start thinking resources

Why is it so important to know your own resources, if you want to have a healthy, successful and happy life?

Before going into details about what resources are and why they are so important, I would like to invite you to do a little exercise with me:

Please sit down comfortably, take a deep breath and close your eyes. Let’s review the past few hours in your mind. What pleasant moments did you experience? What positive feelings were there? Now count with your left hand. For each finger, find a positive thing you experienced. It doesn’t matter how big or small it was.

How nice! You have just started reading this article with a ‘hand full’ of your personal resources. Now, let’s dig deeper into this topic.

The expression ‘RESOURCE’ comes from an old French word meaning ‘relief‘ or ‘recovery‘. Therefore, resources can be understood as reserves that we can fall back on at any time. With their help, we can recover and recharge our batteries. You may also think of your resources as pearls in a treasure chest. However, some of these pearls may be buried deep or even forgotten.

Resources support us enormously in reaching our goals and mastering certain situations. For example, they can help us with upcoming talks, challenges, conflicts, changes, and exams. Hence, resources refer to our inner potentials, abilities, strengths and talents, as well as everything that has already helped us in difficult situations. They also include feelings of success and powerful moments from the past, along with everything which gives us pleasure and does us good. Therefore, they might be feelings, memories, thoughts, people, pets, possessions, activities or routines.

One of the most powerful resources for our health and well-being is to recognize positive aspects and feelings in everyday life. This is the same thing we did in our exercise before. I try to recognise positive moments as they happen throughout my day. But I realise it is not always easy. Positive aspects quickly slip away from us because they seem sometimes too ‘normal’. Thus, to appreciate these little positive moments it is like practicing an instrument. And what is best, these little details will turn out to be strong positive resources which will put me in a good mood. Like drinking my tea in the morning, letting the water of the shower flow over my head, breathing fresh air, having a friendly chat with a stranger in the supermarket, eating delicious food, reading a funny book, listening to an inspiring podcast, walking in the woods, smiling at myself in the mirror, coming home after a long work day, letting my head sink onto my pillow and feel the just-washed linens on my skin…I could go on and on.

The practical thing is: we always have our inner resources with us and can access them at any time. The only condition is that we are aware of them and have activated and strengthened them.