In the words of Rabindranath Tagore, “Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark.”
According to Cambridge Dictionary, faith is defined as ‘great trust or confidence in something or someone.’
What is faith?
For me, faith is a driving force which keeps us moving and gives us purpose and meaning in life. During our difficult times, faith maintains hope and possibilities in ourselves.
Faith means, as being said, believing in something we haven’t seen. As in, believing in some concepts or moral principles. Or, you can say, in some higher power.
That is why concept of faith is different for everyone. Those who are believers always have a positive approach towards everything they come across, even in difficulties.
Faith requires trust in something or someone, including yourself. When you have faith and trust in yourself, you can easily conquer any obstacles that come to your path.
Ultimately faith is a deeply personal journey and varies widely based on an individual’s beliefs.
Why is faith important?
One of the most important reasons should be purpose in life.
In the time of grief and uncertainty, faith keeps us alive and helps us to look forward. Faith provides us hope and positivity in bad times.
Faith in yourself gives you a source of strength and comfort. It guides us in the moral direction when we are seeking a path.
Having faith in yourself is important, as it helps us to heal our past griefs and bad experiences through compassion and trust. And makes us think about the good days that are yet to come.
In the end, faith widely varies person to person, depending on their beliefs and cultural backgrounds.
In this blog post, I’ll be discussing practical strategies and insights to help you navigate through life’s challenges by having faith and trust in your own capabilities.
Let’s dive in.
9 ways to keep faith in yourself –
1. Keep your hope up
Helen Keller stated that “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Maintaining our hope in hard times is very much needed to conquer the bad phase in life.
Sometimes, it can be challenging to do so. When the things around us don’t work in our favour, we start losing hope.
During such times, it’s important to focus on the things that bring us joy and positivity. Hope is a light that shows us the path in times of doubt.
It is one of the important driving forces that assures our better days and offers us strength.
Maintaining hope and having faith aren’t just choices, it can be incredibly powerful and uplifting practices. Ultimately, hope and faith can lead us to a more fulfilling life.
2. Nurture Your Spirituality
Practicing spirituality can cultivate faith in a good way. Here are a few different ways to enhance spirituality and encourage faith.
- Meditation is one of the most effective ways to enhance your spiritual aspects. You can practice for at least 10 min every day. It quiets our mind, increases clarity in thoughts, and helps us to connect with our higher self.
- The second one is connection with nature. You can spend some time in nature daily. There are many ways, such as walking in your garden or watching the sunrise. By observing nature’s beauty, you feel a connection with something bigger than yourself.
- You can maintain a gratitude journal. This is another way to cultivate spirituality.
- Practice affirmations daily. It has immense power to build trust and faith in yourself.
Always remember that nurturing spirituality is an absolute personal journey and works differently for every person.
So, you can explore different practices to nurture your spirituality and build your faith.
3. Practice Self-Compassion
Self-compassion is essential to live a fulfilling life. Prioritizing yourself means listening to your body, mind, and their wants.
Maintaining a healthy habit in tough times is hard to follow, but with self-compassion and trust, we can conquer them.
During hard times, when things don’t happen according to us, the very first thing we do is, we become harsh with ourselves. We must not do that anymore.
Because of that, we lose faith and trust in ourselves. Instead, we must handle ourselves with care, compassion and kindness.
Healing takes time. Don’t lose hope, faith and trust in the process.
4. Learn from Past Experiences
Reflecting on past experiences and lessons is very beneficial for our personal growth. We can analyse what we did wrong and right.
When we look at the obstacles we overcome, they give us a sense of strength.
And eventually helps us to build trust and faith in our capabilities. That faith serves us in our hard times.
5. Keep a Success Journal
Maintaining a success journal helps us a lot. When we write down our achievements, no matter how small, it helps us mentally in our difficult time.
At the time we are not in our best circumstances, not doing well in life and things are not going as planned; this journal will help us to remember our success.
We feel motivated and gain faith, become optimistic about life’s situations, and start trusting in our decisions again.
With faith, we try again with fresh effort and get success.
6. Seek Professional Help if Needed
Seeking help if you need it is not only a good idea but also a sign of strength and courage. We often hesitate to ask for help.
Because of that, sometimes we fall into more problematic situations.
If we share our problem with someone who has a specialized knowledge in something, there are chances of getting benefits from their expertise.
It could be anyone – any professionals, mentors or any relatives. You know, you can also share your burden in this way, not physically always but mentally for sure.
When we discuss our problem with someone, we get to know about many different viewpoints. You will get open for new ideas and feedbacks.
And most importantly, when you ask for help, you are showing trust and faith in others. This faith will encourage you to believe in the concept of support.
7. Focus on Solutions
We, people, have a tendency to spend more time and focus on problems instead of solutions.
Every problem has a solution. We must give our attention to the solutions more.
For that, we first need to clearly define the challenges we are facing. We must sort which are controllable and which are not.
We should focus on the problems we actually can control. Don’t get scared by the uncontrollable things.
Now, set small, clear goals to solve them. If you adopt a solution-based mindset, you’ll notice that things are becoming manageable, and you have formed a positive approach towards problems.
8. Surround Yourself with Supportive People
Having a strong support system around you is not less than a blessing.
Surrounding yourself with positive and supportive people helps us in every way possible. They help us to have faith in ourselves when things go wrong.
Their courage, optimistic behaviour and supportive nature help us to keep trust in ourselves. Sometimes, they play semi-active roles in our lives.
They can be anyone, whether they are friends, family, colleagues or mentors. During tough times, their valuable and encouraging advice is something which keeps us positive and faithful to ourselves.
For instance, your finals are coming, and you’re having a hard time keeping faith in yourself. Everything seems hopeless; everything seems to be falling apart.
At such times, comforting and encouraging words from your parents, siblings or friends make you feel alive; they can make you remember that you still can do your best and nothing is over yet.
9. Learn from Role Models
Having a role model or idol is a good way to help yourself in your journey.
When we follow someone who has the same dreams and goals as ours, and the person has achieved that already, it inspires us in every way possible.
We gain faith and believe in our dreams and, ultimately, in ourselves. The dream seems possible to us, no matter what people say. The way they had overcome all the obstacles to fulfil their dreams inspires us.
Their inspiring stories push us to trust in our capabilities and all the barriers they overcome, helping us to have faith in ourselves in the hard times. We feel connected with them.
Conclusion
As we conclude our essential journey of keeping faith in yourself during hard times, we must remember that faith is an active choice of believing in yourself and in your capabilities.
When we achieve one of our goals, our faith in ourselves grows. Every challenge we face has an opportunity for growth.
Embrace it, have faith in yourself and make your journey fulfilling.
So, how do you cultivate and nurture faith during times of uncertainty or hardships? let me know in the comments.
Take care.
Make the most of the day.
Until we meet again.