneliness, change, confusion, arguments, curiosity, love, hate, losing, pressure, differences, honesty, lies. I am afraid of me. Yet, despite this, I know I am brave. I know I am brave because I've accepted my invisible fears and haven't let them overcome me. I want you to know that you're brave because you know your fears. You're brave because you introduced yourself. You're brave because you said "No, I don't understand." You're brave because you're here. I hope you can learn from me and be brave in your own way. I know I am. -B

Sacrifice has great value in that it not only achieves personal success but builds successful communities, nations and humanity. Each moment spent in selfless sacrifice makes you a stronger person, and such strength fosters the required determination to cope with adversity and hardship for the sake of others.

Never be afraid of hardships; difficult times help you realize your true potential. These hardships make you stronger and play a vital role in shaping your character.

We are all more than just our bodies, but also our thoughts, emotions, and spirituality, which combine to determine our health.” “Our bodies have a natural wisdom with intrinsic knowledge of how to grow, heal, balance, and regenerate.” “We have the ability to change our own genetic blueprints for ourselves and for our children.” “Your body is more than the sum of its parts; it has an energy, or life force, that goes beyond the mere physical nature of your body or your generation.” “Human health is intricately and inextricably connected to planetary health.” “Water is the life source and most essential component of each cell of your body.” “Learn to live in the moment and tune in to mindful breathing while engaging all of your senses to soak in the universe around you.” “Healthy sleep habits will help you learn faster, get stronger and more fit, and protect yourself from diseases.” “Spiritual awakening is important for the state of consciousness with which you meet the world.” “If you don’t make self-care a priority in your life, you will pay a high price as your health declines.” “Balance is not something you are born with, nor is it something you find. Rather, it is something you must create” “If your body is balanced, your mind will be at peace and your spirit will soar!” “Resilience to injury is not an inborn trait; it must be nurtured and acquired.” “Excessive fear of injury takes away the joy of living.” “Allow nature to nurture a child’s backbone, literally and figuratively.” “Dig deep and find the foundation of your own core to prepare you for all adversity, sustain your health and wellness through all your endeavors, and build the home of your dreams for your mind-body-spirit.” “The shared challenges of despair, hardship, and adversity promote collaboration, and collaboration fortifies the collective consciousness of the international community.” “Learn to live your life from your core, and harness and embrace your unlimited potential for strength, health, and growth.” “Hang loose and fly like a butterfly to withstand all the perturbations and punches life brings your way.” “Get back in touch with your primitive animal spirit and pop some pandiculation into your day” “Cultivating body awareness will help you stand taller, look slimmer, and find your grace against gravity.” “Exercise, outlook, diet, and lifestyle choices actually change the way your DNA is expressed within your body to help you avoid injury, fight disease, and thrive.” “When you substitute negative beliefs with positive ones, you will begin to notice positive results.” “Find what floats your boat and enjoy the journey!” “Do not fear the storm, for you will learn to sail your ship through wind and wave.

Death is not the enemy. Death is a natural continuation of life. An intrinsic part of fate. What makes you different?” “Because he could do such great things for this kingdom. We could, together. We could make things so much better for the people who live here. People—” My voice grew stronger. “People like my mother, who devoted her life to you, even when trying to survive so many hardships here.

We cannot get time back, so we must be minute hoarders. The earlier I get up, the more I do. The less time I stay in pity-party-feel-sorry-for-myself land, the stronger I become and the more daylight I see between me and everyone else. When you separate yourself from the pack by cultivating the values and priorities that lead to greatness, mountains of adversity and hardship become speed bumps, and that makes it easier to adapt to the road ahead and build the new life or sense of self you crave.

There was another whole bunch of hopefuls. They would diminish down at a startling rate. We had seen it happen before. This time, though, we were there as the “old hands.” And it helped. We knew what to expect; the mystique had gone, and the prize was up for grabs. That was empowering. It was now wintertime, and winter Selection is always considered the tougher course, because of the mountain conditions. I tried not to think about this. Instead of the blistering heat and midges, our enemies would be the freezing, driving sleet, the high winds, and the short daylight hours. These made Trucker and me look back on the summer Selection days as quite balmy and pleasant! It is strange how accustomed you become to hardship, and how what once seemed horrific can soon become mundane. The DS had often told us: “If it ain’t raining, it ain’t training.” And it rains a lot in the Brecon Beacons. Trust me. (I recently overheard our middle boy, Marmaduke, tell one of his friends this SAS mantra. The other child was complaining that he couldn’t go outside because it was raining. Marmaduke, age four, put him straight. Priceless.) The first few weekends progressed, and we both shone. We were fitter, stronger, and more confident than many of the other recruits, but the winter conditions were very real. We had to contend with winds that, on one weekend exercise, were so strong on the high ridges that I saw one gust literally blow a whole line of soldiers off their feet--including the DS. Our first night march saw one recruit go down with hypothermia. Like everyone else, he was wet and cold, but in the wind and whiteout he had lost that will to look after himself, and to take action early. He had forgotten the golden rule of cold, which the DS had told us over and over: “Don’t let yourself get cold. Act early, while you still have your senses and mobility. Add a layer, make shelter, get moving faster--whatever your solution us, just do it.” Instead, this recruit had just sat down in the middle of the boggy moon grass and stopped. He could hardly talk and couldn’t stand. We all gathered round him, forming what little shelter we could. We gave him some food and put an extra layer of clothing on him. We then helped him stagger off the mountain to where he could be picked up by Land Rover and taken to base camp, where the medics could help him. For him, that would be his last exercise with 21 SAS, and a harsh reminder that the struggles of Selection go beyond the demons in your head. You also have to be able to survive the mountains, and in winter that isn’t always easy. One of the other big struggles of winter Selection was trying to get warm in the few hours between the marches. In the summer it didn’t really matter if you were cold and wet--it was just unpleasant rather than life-threatening. But in winter, if you didn’t sort yourself out, you would quickly end up with hypothermia, and then one of two things would happen: you would either fail Selection, or you would die. Both options were bad.

All throughout his life, he'd been rewarded by sticking to a simple philosophy: refuse to be weak. Push as hard as you can. Pain and hardship were not only inevitable, they made you stronger. Fuck everything else. What didn't make you strong wasn't just useless—it was a waste of time. Occasionally, someone would ask him why he punished himself as harshly as he did. The only answer he could produce was a condescending scoff, or a blank look. Why not?

You can be tough on civilians, on people who “don’t understand” what you’ve been through. But the battlefield isn’t the only place where people suffer. Hardship hits in a million places. And lots of people, including your neighbors, have suffered more than any soldier, and they’ve done so with none of your training, with no unit around them, with no hospital to care for them, and sometimes with no community to support them. And when those people reflect on their suffering, they often uncover a similar truth: that struggle helped them to build deep reservoirs of strength. Not all growth happens this way. But a great deal of our growth does come when we put our shoulder into what’s painful. We choose to, or have to, step beyond the margins of our past experience and do something hard and new.   Of course fear does not automatically lead to courage. Injury does not necessarily lead to insight. Hardship will not automatically make us better. Pain can break us or make us wiser. Suffering can destroy us or make us stronger. Fear can cripple us, or it can make us more courageous. It is resilience that makes the difference.

Many people today have an irrational—almost phobic—fear of hunger. We live in a society that teaches us that it isn’t ever good to be hungry, and that hunger can even be dangerous. Of course, this is partly true since everyone needs to eat, and when you’re hungry it triggers the reactive part of the survival instinct (which says “I must eat in order to survive”). Nonetheless, when you know how to manipulate hunger correctly, it will serve you in many positive ways. Hunger will trigger the active part of the survival instinct—that which makes you more alert, ambitious, competitive, and creative. Throughout history, humans have had to contend with hunger, and not just because they were unable to afford food or suffered from drought and famine. Learning to deal with hunger was also practiced intentionally, to make people tougher and stronger, thereby more resilient to life’s hardships. The historical correlation between hunger and freedom is quite evident. During the period when the Bible was written, and later, during the Roman Empire, hunger and fasting were considered an integral part of life for free people, warriors, and those who wandered. Slaves, on the other hand, were fed frequently throughout the day. The Israelite slaves’ first complaint after leaving Egypt was of hunger, and they wandered in the desert for forty years, adapting and eventually becoming a free nation. Only the second generation of those escaped from Egypt reached the Promised Land. I firmly believe that hunger triggers the Warrior Instinct, and if it’s under control it will give you a “sense of freedom.” I also believe that frequently feeding—due to a fear of hunger—may, to put it strongly, create a “slave mentality,” because when fed continually, people tend to become more lethargic and submissive—and thus easily controlled. One could almost consider food abundance a less drastic or obvious form of “opiates for the masses.” How

A well-designed life is a life that makes sense. It’s a life in which who you are, what you believe, and what you do all line up together. When you have a well-designed life and someone asks you, “How’s it going?,” you have an answer. You can tell that person that your life is going well, and you can tell how and why. A well-designed life is a marvelous portfolio of experiences, of adventures, of failures that taught you important lessons, of hardships that made you stronger and helped you know yourself better, and of achievements and satisfactions. It’s worth emphasizing that failures and hardships are a part of every life, even the well-designed ones.

But developing resilience is not just a matter of seeking out stress and struggle in the service of meaningful ends. We must also learn to cope with the more severe forms of adversity which no one in their right mind voluntarily invites into life. While we like to believe that cruel twists of fate happen only to others, the longer we live, the more likely it becomes that such a time will befall us. It would be ideal if Nietzsche’s saying “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” (Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols) were true for everyone. But severe adversity tends to destroy more people than it elevates. So how can we be one of the few who are not battered and broken by the more distressing periods of life? One technique we can use to gain this type of resilience is what the Stoics called “premeditation of evils”. Rather than living with a naive optimism that everything will work out in the end, we should periodically meditate on losing the things we cherish most. They thought that if we make a habit of visualizing career or relationship failure, sickness, betrayal, or even death, we will become akin to the king who fortifies his kingdom from invasion. Over time we will develop a psychological armor to help us endure the hardships of life. “He robs present ills of their power who has perceived their coming beforehand.” (Seneca, Letters from a Stoic) wrote Seneca.

Don't worry. It will be okay. Trust in the Lord to make a way. The battle can get intense, but don't lose your confidence. Keep going forward, and you will see hardships are only momentary. So fold up your worries, put them away. Things will get better. You'll see. Okay? The grey will soon be turning blue, and you will find a stronger you.

Indeed, success begins with the place of the heart and goes forward to bless your life in ways you never thought possible. It doesn’t mean that your life will always be easy or happy. It means that when hardships come, you’ll be pulled through with a smile on your face. It means that when a storm of life comes upon you, you won’t merely make it through but will become a stronger person because of your trial. Success begins with our hearts and our states of mind, then progresses forward to create the most enriching and rewarding life that anyone could find.

Honesty is the cornerstone of integrity, the foundation upon which all other aspects of your character will be built. But honesty alone is not sufficient to be a person of integrity. Integrity requires action. To be known as men and women of integrity you must demonstrate your moral backbone. You must be confronted with an ethical dilemma—a choice between one road that is rocky, steep, and treacherous and the other that is smooth, flat, and comfortable. One road tests your fortitude, the other provides an easy path. One is filled with temporary hardships and pain, the other is quick and easy. But in the end, if you choose the harder path less traveled, the path where the virtuous have walked, the journey will make you stronger, more resilient, and more capable of conquering the other steep climbs on your way to the top. While the second path, the easy way, will leave you unprepared for the future challenges of life.

No matter what, keep moving forward. The hardships that you experience in life make you stronger. Most importantly, self-respect is key. In order to have a positive ending, you do not need to start with a positive beginning. The quality of your mind is what determines your future.

Most importantly, I want people to know that the impossible is attainable and that if one person believes in you, then you are already making a difference. Through experience I have learned that there are two different sides in life: the good and the cruel. In order to value one side, you must experience both of them. You will come across people who will recognize your potential, as well as others who will try to lower your confidence, belittle you, or even try to discredit your reputation. For example, this can be seen in situations where someone may be biased against you because of what you do, the way you think, or who you are as a person. Keep moving forward. The hardships that you experience in life make you stronger.