how to handle difficult situations in life essay

Essays About Life Challenges: Top 5 Examples and 6 Prompts

Essays about life challenges let us share our valuable experiences and lessons in life. See our top examples and prompts to assist you in writing your essay .

Life challenges envelop the obstacles we face to reach where we are now. These personal crises we had to deal with have left us with lessons we can use to grow as people and have better lives. Essays that tackle this subject help us reflect on our experiences so we can remember our failures, celebrate our successes, and appreciate our growth . You can also check out these essays about life .

5 Essay Examples

1. african refugees life challenges by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 2. overcoming challenges in my life: dyslexia by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 3. a self-reflection of my life challenges, motivation, and persistence to achieve my goals by terence hampton, 4. young generation’s challenges in life and career by anonymous on ivypanda.com, 5. role of challenges in identification of purposes in life by anonymous on gradesfixer.com, 1. before and after life challenges, 2. extreme life challenges and mental health, 3. the role of family when dealing with life challenges, 4. life challenges at work, 5. the different effects of life challenges, 6. overcoming life challenges.

“The refugees are allowed to live in these camps and receive emergency food and medical care until they feel it is secure enough for them to go back to their domiciles or until they are reunited with their people living out of the campers.” 

This essay gives readers an insight into the everyday challenges of refugees living in a camp. The author describes their situation in detail to let the readers understand their suffering and how difficult it is to be away from their homes. The essay further includes relevant statistics and studies to showcase the astounding number of refugees worldwide, including how they became refugees. 

Refugee camps still exist today, intending to relieve refugees from their challenging situations. Creating a challenging environment for many refugees living in this situation. You might be interested in these essays about cause and effect .

“As a child, I can remember when people were reassuring me that I was such a bright and outgoing kid. But there were times that I didn’t feel that way. I’ve always thought they were wrong about me and just trying to get my self-esteem up… ”

In this essay , the author shares their difficulties with having dyslexia, noting how growing up with this disability put them through overwhelming pressure and unpleasant situations that made them self-conscious. Their disability triggered many emotions that made them constantly embarrassed or panicky. 

However, the writer recognizes how their disability helped them improve their communication skills and reflects on how their challenging time at school molded them into who they are today. You can also check out these essays about conflict and essays about stress .

“I refuse to let adversity crush me because that would mean that my family and I would have done all this suffering for nothing. I do not live in vain, I live for a purpose and that is to inspire people to be more than what they think they are capable of. No day is promised, but the future is always full of possibilities.”

Hampton starts this essay by recognizing how life continuously throws him challenges . Still, he decides to only reflect on the most significant impact on his character, namely, his brother’s arrest, his twin brother Dante’s disability, and his father’s death. Throughout the piece, Hampton narrates these obstacles, letting the readers know what they made him feel and how they affected him as an individual. 

When he thinks back to these difficulties, he realizes what his objectives should be, encouraging him to be a better person. Hampton tells his readers that these challenges inspire him to reach his goals. Check out these essays about life lessons .

“Being the age of twenty-four years, I have encountered and seen the various challenges that many youths in this generation are experiencing. The list of challenges facing the youth in the current generation is endless with most of them having great impacts on the entire globe.”

As a young person, the author lets the audience in on the challenges they face and centers the essay around the hurdles youth are expected to deal with. The writer focuses on the difficulty of gaining employment despite years of formal training. This essay looks at current challenges facing today’s youth and how to overcome them.

“When you are faced with a challenge, especially one that pushes your limits, you sometimes behave differently. I’m not sure how to explain it…but there is occasionally a moment when you feel absolutely drained — like you can’t take one more step or your arms are about to fail you — but if you have the right mindset you can pull the strength you need from a part of you that is not commonly used.”

This essay focuses on how challenges can be used to enhance self-identification. The author explains how difficulties in life are commonly related to experiential learning, which helps people reflect, grow, and change. The author also believes that the most challenging times bring out the bravest in us, and the more we get used to these challenges , the more we develop our “superhero power.” 

6 Prompts for Essays About Life Challenges

Begin your essay by sharing a personal experience about a life-changing challenge you had to endure. Reminisce about your life before this occurred, and delve into how you felt during the challenge, then describe overcoming the challenge and how it shaped you. You can split your essay into three sections to dedicate thought to each part of the process. Make sure to use descriptive language and share your feelings with the reader for an engaging piece of writing.

The effects of life challenges differ for each person. For this prompt, research severe life challenges that can significantly damage an individual and add relevant statistics that prove these cases. These occurrences include childhood abuse, long-term stress, and social isolation. Conduct research and describe how experiencing these challenges can result in mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. Tip: Make sure to cite research from credible sources. 

Our upbringing shapes how we confront challenges and find resolutions. These lessons are communicated through events we are exposed to as children and young adults. In this essay , describe the ways that different upbringings can impact our ability to cope with challenges . 

For example, a child who grew up in a family where anger was used to resolve challenges may be more likely to deal with their own challenges in a negative way, resulting in anger and anxiety. Look for studies that support this prompt and identify the importance of a family unit in a child’s reaction to life challenges . Check out our 20 engaging essay topics about family .

To narrow down the subject for your essay , focus on an aspect of an individual’s life they can’t remove, such as livelihood. Use this prompt to open a discussion about the challenges people face in their workplace and find cases that illustrate these difficulties. 

For example, there are 48.6 million Americans who have experienced workplace bullying. Delve into the reasons for these issues and offer possible solutions.

Overcoming tough challenges in life may lead to positive or negative results. Divide your essay into two parts, list the pros and cons of dealing with everyday life challenges , and add relevant factors that lead to those outcomes. 

Here’s an example: After the death of a loved one, an individual will learn how to deal with the pain and continue living their life with a stronger faith. On the other hand, they may succumb to sadness and become depressed.

For this prompt, choose a specific life challenge you had to deal with and how you addressed the situation. Narrate the difficulties you needed to manage during that time and ensure to highlight the qualities or values you used to overcome them.

Following the previous point’s example, if you have experienced losing a close relative, your struggles could include consoling your family and yourself while needing to oversee how the deceased’s funeral and estate are handled. You can describe how you overcame this challenge by remaining composed and wise throughout the ordeal. 

Looking for more? Check out our guide on how to write essays about depression .

• Essay Guide
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• Student Tips

How to Write a Personal Challenge Essay (with Examples)

A personal challenge essay offers a singular chance for introspection and personal development. It gives you a chance to consider your past, face difficulties, and demonstrate your tenacity. This essay structure enables you to communicate your ideas and experiences with others, regardless of whether you’ve overcome hardship, dealt with a tricky circumstance, or chased an audacious goal. You’ll walk you through the phases of writing an engaging personal challenge essay in this in-depth guide, complete with samples that demonstrate the procedure.

Understanding the Personal Challenge Essay

The Personal challenges in life as a student essay asks you to describe an instance or time in your life when you had to overcome challenges, setbacks, or barriers. It’s an opportunity to demonstrate your resilience, your capacity to face adversity, and the lessons you’ve picked up along the road. This kind of article necessitates reflection, sincerity, and skillful narrative.

Selecting a Meaningful Challenge

It’s important to pick the correct challenge to write about. Think about Personal challenges in life as a student essay that profoundly influenced your development, principles, or attitude on life. It can have been an obstacle you overcame in your studies, relationships, sense of self, or any other area of your life. The task should have personal significance for you and provide information that your audience can relate to.

Structuring Your Personal Challenge Essay

To effectively portray your experiences, feelings, and growth, writing an engaging personal challenge essay involves careful thought and a well-organized format. The following steps will show you how to organize your essay such that it presents a logical and interesting story:

Introduction:

Beginning your essay with an attention-grabbing hook that draws the reader in and highlights the topic of the difficulty you’ll be exploring is a good idea. This might be a provocative inquiry, a moving saying, a detailed account, or a first-hand account associated with your issue.

Background & Context:

Make sure the reader has all the background knowledge they need to comprehend your dilemma. Describe the context, surroundings, and any other pertinent information that establishes the scene for your narrative. Additionally, you have the choice to ask for assistance from PhD thesis writing help if you run into difficulties when writing the background and context of your thesis or dissertation or if you are unsure owing to a lack of experience. They can offer helpful assistance to improve the caliber of your work.

The Challenge:

Describe the challenge in detail in a portion of your essay. When describing the challenges, difficulties, or setbacks you encountered, be descriptive and in-depth.

Your Reaction and Result:

Write about how you responded to the challenge in this part. What steps have you taken? Did you make crucial decisions, prepare a plan, or ask for assistance? Be sure to emphasize your ability to solve problems, tenacity, and any other traits that may have helped you overcome the obstacle.

Growth and Reflection:

Consider the encounter and share what you took away from it. What effects did the challenge have on your emotions, mind, and possibly even body? What new understandings did you get about who you are, your values, or your outlook on life? Describe how you overcame the obstacle to grow personally, discover yourself, or alter your perspective.

Takeaways & Lessons:

The exact lessons you took away from overcoming the obstacle should be highlighted. What priceless knowledge, abilities, or traits did you acquire as a result? Describe how these teachings have shaped your current behavior, choices, or attitude in life.

Conclusion:

Writing a compelling conclusion that connects everything can help you to conclude your essay. Write a summary of your shared journey, highlighting your personal development and new perspectives.

Include a Call to Action (Optional):

Depending on the nature of your issue, you might want to include a call to action that prompts the reader to reflect on their own issues, take action, or adopt a particular attitude.

After you’ve finished writing the essay, take some time to review and make any necessary changes. Check that the grammar, spelling, and punctuation in your writing are correct, as well as the flow.

Maintain You’re Authentic Voice Throughout the Essay:

While it’s crucial to follow a structured methodology, don’t forget to preserve your authentic voice. Remain sincere, honest, and personal in your writing. Your unique perspective and emotions will lend greater authenticity to your writing and make it more compelling. By adhering to the instructions outlined in this comprehensive guide, you’ll effectively organize your personal challenge essay. This approach will skillfully lead your readers through your journey, captivating their attention and leaving a memorable impression. Furthermore, if you find it challenging to maintain a systematic approach, consider seeking assistance from master thesis writing help. Their expertise can aid you in completing your work with precision and coherence.

Don’ts and Dos

Be upfront and honest when discussing your experiences. Do emphasize your development and lessons acquired. To keep the reader’s attention, employ colorful language and descriptions. Don’t make up or embellish details. Instead of blaming others for the difficulty, concentrate on your solution. Choose a challenge that had a significant influence rather than one that was inconsequential.

Examples of Personal Challenge Essays

Following are the Personal challenge essay examples:

Overcoming Academic Challenges:

Navigating the challenges we face in life essay can be a transformative journey that leads to personal growth and self-discovery. A prime example of this is when I confronted a series of academic setbacks. I realized that my ingrained fear of failing was standing in the way of my development. I, however, resisted allowing this fear to direct my course. I started a quest for self-improvement with pure tenacity. I reached out for guidance and support, shedding light on the power of seeking assistance when needed.

Overcoming Fear:

For instance, I had always been terrified of public speaking, but I had to face my phobia to present in front of a large crowd. I overcame my anxiety about public speaking over time with practice and confidence, and I also acquired speaking abilities that I still use today.

Dealing with Personal Loss:

Losing a loved one was a difficult emotional experience that altered my outlook on relationships and life. I learned the value of cherishing moments and helping others in need through my grief and contemplation.

Examples of challenges you have overcome as a student essay

I have encountered a range of challenges as a student, which has pushed my perseverance, adaptability, and resilience to the test. Even though they occasionally proved to be challenging, these obstacles ultimately helped me become a better and more capable individual. Here are a few instances of obstacles I overcame in my academic career:

Time Management Challenges:

Juggling schoolwork, assignments, extracurricular activities, and personal obligations can be difficult. There were times when I struggled to adequately manage my time, which resulted in missed deadlines and frustration. To overcome this difficulty, I started adopting time management strategies like making a thorough calendar, establishing priorities, and breaking work down into smaller, more manageable pieces. I became more organized about my obligations over time, which led to increased productivity and decreased stress. Furthermore, many students pursuing careers in the medical field face similarly demanding schedules that make it challenging to meet deadlines. In such cases, they often turn to nursing research paper writing services to ensure the quality and timeliness of their assignments.

Academic Setbacks:

It was demoralizing to experience academic setbacks, such as earning lower grades than expected. I decided to take advantage of these setbacks as chances for improvement rather than giving in to self-doubt. I requested input from my lecturers, made note of my weaknesses, and put focused study techniques into practice. I was able to improve my academic performance and regain my confidence by persevering and being willing to learn from my failures.

Language Barrier:

Navigating English as a second language introduced a unique set of challenges, especially in terms of effective communication and the completion of writing assignments. In essays and presentations, I often encountered hurdles in articulating my thoughts coherently and concisely. To overcome this hurdle, I actively expanded my vocabulary, engaged in consistent reading and writing exercises, and actively sought input from peers and professors. Furthermore, this drive to enhance my linguistic abilities not only improved my communication skills but also bolstered my confidence in expressing myself in academic and professional settings. My determination to conquer these language-related challenges demonstrates my commitment to growth and adaptability, qualities that I believe would make me a strong candidate for the Harvard Scholarship Essay .

Dynamics of Group Projects:

Due to the various work habits, schedules, and perspectives held by the group members, collaborative projects have occasionally proven to be difficult. I adopted efficient communication techniques, such as active listening and open discussion, to handle these circumstances. By praising each team member’s abilities and accomplishments, I helped to create a more effective and pleasant working atmosphere.

Personal Well-Being and Health:

It can be difficult to maintain a good balance between your personal needs and your academic obligations. I have occasionally overlooked my needs, which has resulted in burnout and a decline in drive. I gave exercise, wholesome eating, and regular breaks top priority since I understood how important self-care was. This all-encompassing strategy not only increased my general well-being but also sharpened my attention and increased my output. These examples collectively constitute my challenges in life as a student essay. They serve as valuable lessons that offer insights on how to navigate and overcome various situations.

How to Revise and Improve Your Essay

For instance, if you are given a topic such as “Essay on Environmental Problems and Their Solutions” and you’re not well-versed in it, it’s advisable to invest time in research. This will enable you to create quality content for your essay. After writing your personal challenge essay, it’s essential to engage in the editing and revision process. Ensure that your essay flows logically and that your ideas are well-organized. Edit for clarity, grammar, and punctuation. If you’re seeking a comprehensive perspective, consider seeking feedback from peers, professors, or mentors.

Frequently Asked Questions

Final thoughts.

Writing a personal challenge essay offers you the chance to share your unique journey and inspire others through your resilience and progress you can create an engaging tale that engrosses your readers by choosing a pertinent challenge, using a solid essay structure, and remaining honest. It’s crucial to remember that your essay about a personal issue demonstrates both your capacity for self-reflection and personal development in addition to your capacity for overcoming challenges. For those who face challenges in managing their academic tasks, there are online homework writing services available that can provide valuable assistance and support.

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Hard Times in Life Essay: What People Don't Realize

By: Henrique Bertulino

Every day, regular people have to surmount the most heart-wrenching situations in order to realize the hope of better days left to come. Suffering has always been a part of daily life, forming a big part of philosophy. The first thing Tripitaka states as the Buddha's teachings is simply, "Life is suffering."

Hard Times: A Story in Motion - Essay Sample

What can we learn from this essay example, how to write about hard times.

People spend so much time trying to run away from the hard times in life, refusing to realize that they a big part of existence, that they invariably end up pushing themselves towards unhappiness.

When enduring hard times, people inevitably turn to things and people that will offer them some solace. Self-help books are flying out of the shelves faster than people can get their hands on them. This perpetual need for positivity has crystallized into an unstoppable desire and is being taken advantage of by these many self-help gurus.

All that these books do is regurgitate, in probably simpler language, what the Buddha said all that time ago. Rough times can't be sidestepped. All you need to get through them is the comfort of your loved ones, be it a friend or family, and change your point of view on the matter. The secret to surviving hard times is to take things step by step - something that gets easily forgotten by people in this age of utilitarianism and social media-led instant gratification.

The following sample   essay   will illustrate the first-hand experience of hard times.

Considering the truly difficult times in life is actually very easy. Reminiscing on tough times will usually bring back unfortunate memories and feelings, and you will never truly be rid of them. The worse the experience, the stronger it sticks out in your mind, the easier it is to remember. Personally, the most difficult time of my entire life was the first few days after my father's bicycle incident.

For almost three days, I really could not check in with my father, who had gotten struck head-on by a red Chev truck. It had been truly the most difficult thing I've ever experienced, not knowing whether I would see him alive once again. 

It started off like any typical Wednesday. I had just gotten home from the express choral competition in Knutson, and my father was setting off on his regular Tuesday nighttime ride. My wife, Louisa, and I came home around six o'clock, just in time to see my mom popping out the door sobbing. This was one of the very few times I had seen my mom weep.

Obviously curious - and a little bit shook - about why my mother was sobbing, I asked her what was wrong. All she could say was, "Your dad's been hit." 

It was a little while until her words sunk in, but after a few seconds, I fully comprehended exactly what she meant. It was really gut-wrenching. She told my siblings and me that other visitors were not allowed at the hospital with her, and that's when I broke down.

It was so nerve-wracking to think of what all was going on at the hospital and whether or not my father would be fine. The next day or two weren't any better. My uncle, aunt, cousin, and grandmother, all of whom were on my mom's side of the family, came and stayed the night with us. My mom, though, slept at the hospital. 

It was great to have the support of my children being there, but it was hard since I had to teach high school the following day. Enduring every single one of those horrible emotions and thoughts throughout the day really took a toll on my health.

My other grandma and granddaddy, uncle and aunt, coming from my father's side, arrived that Friday. Again, I was thankful to have so many caring family members around, but it was still too much. Going three days and nights without seeing my father was awful. Constantly thinking about what all had happened to him brought tears to my eyes. The worst feeling was knowing that I could not get bummed out anymore. Staying strong in difficult situations takes a lot out of you.

Seconds, minutes, and hours all felt like the passage of months and years. That Friday was the first time I got the chance to see him. Seeing my father lying on a hospital bed, bruised from head to toes, with a busted leg and broken neck, truly humbled me.

I try to under no circumstances take everything I have for granted anymore, and I frequently remind myself that I was certainly blessed by God to still have my father around despite everything he had to go through.

Hard times are necessary because they make us better. They make us stronger. And if you refer to the above essay example, you will see that the writer did not triumph all on his own. You are not alone, either, no matter how much you think it is true.

The trials we face are only there, so we emerge as kinder, wiser beings that can extend the kindness we received from our loved ones to others in need. In the essay example, the author repeatedly expresses his gratitude for the arrival of his family members, his wife, and his kids. He would not have made it alone. We, as humans, are not designed to function in solitude. We need others for the sake of our well-being.

In Charles Dickens'   Hard Times , the archetypal novel about this theme, we see clearly through the struggles faced by Mr. Gradgrind in his family life that it is only through feeling, accepting, and working through great pains that we emerge as stronger and wiser human beings. Beings capable of empathy and love, beings capable of overcoming sorrow and hard times.

Writing about your own experiences can be a very vulnerable experience, and that is something you need to embrace when writing an essay about hard times. Charles Dickens mostly wrote about his own experiences in his masterpieces like   Oliver Twist  or   David Copperfield.  What makes them so popular?

Well, the secret lies in humanizing the characters. Like in the sample essay, you have to talk about an experience that most people can empathize with. People don't have to undergo the same trials as you in order to put themselves in your shoes. You need them to imagine what I must have been like. If you can do that, then you're there.

Masters of the craft like Dickens and Dostoyevsky are able to make you root for their main characters by simply making their sufferings relatable. Losing a parent, seeing a friend suffer, losing your job - these are all things that people know what it's like to go through. You have to put your spin on the event and make it worth caring about. 

Here are some topics you might want to explore:

• Everything You Need to Know About Communicating Hard Times
• Life Beyond Pain: How to Deal with Hard Times
• A Story of Thriving Despite Pain
• Why Tough Times Don't Last
• How to Make People Feel Your Pain Through Writing

If you feel that you need help in   essay editing , you can rely on our   essay writing service . Our experts are always here to help!

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Greater Good Science Center • Magazine • In Action • In Education

How Gratitude Can Help You Through Hard Times

A decade’s worth of research on gratitude has shown me that when life is going well, gratitude allows us to celebrate and magnify the goodness. But what about when life goes badly? In the midst of the economic maelstrom that has gripped our country, I have often been asked if people can—or even should—feel grateful under such dire circumstances.

This essay is adapted from Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity .

My response is that not only will a grateful attitude help—it is essential . In fact, it is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. In the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize. In the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. In other words, gratitude can help us cope with hard times.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not suggesting that gratitude will come easily or naturally in a crisis. It’s easy to feel grateful for the good things. No one “feels” grateful that they have lost a job or a home or good health or has taken a devastating hit on their retirement portfolio.

But it is vital to make a distinction between feeling grateful and being grateful. We don’t have total control over our emotions. We cannot easily will ourselves to feel grateful, less depressed, or happy. Feelings follow from the way we look at the world, thoughts we have about the way things are, the way things should be, and the distance between these two points.

But being grateful is a choice, a prevailing attitude that endures and is relatively immune to the gains and losses that flow in and out of our lives. When disaster strikes, gratitude provides a perspective from which we can view life in its entirety and not be overwhelmed by temporary circumstances. Yes, this perspective is hard to achieve—but my research says it is worth the effort.

Remember the bad

Trials and suffering can actually refine and deepen gratefulness if we allow them to show us not to take things for granted. Our national holiday of gratitude, Thanksgiving, was born and grew out of hard times. The first Thanksgiving took place after nearly half the pilgrims died from a rough winter and year. It became a national holiday in 1863 in the middle of the Civil War and was moved to its current date in the 1930s following the Depression.

Why? Well, when times are good, people take prosperity for granted and begin to believe that they are invulnerable. In times of uncertainty, though, people realize how powerless they are to control their own destiny. If you begin to see that everything you have, everything you have counted on, may be taken away, it becomes much harder to take it for granted.

The Gratitude Project

What if we didn't take good things for granted? Learn how gratitude can lead to a better life—and a better world—in this new GGSC book.

So crisis can make us more grateful—but research says gratitude also helps us cope with crisis. Consciously cultivating an attitude of gratitude builds up a sort of psychological immune system that can cushion us when we fall. There is scientific evidence that grateful people are more resilient to stress, whether minor everyday hassles or major personal upheavals. The contrast between suffering and redemption serves as the basis for one of my tips for practicing gratitude: remember the bad.

It works this way: Think of the worst times in your life, your sorrows, your losses, your sadness—and then remember that here you are, able to remember them, that you made it through the worst times of your life, you got through the trauma, you got through the trial, you endured the temptation, you survived the bad relationship, you’re making your way out of the dark. Remember the bad things, then look to see where you are now.

This process of remembering how difficult life used to be and how far we have come sets up an explicit contrast that is fertile ground for gratefulness. Our minds think in terms of counterfactuals—mental comparisons we make between the way things are and how things might have been different. Contrasting the present with negative times in the past can make us feel happier (or at least less unhappy) and enhance our overall sense of well-being. This opens the door to coping gratefully.

Try this little exercise. First, think about one of the unhappiest events you have experienced. How often do you find yourself thinking about this event today? Does the contrast with the present make you feel grateful and pleased? Do you realize your current life situation is not as bad as it could be? Try to realize and appreciate just how much better your life is now. The point is not to ignore or forget the past but to develop a fruitful frame of reference in the present from which to view experiences and events.

There’s another way to foster gratitude: confront your own mortality. In a recent study, researchers asked participants to imagine a scenario where they are trapped in a burning high rise, overcome by smoke, and killed. This resulted in a substantial increase in gratitude levels, as researchers discovered when they compared this group to two control conditions who were not compelled to imagine their own deaths.

In these ways, remembering the bad can help us to appreciate the good. As the German theologian and Lutheran pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy.” We know that gratitude enhances happiness, but why? Gratitude maximizes happiness in multiple ways, and one reason is that it helps us reframe memories of unpleasant events in a way that decreases their unpleasant emotional impact. This implies that grateful coping entails looking for positive consequences of negative events. For example, grateful coping might involve seeing how a stressful event has shaped who we are today and has prompted us to reevaluate what is really important in life.

Reframing disaster

To say that gratitude is a helpful strategy to handle hurt feelings does not mean that we should try to ignore or deny suffering and pain.

The GGSC's coverage of gratitude is sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation as part of our Expanding Gratitude project.

The field of positive psychology has at times been criticized for failing to acknowledge the value of negative emotions. Barbara Held of Bowdoin College in Maine, for example, contends that positive psychology has been too negative about negativity and too positive about positivity. To deny that life has its share of disappointments, frustrations, losses, hurts, setbacks, and sadness would be unrealistic and untenable. Life is suffering. No amount of positive thinking exercises will change this truth.

So telling people simply to buck up, count their blessings, and remember how much they still have to be grateful for can certainly do much harm. Processing a life experience through a grateful lens does not mean denying negativity. It is not a form of superficial happiology. Instead, it means realizing the power you have to transform an obstacle into an opportunity. It means reframing a loss into a potential gain, recasting negativity into positive channels for gratitude.

A growing body of research has examined how grateful recasting works. In a study conducted at Eastern Washington University, participants were randomly assigned to one of three writing groups that would recall and report on an unpleasant open memory—a loss, a betrayal, victimization, or some other personally upsetting experience. The first group wrote for 20 minutes on issues that were irrelevant to their open memory. The second wrote about their experience pertaining to their open memory.

Researchers asked the third group to focus on the positive aspects of a difficult experience—and discover what about it might now make them feel grateful. Results showed that they demonstrated more closure and less unpleasant emotional impact than participants who just wrote about the experience without being prompted to see ways it might be redeemed with gratitude. Participants were never told not to think about the negative aspects of the experience or to deny or ignore the pain. Moreover, participants who found reasons to be grateful demonstrated fewer intrusive memories, such as wondering why it happened, whether it could have been prevented, or if they believed they caused it to happen. Thinking gratefully, this study showed, can help heal troubling memories and in a sense redeem them—a result echoed in many other studies.

Some years ago, I asked people with debilitating physical illnesses to compose a narrative concerning a time when they felt a deep sense of gratitude to someone or for something. I asked them to let themselves re-create that experience in their minds so that they could feel the emotions as if they had transported themselves back in time to the event itself. I also had them reflect on what they felt in that situation and how they expressed those feelings. In the face of progressive diseases, people often find life extremely challenging, painful, and frustrating. I wondered whether it would even be possible for them to find anything to be grateful about. For many of them, life revolved around visits to the pain clinic and pharmacy. I would not have been at all surprised if resentment overshadowed gratefulness.

More on Gratitude

How grateful are you? Take our quiz .

Read about ways gratitude can backfire .

Do your kids sometimes act like entitled brats? This video can help.

As it turned out, most respondents had trouble settling on a specific instance—they simply had so much in their lives that they were grateful for. I was struck by the profound depth of feeling that they conveyed in their essays, and by the apparent life-transforming power of gratitude in many of their lives.

It was evident from reading these narrative accounts that (1) gratitude can be an overwhelmingly intense feeling, (2) gratitude for gifts that others easily overlook most can be the most powerful and frequent form of thankfulness, and (3) gratitude can be chosen in spite of one’s situation or circumstances. I was also struck by the redemptive twist that occurred in nearly half of these narratives: out of something bad (suffering, adversity, affliction) came something good (new life or new opportunities) for which the person felt profoundly grateful.

If you are troubled by an open memory or a past unpleasant experience, you might consider trying to reframe how you think about it using the language of thankfulness. The unpleasant experiences in our lives don’t have to be of the traumatic variety in order for us to gratefully benefit from them. Whether it is a large or small event, here are some additional questions to ask yourself:

• What lessons did the experience teach me?
• Can I find ways to be thankful for what happened to me now even though I was not at the time it happened?
• What ability did the experience draw out of me that surprised me?
• How am I now more the person I want to be because of it? Have my negative feelings about the experience limited or prevented my ability to feel gratitude in the time since it occurred?
• Has the experience removed a personal obstacle that previously prevented me from feeling grateful?

Remember, your goal is not to relive the experience but rather to get a new perspective on it. Simply rehearsing an upsetting event makes us feel worse about it. That is why catharsis has rarely been effective. Emotional venting without accompanying insight does not produce change. No amount of writing about the event will help unless you are able to take a fresh, redemptive perspective on it. This is an advantage that grateful people have—and it is a skill that anyone can learn.

About the Author

Robert Emmons

University of california, davis.

Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D. , is the world's leading scientific expert on gratitude. He is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis, and the founding editor-in-chief of The Journal of Positive Psychology . He is the author of the books Gratitude Works!: A 21-Day Program for Creating Emotional Prosperity and Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier .

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8 Overcoming Challenges College Essay Examples

The purpose of the Overcoming Challenges essay is for schools to see how you might handle the difficulties of college. They want to know how you grow, evolve, and learn when you face adversity. For this topic, there are many clichés , such as getting a bad grade or losing a sports game, so be sure to steer clear of those and focus on a topic that’s unique to you. (See our full guide on the Overcoming Challenges Essay for more tips).

These overcoming challenges essay examples were all written by real students. Read through them to get a sense of what makes a strong essay. At the end, we’ll present the revision process for the first essay and share some resources for improving your essay.

Please note: Looking at examples of real essays students have submitted to colleges can be very beneficial to get inspiration for your essays. You should never copy or plagiarize from these examples when writing your own essays. Colleges can tell when an essay isn’t genuine and will not view students favorably if they plagiarized. 

Essay 1: Becoming a Coach

“Advanced females ages 13 to 14 please proceed to staging with your coaches at this time.” Skittering around the room, eyes wide and pleading, I frantically explained my situation to nearby coaches. The seconds ticked away in my head; every polite refusal increased my desperation.

Despair weighed me down. I sank to my knees as a stream of competitors, coaches, and officials flowed around me. My dojang had no coach, and the tournament rules prohibited me from competing without one.

Although I wanted to remain strong, doubts began to cloud my mind. I could not help wondering: what was the point of perfecting my skills if I would never even compete? The other members of my team, who had found coaches minutes earlier, attempted to comfort me, but I barely heard their words. They couldn’t understand my despair at being left on the outside, and I never wanted them to understand.

Since my first lesson 12 years ago, the members of my dojang have become family. I have watched them grow up, finding my own happiness in theirs. Together, we have honed our kicks, blocks, and strikes. We have pushed one another to aim higher and become better martial artists. Although my dojang had searched for a reliable coach for years, we had not found one. When we attended competitions in the past, my teammates and I had always gotten lucky and found a sympathetic coach. Now, I knew this practice was unsustainable. It would devastate me to see the other members of my dojang in my situation, unable to compete and losing hope as a result. My dojang needed a coach, and I decided it was up to me to find one.

I first approached the adults in the dojang – both instructors and members’ parents. However, these attempts only reacquainted me with polite refusals. Everyone I asked told me they couldn’t devote multiple weekends per year to competitions. I soon realized that I would have become the coach myself.

At first, the inner workings of tournaments were a mystery to me. To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side. I learned everything from motivational strategies to technical, behind-the-scenes components of Taekwondo competitions. Though I emerged with new knowledge and confidence in my capabilities, others did not share this faith.

Parents threw me disbelieving looks when they learned that their children’s coach was only a child herself. My self-confidence was my armor, deflecting their surly glances. Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

Despite the attack, I refused to give up. When I saw the shining eyes of the youngest students preparing for their first competition, I knew I couldn’t let them down. To quit would be to set them up to be barred from competing like I was. The knowledge that I could solve my dojang’s longtime problem motivated me to overcome my apprehension.

Now that my dojang flourishes at competitions, the attacks on me have weakened, but not ended. I may never win the approval of every parent; at times, I am still tormented by doubts, but I find solace in the fact that members of my dojang now only worry about competing to the best of their abilities.

Now, as I arrive at a tournament with my students, I close my eyes and remember the past. I visualize the frantic search for a coach and the chaos amongst my teammates as we competed with one another to find coaches before the staging calls for our respective divisions. I open my eyes to the exact opposite scene. Lacking a coach hurt my ability to compete, but I am proud to know that no member of my dojang will have to face that problem again.

This essay begins with an in-the-moment narrative that really illustrates the chaos of looking for a coach last-minute. We feel the writer’s emotions, particularly their dejectedness, at not being able to compete.

Through this essay, we can see how gutsy and determined the student is in deciding to become a coach themselves. The writer shows us these characteristics through their actions, rather than explicitly telling us: To prepare myself for success as a coach, I spent the next year as an official and took coaching classes on the side.

One area of improvement of this essay would be the “attack” wording. The author likely uses this word as a metaphor for martial arts, but it feels too strong to describe the adults’ doubt of the student’s abilities as a coach, and can even be confusing at first.

Still, we see the student’s resilience as they are able to move past the disbelieving looks to help their team. The essay is kept real and vulnerable, however, as the writer admits having doubts: Every armor is penetrable, however, and as the relentless barrage of doubts pounded my resilience, it began to wear down. I grew unsure of my own abilities.

The essay comes full circle as the author recalls the frantic situations in seeking out a coach, but this is no longer a concern for them and their team. Overall, this essay is extremely effective in painting this student as mature, bold, and compassionate.

Essay 2: Starting a Fire

Was I no longer the beloved daughter of nature, whisperer of trees? Knee-high rubber boots, camouflage, bug spray—I wore the garb and perfume of a proud wild woman, yet there I was, hunched over the pathetic pile of stubborn sticks, utterly stumped, on the verge of tears. As a child, I had considered myself a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes, who was serenaded by mourning doves and chickadees, who could glide through tick-infested meadows and emerge Lyme-free. I knew the cracks of the earth like the scars on my own rough palms. Yet here I was, ten years later, incapable of performing the most fundamental outdoor task: I could not, for the life of me, start a fire. 

Furiously I rubbed the twigs together—rubbed and rubbed until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers. No smoke. The twigs were too young, too sticky-green; I tossed them away with a shower of curses, and began tearing through the underbrush in search of a more flammable collection. My efforts were fruitless. Livid, I bit a rejected twig, determined to prove that the forest had spurned me, offering only young, wet bones that would never burn. But the wood cracked like carrots between my teeth—old, brittle, and bitter. Roaring and nursing my aching palms, I retreated to the tent, where I sulked and awaited the jeers of my family. 

Rattling their empty worm cans and reeking of fat fish, my brother and cousins swaggered into the campsite. Immediately, they noticed the minor stick massacre by the fire pit and called to me, their deep voices already sharp with contempt. 

“Where’s the fire, Princess Clara?” they taunted. “Having some trouble?” They prodded me with the ends of the chewed branches and, with a few effortless scrapes of wood on rock, sparked a red and roaring flame. My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame. 

In the tent, I pondered my failure. Was I so dainty? Was I that incapable? I thought of my hands, how calloused and capable they had been, how tender and smooth they had become. It had been years since I’d kneaded mud between my fingers; instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano, my hands softening into those of a musician—fleshy and sensitive. And I’d gotten glasses, having grown horrifically nearsighted; long nights of dim lighting and thick books had done this. I couldn’t remember the last time I had lain down on a hill, barefaced, and seen the stars without having to squint. Crawling along the edge of the tent, a spider confirmed my transformation—he disgusted me, and I felt an overwhelming urge to squash him. 

Yet, I realized I hadn’t really changed—I had only shifted perspective. I still eagerly explored new worlds, but through poems and prose rather than pastures and puddles. I’d grown to prefer the boom of a bass over that of a bullfrog, learned to coax a different kind of fire from wood, having developed a burn for writing rhymes and scrawling hypotheses. 

That night, I stayed up late with my journal and wrote about the spider I had decided not to kill. I had tolerated him just barely, only shrieking when he jumped—it helped to watch him decorate the corners of the tent with his delicate webs, knowing that he couldn’t start fires, either. When the night grew cold and the embers died, my words still smoked—my hands burned from all that scrawling—and even when I fell asleep, the ideas kept sparking—I was on fire, always on fire.

This essay is an excellent example because the writer turns an everyday challenge—starting a fire—into an exploration of her identity. The writer was once “a kind of rustic princess, a cradler of spiders and centipedes,” but has since traded her love of the outdoors for a love of music, writing, and reading. 

The story begins in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. One of the essay’s biggest strengths is its use of imagery. We can easily visualize the writer’s childhood and the present day. For instance, she states that she “rubbed and rubbed [the twigs] until shreds of skin flaked from my fingers.”

The writing has an extremely literary quality, particularly with its wordplay. The writer reappropriates words and meanings, and even appeals to the senses: “My face burned long after I left the fire pit. The camp stank of salmon and shame.” She later uses a parallelism to cleverly juxtapose her changed interests: “instead of scaling a white pine, I’d practiced scales on my piano.”

One of the essay’s main areas of improvement is its overemphasis on the “story” and lack of emphasis on the reflection. The second to last paragraph about changing perspective is crucial to the essay, as it ties the anecdote to larger lessons in the writer’s life. She states that she hasn’t changed, but has only shifted perspective. Yet, we don’t get a good sense of where this realization comes from and how it impacts her life going forward. 

The end of the essay offers a satisfying return to the fire imagery, and highlights the writer’s passion—the one thing that has remained constant in her life.

Essay 3: Last-Minute Switch

The morning of the Model United Nation conference, I walked into Committee feeling confident about my research. We were simulating the Nuremberg Trials – a series of post-World War II proceedings for war crimes – and my portfolio was of the Soviet Judge Major General Iona Nikitchenko. Until that day, the infamous Nazi regime had only been a chapter in my history textbook; however, the conference’s unveiling of each defendant’s crimes brought those horrors to life. The previous night, I had organized my research, proofread my position paper and gone over Judge Nikitchenko’s pertinent statements. I aimed to find the perfect balance between his stance and my own.

As I walked into committee anticipating a battle of wits, my director abruptly called out to me. “I’m afraid we’ve received a late confirmation from another delegate who will be representing Judge Nikitchenko. You, on the other hand, are now the defense attorney, Otto Stahmer.” Everyone around me buzzed around the room in excitement, coordinating with their allies and developing strategies against their enemies, oblivious to the bomb that had just dropped on me. I felt frozen in my tracks, and it seemed that only rage against the careless delegate who had confirmed her presence so late could pull me out of my trance. After having spent a month painstakingly crafting my verdicts and gathering evidence against the Nazis, I now needed to reverse my stance only three hours before the first session.

Gradually, anger gave way to utter panic. My research was fundamental to my performance, and without it, I knew I could add little to the Trials. But confident in my ability, my director optimistically recommended constructing an impromptu defense. Nervously, I began my research anew. Despite feeling hopeless, as I read through the prosecution’s arguments, I uncovered substantial loopholes. I noticed a lack of conclusive evidence against the defendants and certain inconsistencies in testimonies. My discovery energized me, inspiring me to revisit the historical overview in my conference “Background Guide” and to search the web for other relevant articles. Some Nazi prisoners had been treated as “guilty” before their court dates. While I had brushed this information under the carpet while developing my position as a judge, i t now became the focus of my defense. I began scratching out a new argument, centered on the premise that the allied countries had violated the fundamental rule that, a defendant was “not guilty” until proven otherwise.

At the end of the three hours, I felt better prepared. The first session began, and with bravado, I raised my placard to speak. Microphone in hand, I turned to face my audience. “Greetings delegates. I, Otto Stahmer would like to…….” I suddenly blanked. Utter dread permeated my body as I tried to recall my thoughts in vain. “Defence Attorney, Stahmer we’ll come back to you,” my Committee Director broke the silence as I tottered back to my seat, flushed with embarrassment. Despite my shame, I was undeterred. I needed to vindicate my director’s faith in me. I pulled out my notes, refocused, and began outlining my arguments in a more clear and direct manner. Thereafter, I spoke articulately, confidently putting forth my points. I was overjoyed when Secretariat members congratulated me on my fine performance.

Going into the conference, I believed that preparation was the key to success. I wouldn’t say I disagree with that statement now, but I believe adaptability is equally important. My ability to problem-solve in the face of an unforeseen challenge proved advantageous in the art of diplomacy. Not only did this experience transform me into a confident and eloquent delegate at that conference, but it also helped me become a more flexible and creative thinker in a variety of other capacities. Now that I know I can adapt under pressure, I look forward to engaging in activities that will push me to be even quicker on my feet.

This essay is an excellent example because it focuses on a unique challenge and is highly engaging. The writer details their experience reversing their stance in a Model UN trial with only a few hours notice, after having researched and prepared to argue the opposite perspective for a month. 

Their essay is written in media res , or in the middle of the action, allowing readers to feel as if we’re there with the writer. The student openly shares their internal thoughts with us — we feel their anger and panic upon the reversal of roles. We empathize with their emotions of “utter dread” and embarrassment when they’re unable to speak. 

From the essay, we learn that the student believes in thorough preparation, but can also adapt to unforeseen obstacles. They’re able to rise to the challenge and put together an impromptu argument, think critically under pressure, and recover after their initial inability to speak. 

Essay 4: Music as a Coping Mechanism

CW: This essay mentions self-harm.

Sobbing uncontrollably, I parked around the corner from my best friend’s house. As I sat in the driver’s seat, I whispered the most earnest prayer I had ever offered.

Minutes before, I had driven to Colin’s house to pick up a prop for our upcoming spring musical. When I got there, his older brother, Tom, came to the door and informed me that no one else was home. “No,” I corrected, “Colin is here. He’s got a migraine.” Tom shook his head and gently told me where Colin actually was: the psychiatric unit of the local hospital. I felt a weight on my chest as I connected the dots; the terrifying picture rocked my safe little world. Tom’s words blurred as he explained Colin’s self-harm, but all I could think of was whether I could have stopped him. Those cuts on his arms had never been accidents. Colin had lied, very convincingly, many times. How could I have ignored the signs in front of me? Somehow, I managed to ask Tom whether I could see him, but he told me that visiting hours for non-family members were over for the day. I would have to move on with my afternoon.

Once my tears had subsided a little, I drove to the theater, trying to pull myself together and warm up to sing. How would I rehearse? I couldn’t sing three notes without bursting into tears. “I can’t do this,” I thought. But then I realized that the question wasn’t whether I could do it. I knew Colin would want me to push through, and something deep inside told me that music was the best way for me to process my grief. I needed to sing.

I practiced the lyrics throughout my whole drive. The first few times, I broke down in sobs. By the time I reached the theater, however, the music had calmed me. While Colin would never be far from my mind, I had to focus on the task ahead: recording vocals and then producing the video trailer that would be shown to my high school classmates. I fought to channel my worry into my recording. If my voice shook during the particularly heartfelt moments, it only added emotion and depth to my performance. I felt Colin’s absence next to me, but even before I listened to that first take, I knew it was a keeper.

With one of my hurdles behind me, I steeled myself again and prepared for the musical’s trailer. In a floor-length black cape and purple dress, I swept regally down the steps to my director, who waited outside. Under a gloomy sky that threatened to turn stormy, I boldly strode across the street, tossed a dainty yellow bouquet, and flashed confident grins at all those staring. My grief lurched inside, but I felt powerful. Despite my sadness, I could still make art.

To my own surprise, I successfully took back the day. I had felt pain, but I had not let it drown me – making music was a productive way to express my feelings than worrying. Since then, I have been learning to take better care of myself in difficult situations. That day before rehearsal, I found myself in the most troubling circumstances of my life thus far, but they did not sink me because I refused to sink. When my aunt developed cancer several months later, I knew that resolution would not come quickly, but that I could rely on music to cope with the agony, even when it would be easier to fall apart. Thankfully, Colin recovered from his injuries and was home within days. The next week, we stood together on stage at our show’s opening night. As our eyes met and our voices joined in song, I knew that music would always be our greatest mechanism for transforming pain into strength.

This essay is well-written, as we can feel the writer’s emotions through the thoughts they share, and visualize the night of the performance through their rich descriptions. Their varied sentence length also makes the essay more engaging.

That said, this essay is not a great example because of the framing of the topic. The writer can come off as insensitive since they make their friend’s struggle about themself and their emotions (and this is only worsened by the mention of their aunt’s cancer and how it was tough on them ). The essay would’ve been stronger if it focused on their guilt of not recognizing their friend’s struggles and spanned a longer period of time to demonstrate gradual relationship building and reflection. Still, this would’ve been difficult to do well.

In general, you should try to choose a challenge that is undeniably your own, and you should get at least one or two people to read your essay to give you candid feedback.

Essay 5: Dedicating a Track

“Getting beat is one thing – it’s part of competing – but I want no part in losing.” Coach Rob Stark’s motto never fails to remind me of his encouragement on early-morning bus rides to track meets around the state. I’ve always appreciated the phrase, but an experience last June helped me understand its more profound, universal meaning.

Stark, as we affectionately call him, has coached track at my high school for 25 years. His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running. When I learned a neighboring high school had dedicated their track to a longtime coach, I felt that Stark deserved similar honors.

Our school district’s board of education indicated they would only dedicate our track to Stark if I could demonstrate that he was extraordinary. I took charge and mobilized my teammates to distribute petitions, reach out to alumni, and compile statistics on the many team and individual champions Stark had coached over the years. We received astounding support, collecting almost 3,000 signatures and pages of endorsements from across the community. With help from my teammates, I presented this evidence to the board.

They didn’t bite. 

Most members argued that dedicating the track was a low priority. Knowing that we had to act quickly to convince them of its importance, I called a team meeting where we drafted a rebuttal for the next board meeting. To my surprise, they chose me to deliver it. I was far from the best public speaker in the group, and I felt nervous about going before the unsympathetic board again. However, at that second meeting, I discovered that I enjoy articulating and arguing for something that I’m passionate about.

Public speaking resembles a cross country race. Walking to the starting line, you have to trust your training and quell your last minute doubts. When the gun fires, you can’t think too hard about anything; your performance has to be instinctual, natural, even relaxed. At the next board meeting, the podium was my starting line. As I walked up to it, familiar butterflies fluttered in my stomach. Instead of the track stretching out in front of me, I faced the vast audience of teachers, board members, and my teammates. I felt my adrenaline build, and reassured myself: I’ve put in the work, my argument is powerful and sound. As the board president told me to introduce myself, I heard, “runners set” in the back of my mind. She finished speaking, and Bang! The brief silence was the gunshot for me to begin. 

The next few minutes blurred together, but when the dust settled, I knew from the board members’ expressions and the audience’s thunderous approval that I had run quite a race. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough; the board voted down our proposal. I was disappointed, but proud of myself, my team, and our collaboration off the track. We stood up for a cause we believed in, and I overcame my worries about being a leader. Although I discovered that changing the status quo through an elected body can be a painstakingly difficult process and requires perseverance, I learned that I enjoy the challenges this effort offers. Last month, one of the school board members joked that I had become a “regular” – I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Just as Stark taught me, I worked passionately to achieve my goal. I may have been beaten when I appealed to the board, but I certainly didn’t lose, and that would have made Stark proud.

While the writer didn’t succeed in getting the track dedicated to Coach Stark, their essay is certainly successful in showing their willingness to push themselves and take initiative.

The essay opens with a quote from Coach Stark that later comes full circle at the end of the essay. We learn about Stark’s impact and the motivation for trying to get the track dedicated to him.

One of the biggest areas of improvement in the intro, however, is how the essay tells us Stark’s impact rather than showing us: His care, dedication, and emphasis on developing good character has left an enduring impact on me and hundreds of other students. Not only did he help me discover my talent and love for running, but he also taught me the importance of commitment and discipline and to approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The writer could’ve helped us feel a stronger emotional connection to Stark if they had included examples of Stark’s qualities, rather than explicitly stating them. For example, they could’ve written something like: Stark was the kind of person who would give you gas money if you told him your parents couldn’t afford to pick you up from practice. And he actually did that—several times. At track meets, alumni regularly would come talk to him and tell him how he’d changed their lives. Before Stark, I was ambivalent about running and was on the JV team, but his encouragement motivated me to run longer and harder and eventually make varsity. Because of him, I approach every endeavor with the passion and intensity that I bring to running.

The essay goes on to explain how the writer overcame their apprehension of public speaking, and likens the process of submitting an appeal to the school board to running a race. This metaphor makes the writing more engaging and allows us to feel the student’s emotions.

While the student didn’t ultimately succeed in getting the track dedicated, we learn about their resilience and initiative: I now often show up to meetings to advocate for a variety of causes, including better environmental practices in cafeterias and safer equipment for athletes.

Overall, this essay is well-done. It demonstrates growth despite failing to meet a goal, which is a unique essay structure. The running metaphor and full-circle intro/ending also elevate the writing in this essay.

Essay 6: Body Image

CW: This essay mentions eating disorders.

I press the “discover” button on my Instagram app, hoping to find enticing pictures to satisfy my boredom. Scrolling through, I see funny videos and mouth-watering pictures of food. However, one image stops me immediately. A fit teenage girl with a “perfect body” relaxes in a bikini on a beach. Beneath it, I see a slew of flattering comments. I shake with disapproval over the image’s unrealistic quality. However, part of me still wants to have a body like hers so that others will make similar comments to me.

I would like to resolve a silent issue that harms many teenagers and adults: negative self image and low self-esteem in a world where social media shapes how people view each other. When people see the façades others wear to create an “ideal” image, they can develop poor thought patterns rooted in negative self-talk. The constant comparisons to “perfect” others make people feel small. In this new digital age, it is hard to distinguish authentic from artificial representations.

When I was 11, I developed anorexia nervosa. Though I was already thin, I wanted to be skinny like the models that I saw on the magazine covers on the grocery store stands. Little did I know that those models probably also suffered from disorders, and that photoshop erased their flaws. I preferred being underweight to being healthy. No matter how little I ate or how thin I was, I always thought that I was too fat. I became obsessed with the number on the scale and would try to eat the least that I could without my parents urging me to take more. Fortunately, I stopped engaging in anorexic behaviors before middle school. However, my underlying mental habits did not change. The images that had provoked my disorder in the first place were still a constant presence in my life.

By age 15, I was in recovery from anorexia, but suffered from depression. While I used to only compare myself to models, the growth of social media meant I also compared myself to my friends and acquaintances. I felt left out when I saw my friends’ excitement about lake trips they had taken without me. As I scrolled past endless photos of my flawless, thin classmates with hundreds of likes and affirming comments, I felt my jealousy spiral. I wanted to be admired and loved by other people too. However, I felt that I could never be enough. I began to hate the way that I looked, and felt nothing in my life was good enough. I wanted to be called “perfect” and “body goals,” so I tried to only post at certain times of day to maximize my “likes.” When that didn’t work, I started to feel too anxious to post anything at all.  

Body image insecurities and social media comparisons affect thousands of people – men, women, children, and adults – every day. I am lucky – after a few months of my destructive social media habits, I came across a video that pointed out the illusory nature of social media; many Instagram posts only show off good things while people hide their flaws. I began going to therapy, and recovered from my depression. To address the problem of self-image and social media, we can all focus on what matters on the inside and not what is on the surface. As an effort to become healthy internally, I started a club at my school to promote clean eating and radiating beauty from within. It has helped me grow in my confidence, and today I’m not afraid to show others my struggles by sharing my experience with eating disorders. Someday, I hope to make this club a national organization to help teenagers and adults across the country. I support the idea of body positivity and embracing difference, not “perfection.” After all, how can we be ourselves if we all look the same?

This essay covers the difficult topics of eating disorders and mental health. If you’re thinking about covering similar topics in your essay, we recommend reading our post Should You Talk About Mental Health in College Essays?

The short answer is that, yes, you can talk about mental health, but it can be risky. If you do go that route, it’s important to focus on what you learned from the experience.

We can see that the writer of this essay has been through a lot, and a strength of their essay is their vulnerability, in excerpts such as this: I wanted to be admired and loved by other people too. However, I felt that I could never be enough. I began to hate the way that I looked, and felt nothing in my life was good enough. I wanted to be called “perfect” and “body goals,” so I tried to only post at certain times of day to maximize my “likes.”

The student goes on to share how they recovered from their depression through an eye-opening video and therapy sessions, and they’re now helping others find their self-worth as well. It’s great that this essay looks towards the future and shares the writer’s goals of making their club a national organization; we can see their ambition and compassion.

The main weakness of this essay is that it doesn’t focus enough on their recovery process, which is arguably the most important part. They could’ve told us more about the video they watched or the process of starting their club and the interactions they’ve had with other members.

Still, this essay shows us that this student is honest, self-aware, and caring, which are all qualities admissions officer are looking for.

Essay 7: Health Crisis

Tears streamed down my face and my mind was paralyzed with fear. Sirens blared, but the silent panic in my own head was deafening. I was muted by shock. A few hours earlier, I had anticipated a vacation in Washington, D.C., but unexpectedly, I was rushing to the hospital behind an ambulance carrying my mother. As a fourteen-year-old from a single mother household, without a driver’s license, and seven hours from home, I was distraught over the prospect of losing the only parent I had. My fear turned into action as I made some of the bravest decisions of my life. 

Three blood transfusions later, my mother’s condition was stable, but we were still states away from home, so I coordinated with my mother’s doctors in North Carolina to schedule the emergency operation that would save her life. Throughout her surgery, I anxiously awaited any word from her surgeon, but each time I asked, I was told that there had been another complication or delay. Relying on my faith and positive attitude, I remained optimistic that my mother would survive and that I could embrace new responsibilities.

My mother had been a source of strength for me, and now I would be strong for her through her long recovery ahead. As I started high school, everyone thought the crisis was over, but it had really just started to impact my life. My mother was often fatigued, so I assumed more responsibility, juggling family duties, school, athletics, and work. I made countless trips to the neighborhood pharmacy, cooked dinner, biked to the grocery store, supported my concerned sister, and provided the loving care my mother needed to recover. I didn’t know I was capable of such maturity and resourcefulness until it was called upon. Each day was a stage in my gradual transformation from dependence to relative independence.

Throughout my mother’s health crisis, I matured by learning to put others’ needs before my own. As I worried about my mother’s health, I took nothing for granted, cherished what I had, and used my daily activities as motivation to move forward. I now take ownership over small decisions such as scheduling daily appointments and managing my time but also over major decisions involving my future, including the college admissions process. Although I have become more independent, my mother and I are inseparably close, and the realization that I almost lost her affects me daily. Each morning, I wake up ten minutes early simply to eat breakfast with my mother and spend time with her before our busy days begin. I am aware of how quickly life can change. My mother remains a guiding force in my life, but the feeling of empowerment I discovered within myself is the ultimate form of my independence. Though I thought the summer before my freshman year would be a transition from middle school to high school, it was a transformation from childhood to adulthood.

This essay feels real and tells readers a lot about the writer. To start at the beginning, the intro is 10/10. It has drama, it has emotions, and it has the reader wanting more.

And, when you keep going, you get to learn a lot about a very resilient and mature student. Through sentences like “I made countless trips to the neighborhood pharmacy, cooked dinner, biked to the grocery store, supported my concerned sister, and provided the loving care my mother needed to recover” and “Relying on my faith and positive attitude, I remained optimistic that my mother would survive and that I could embrace new responsibilities,” the reader shows us that they are aware of their resilience and maturity, but are not arrogant about it. It is simply a fact that they have proven through their actions!

This essay makes us want to cheer for the writer, and they certainly seem like someone who would thrive in a more independent college environment.

Essay 8: Turned Tables

“You ruined my life!” After months of quiet anger, my brother finally confronted me. To my shame, I had been appallingly ignorant of his pain.

Despite being twins, Max and I are profoundly different. Having intellectual interests from a young age that, well, interested very few of my peers, I often felt out of step in comparison with my highly-social brother. Everything appeared to come effortlessly for Max and, while we share an extremely tight bond, his frequent time away with friends left me feeling more and more alone as we grew older.

When my parents learned about The Green Academy, we hoped it would be an opportunity for me to find not only an academically challenging environment, but also – perhaps more importantly – a community. This meant transferring the family from Drumfield to Kingston. And while there was concern about Max, we all believed that given his sociable nature, moving would be far less impactful on him than staying put might be on me.

As it turned out, Green Academy was everything I’d hoped for. I was ecstatic to discover a group of students with whom I shared interests and could truly engage. Preoccupied with new friends and a rigorous course load, I failed to notice that the tables had turned. Max, lost in the fray and grappling with how to make connections in his enormous new high school, had become withdrawn and lonely. It took me until Christmas time – and a massive argument – to recognize how difficult the transition had been for my brother, let alone that he blamed me for it.

Through my own journey of searching for academic peers, in addition to coming out as gay when I was 12, I had developed deep empathy for those who had trouble fitting in. It was a pain I knew well and could easily relate to. Yet after Max’s outburst, my first response was to protest that our parents – not I – had chosen to move us here. In my heart, though, I knew that regardless of who had made the decision, we ended up in Kingston for my benefit. I was ashamed that, while I saw myself as genuinely compassionate, I had been oblivious to the heartache of the person closest to me. I could no longer ignore it – and I didn’t want to.

We stayed up half the night talking, and the conversation took an unexpected turn. Max opened up and shared that it wasn’t just about the move. He told me how challenging school had always been for him, due to his dyslexia, and that the ever-present comparison to me had only deepened his pain.

We had been in parallel battles the whole time and, yet, I only saw that Max was in distress once he experienced problems with which I directly identified. I’d long thought Max had it so easy – all because he had friends. The truth was, he didn’t need to experience my personal brand of sorrow in order for me to relate – he had felt plenty of his own.

My failure to recognize Max’s suffering brought home for me the profound universality and diversity of personal struggle; everyone has insecurities, everyone has woes, and everyone – most certainly – has pain. I am acutely grateful for the conversations he and I shared around all of this, because I believe our relationship has been fundamentally strengthened by a deeper understanding of one another. Further, this experience has reinforced the value of constantly striving for deeper sensitivity to the hidden struggles of those around me. I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story.

Here you can find a prime example that you don’t have to have fabulous imagery or flowery prose to write a successful essay. You just have to be clear and say something that matters. This essay is simple and beautiful. It almost feels like having a conversation with a friend and learning that they are an even better person than you already thought they were.

Through this narrative, readers learn a lot about the writer—where they’re from, what their family life is like, what their challenges were as a kid, and even their sexuality. We also learn a lot about their values—notably, the value they place on awareness, improvement, and consideration of others. Though they never explicitly state it (which is great because it is still crystal clear!), this student’s ending of “I won’t make the mistake again of assuming that the surface of someone’s life reflects their underlying story” shows that they are constantly striving for improvement and finding lessons anywhere they can get them in life.

Where to Get Your Overcoming Challenges Essays Edited

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How to Handle Stressful Situations

Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Carly Snyder, MD is a reproductive and perinatal psychiatrist who combines traditional psychiatry with integrative medicine-based treatments.

• Identify the Source

Have the Right Attitude

Change what you can, build resilience.

You can't always avoid stress, which is why it is important to know how to handle stressful situations. Getting better at managing stress is a great way to become more resilient and able to confront future challenges.

Press Play for Advice On Managing Stress

Hosted by therapist Amy Morin, LCSW, this episode of The Verywell Mind Podcast featuring professor Elissa Epel, shares ways to manage stress. Click below to listen now.

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Often when people face a new and stressful situation—a job that’s a bit too challenging, a thorny relationship hurdle that will take a while to sort through, a change in lifestyle that feels like a step down from what they had—they feel overwhelmed at the thought that they may have to deal with this stress for an extended time.

People who worry about long-term stress have reason to be concerned: chronic stress , the type of stress that is continual and unchanging, can take a heavy toll. It can negatively impact both physical and mental health.

The good news is that you can mitigate the stress of virtually any situation, even if it is there to stay for a while. If you are facing a challenging life situation, or wondering if it gets easier and how to speed the process, try stress relief strategies that can help.

These techniques can help significantly if you face a life crisis or overwhelming stressor. But ff your stress feels unmanageable, seek help from a mental health professional.

Identify the Source of Your Stress

The first step toward handling stressful situations is to figure out what it is that is stressing you out. Understanding which aspects of the situation make things difficult for you can help you develop strategies to manage these feelings.

Identifying the cause isn't as always as easy as it sounds. While you might recognize that starting a new job or moving to a new area is stressful, being able to point to the specific aspects of the situation that are difficult for you is important. 

For example, knowing you are stressed about meeting new people at your new job can help you cope with the social aspects of work.

Writing in a journal can often effectively decrease stress and anxiety. It can also be a useful tool for learning more about your stress sources and how you typically cope with stressful situations.

How to Keep a Stress Journal

Consider situations where you might feel anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed, and ask yourself:

• What was it about the situation that caused you to feel stressed?
• What did you think about the situation?
• How did it make you feel?
• What did you do in response to the stress?
• What did you do to relieve the stress?

You can’t always control what you are facing, but you do have a choice in how you face it. You can choose the attitude you take, which can help determine whether you view each situation as a threat or a challenge .

Research shows that viewing something as a challenge helps you mobilize resources and bring your "A game" to the situation more easily. Viewing the same situation as a threat can lead to greater stress and worse performance.

There are a number of problems associated with avoiding the source of your stress. This approach is known as avoidant coping and while it provides temporary relief, it can actually make stress and anxiety worse in the long run.

Understand the Role of Attitude

Your attitude can help to determine how stressful a situation feels for you, and how you approach your options. In fact, attitude can affect which options you see and do not see, which can also affect your stress levels and the outcome of your actions.

Examine Your Thought Patterns

Your thought patterns may feel automatic, but you can choose where your focus lies. Research has found, for example, that thought patterns can contribute to increases in the stress hormone cortisol.

To begin to make that choice, it helps to become aware of your habitual thinking patterns. This exercise can help you to see these patterns more clearly and can help you to relieve stress in the process.

Practice Positive Self-Talk

Positive self-talk means using more optimistic language in your head, and focusing more on possibilities. It involves more than merely trying to look on the bright side, although that is part of it.

Learning how to shift your focus can help alter what is possible for you. For example, instead of focusing on the negative aspects of a situation that are out of your control, you might instead focus your attention on areas where you can make a positive change.

Sometimes there are certain aspects of a situation you can change, even if you cannot change the overall situation. Focusing on what you can control can help you feel more empowered and less helpless when you are handling a stressful situation.

For example, you may, for financial reasons, be unable to quit a job you don’t enjoy. However, you can connect with co-workers more, alter your attitude while you’re at work, and use your break time for stress management activities. All of these can alter how you feel when you are at this job.

Try Solution-Focused Coping

Solution-focused coping means taking action to change your life where you are able. Examples of solution-focused ways to handle stress include:

• Finding ways to manage your time more effectively to make a stressful situation easier to handle
• Taking steps to minimize aspects of the situation to make it less anxiety-provoking
• Relying on conflict-management skills to deal with difficult interpersonal relationships that contribute to stress

These changes can be large in scale or small but targeted. Change can bring stress, so it’s important to choose the changes that matter most.

Find and Eliminate Tolerations

Tolerations are those nagging stressors in your lifestyle that you put up with almost without realizing it, but which bring you constant low-grade stress. The thing about tolerations is that they add up to bigger stress.

Cutting out tolerations can relieve stress so you can tolerate more things you can’t change.

Create a New Life Plan

Knowing where you want to go and having a plan for the future , can help to minimize stress in the present. Planning changes according to your values and priorities can be helpful and inspiring, even if you can’t bring those plans to fruition for a little while longer.

One study found that people who balance living in the moment and making plans are the most resilient in the face of daily stress and stressful situations.

If you can’t do any more to change your situation, you can still reduce the stress you feel as you manage your daily life. Certain activities can promote resilience , help you feel less stressed overall, and help you be less reactive to the stressors you face when they rear their ugly heads.

Practicing resilience-building activities can help you develop new skills for managing stress. The more they become an automatic habit, the less your stressors will bother you.

Everything feels more stressful when you are tired, hungry, and run down. It also means that you have fewer coping resources at your disposal. This means that you are more likely to react to stress rather than respond to it. Or you might let things snowball until things become even more overwhelming.

Focus on taking care of your body , and you will have a greater ability to handle frustration and stress in your life overall. Do things that make yourself feel good and cared for, whether that's getting a massage, reading a book, or enjoying a relaxing spa day at home.

Exercise is one of those wonderful stress relievers that can build resilience by helping you to blow off steam. Better still, regular exercise can help you to become less reactive toward stress.

Because of that and the obvious health benefits of exercise, this is a powerhouse of a stress reliever that should be worked into your schedule when at all possible.

Meditation can help you to remain centered in the face of stress and can help you to regain a sense of peace when you are feeling off-balance. Many meditation techniques work well, so try a few and stick with a favorite technique that feels right.

Over time, you should find yourself reacting to stress with less intensity and more able to remain calm and peaceful.

Positive Attitude

Maintaining a positive attitude is one thing you can do to make everything in your life feel easier. A positive attitude also helps you to get along better with others (which can lead to greater social support and less conflict) and can help you to remain feeling good, even when things around you are not so great.

A Word From Verywell

It would be great if you could simply avoid or eliminate the stressors in your life. Unfortunately, that's only possible to an extent. There will be times when you are all faced with unpredictable or unavoidable stressors when you need to rely on resilience. You may not be able to change everything in your life, but these tips can help you handle stressful situations. 

Yaribeygi H, Panahi Y, Sahraei H, Johnston TP, Sahebkar A. The impact of stress on body function: A review .  EXCLI J . 2017;16:1057-1072. doi:10.17179/excli2017-480

Smyth JM, Johnson JA, Auer BJ, Lehman E, Talamo G, Sciamanna CN. Online positive affect journaling in the improvement of mental distress and well-being in general medical patients with elevated anxiety symptoms: A preliminary randomized controlled trial .  JMIR Ment Health . 2018;5(4):e11290. doi:10.2196/11290

Moore LJ, Vine SJ, Wilson MR, Freeman P. The effect of challenge and threat states on performance: an examination of potential mechanisms .  Psychophysiology . 2012;49(10):1417-1425. doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.2012.01449.x

Dijkstra MT, Homan AC.  Engaging in rather than disengaging from stress: Effective coping and perceived control .  Front Psychol . 2016;7:1415. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01415

Conway CC, Slavich GM, Hammen C. Dysfunctional attitudes and affective responses to daily stressors: Separating cognitive, genetic, and clinical influences on stress reactivity .  Cognit Ther Res . 2015;39(3):366-377. doi:10.1007/s10608-014-9657-1

Linz R, Singer T, Engert V. Interactions of momentary thought content and subjective stress predict cortisol fluctuations in a daily life experience sampling study .  Sci Rep . 2018;8(1):15462. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-33708-0

Lukić J, Lazarević S.  A holistic approach to workplace stress management .  Škola Biznisa . 2019;(1):130-141. doi:10.5937/skolbiz1-21872

Polk MG, Smith EL, Zhang LR, Neupert SD. Thinking ahead and staying in the present: Implications for reactivity to daily stressors . Pers Individ Diff . 2020;161:109971. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2020.109971

Schultchen D, Reichenberger J, Mittl T, et al. Bidirectional relationship of stress and affect with physical activity and healthy eating .  Br J Health Psychol . 2019;24(2):315-333. doi:10.1111/bjhp.12355

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.  Meditation: In Depth.

By Elizabeth Scott, PhD Elizabeth Scott, PhD is an author, workshop leader, educator, and award-winning blogger on stress management, positive psychology, relationships, and emotional wellbeing.

Life Potential

10 difficult life situations and how to make the best out of them.

“No matter what kind of challenges or difficulties or painful situations you go through in your life, we all have something deep within us that we can reach down and find the inner strength to get through them.” – Alana Stewart

Ups and downs, rises and falls, rain and shine, joy and sorrow, day and night – this is how people define life: a series of events, sometimes jolly, sometimes painfully full of sorrow. Well, that is what life is as we know it.

There are many situations in life which we can classify as difficult. A wise thing to do is to be prepared to face the difficult times in our lives. These times usually affect us deeply on a psychological level and could potentially damage our lives.

Being prepared for these times could help us to improve how we live our lives. Being prepared to face challenges is what it means to learn and grow. The idea is to make the best out of everything life throws at us.

Below we discuss some of the toughest situations we come across in our lives and how we can best deal with them.

10 Difficult Life Situations and How to Get Through It

Remember, most of these situations are not under our control. So the logical method to deal with these circumstances is to accept and move on.

1. Quarter-life, Midlife Crisis

As we age, we see ourselves changing physically and mentally. So, there come times during our aging process that we seek answers about the changes happening to and around us. After adolescence, between our early 20s and early 30s, we begin to make choices on how to best fit into society.

This transition period could be difficult for some of us to handle, which turns into the ‘quarter-life crisis’. The sheer amount of confusion and pressure often leads to situations like depression or potentially even acts of self-harm.

During the process of aging, there comes another phase called ‘midlife crisis, in between the early 40s and early 50s when we begin to truly feel our mortality. These are times when we have to deal with lots of changes which we naturally, as humans, find difficult to deal with. Knowing that the changes are inevitable and finding the strength to accept the changes is the only way to find courage and get through these times of crisis.

Action Items

2. breakups.

Love happens and breakups too. And it goes without saying, breakups are heart breaking. When all those feelings of love suddenly turns into something vile, it becomes painful to handle.

What’s there to be done after breakups ? Accept that it happened for the best of reasons, keep your mind busy doing something productive and know that love happens again. The pain subsides like it always does. Turn the pain into motivation to bring a positive change in your life. (Join a gym, perhaps, and sweat it all out.)

3. Changing Friendship

Being social beings, we seek love and friendship. These are undoubtedly the most important aspects of having an overall healthy life. We simply cannot do without friends because we aren’t made to survive alone. We seek and keep friends to help us grow. So a changing friendship can be a difficult thing to deal with. Letting go of friends and adapting to new faces as you leave behind what you had come to love can be challenging.

But people come and go. This is yet another inevitable truth about life. We’ve all read those cheeky lines on the internet like “Those who want to stay in your life will find ways to do so” and they’re true. Don’t be afraid to accept and let go of people and welcome new people into your life.

Action Item

4. failures.

Failures are difficult times, of course. They are difficult on many levels. Not meeting goals you’ve worked so hard for, the sense of worthlessness, all the negativity failures bring along- these are hard to put up with. But then again, we’ve heard and read many stories of success after failures, stories of what patience and perseverance can deliver. So we know the best thing to do during these times is to find inspiration and push through.

Marriages takes a lot of effort to function well. We’ve witnessed many failed marriages leading up to divorce and heard the stories or even experienced how difficult the transition is for the whole family. Sadly, some of us might have to live through this terrible experience.

While splitting a family is as horrible as it sounds and probably no one really likes the idea of going to divorce lawyers, divorce is the best answer if a marriage is not working. It opens up doors for positive changes in life. Knowing this helps people keep the right attitude towards life after divorce.

6. Losing a Job

Losing a job could be devastating, and you might even go hungry in the worst case scenario. And trust me, there’s no rougher time than when you have to spend days on a hungry stomach.

So, what’s there to do after losing your job? You might feel hopeless at this point but don’t sweat over it anymore. Be strong and make efforts to find another, a better job. Keep calm and carry on.

7. Getting Older

You might have heard the story of Buddha and how he set out on the path of enlightenment; he saw the miseries in man’s life for which he wanted to find a cure. The point is: getting older can certainly be a difficult situation and there’s no cure for it. Gray hair, wrinkles, frail health, and the inability to do things you once did with great ease are some things we adjust to as we age.

Well, it’s no secret that there’s no fountain of youth. We are all going to be old if we live long enough. So, the best thing to do is plan ahead for old age if you don’t want it to be miserable. You see, that is why wise people came up with things like pensions and retirement plans.

8. Getting Injured, Falling Sick

Accidents happen and sickness might find us, no matter how many precautions we take. Though, this should not dissuade us from being cautious and trying to live healthily. Recovering from injuries is one of the hardest times one could experience and potentially learning to live with changes to your body and abilities can be a major adjustment physically and emotionally.

Again, keeping the right attitude towards life is the key to dealing with it. The seemingly long journey of recovery could be made less stressful by engaging in other activities that the ailments don’t prevent. There is usually always something that you can find to do if you’re willing. For example, there have been people with cancer have written great novels from their hospital beds.

9. Losing All That You Have in a Natural Disaster

Natural disasters are one of the worst things that could ever happen to anyone. During these disasters, people can potentially lose the people they are closest to as well as all their possessions, including their home: a truly traumatic life experience.

But like always, we bounce back.

We are resilient enough to come back from the toughest of times and start over anew. The fact that we survived this calamity is reason enough to believe that we are given a second chance. All we can do in the wake of disasters like an earthquake, tsunami or hurricane is to help each other and find hope in this time of despair.

10. Death of a Loved One

Death is the ultimate truth in life. It could come to anyone at any time. The sorrow it casts is always tough to handle. Losing  loved ones, having to live life without them is the most awful kind of change one could experience in life.

The grief and loss model has five stages of grief: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and acceptance but it doesn’t necessarily occur in the same way for everyone. Some of us might take a very long time to reach the stage of acceptance.

Death demands grief so grieving is the right thing to do but the best thing we can do to honor the dead is to accept the fact and move on when we are able to do so. To commemorate the importance of this person’s passing we could also plant a tree, perhaps.

Final Thoughts

Life is never easy. We all come across really difficult moments every now and then, it all depends on how we take them.

Having a positive mindset and attitude when facing challenges is essential to our growth and happiness, so try to practice positive thinking and don’t give up on turning obstacles into opportunities .

Featured photo credit: Dollar Gill via unsplash.com

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Member-only story

How to Overcome Difficult Situations In Life

Tarek Rakhiess

Change Your Mind Change Your Life

In life, we are always faced with difficult situations that need to be mastered. With a strong inner attitude and some psychology, you will emerge stronger from these challenges.

A difficult situation can be an exciting challenge

Written by Tarek Rakhiess

Hello, I am obsessed with the world of self-development, relationships, and stories and stories. which is why I am here to write for you

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Challenges — Overcoming Obstacles: Inspirational Stories About Life and Struggles

Overcoming Obstacles: Inspirational Stories About Life and Struggles

• Categories: Challenges God

About this sample

Words: 1084 |

Published: Jun 5, 2019

Words: 1084 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Table of contents

Four things that god will do according to 1 peter 5:10, things that causes struggles in life, what to do to overcome struggles in life, works cited.

• Family background
• Divine purpose – Esau and Jacob
• Sin eg Adam & Eve – Sin is a reproach to a nation
• Issues of time – Remember time lost is not easily regained that is why we must use our time wisely.
• Wrong relationship – Friendship is by choice
• Distraction
• Demonic forces
• Prayers: This is very vital. Ther is no struggles in life we cannot overcome through prayers. Prayer is one of the strongest weapons we have as Christians. In prayers, we communicate with God and table those challenges to him. Through prayers, God listens to our cry.
• Divine encounter: When Jacob encountered God, his life changed for good. Nobody will ever encounter Jesus and will remain the same as the bible says to cast all your burdens unto Him who is able to fix them all.
• Depend on God’s grace: Greatness does not come by struggle, but only by his grace. When passing through life issues, we need God’s grace to overcome for His grace is sufficient.
• Do not give up: It is important to know that these challenges are only for a while. It won’t last forever, do not give up. Have faith, and hope in the word of God, and believe it is temporary. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
• Learn to use your time wisely: Time is of the essence, and must be used wisely. Spend time on things that will encourage and help you build your faith in God. Focus on Jesus and avoid distraction.
• The Holy Bible: New International Version. (1984). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.
• Wiersbe, W. W. (2016). Be Alert (2 Peter, 2 & 3 John, Jude): Beware of the Religious Impostors. David C Cook.
• Thiel, R. L. (2015). Four things God will do for you. Journal of the Adventist Theological Society, 26(1), 45-56.
• Youssef, M. (2018). Overcoming life's challenges: Biblical principles for victorious living. Harvest House Publishers.
• Warren, R. (2013). The Purpose Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For? Zondervan.
• Johnson, J. (2017). Struggles in life: How to overcome them. WestBow Press.
• Stanley, C. F. (2014). Turning the tide: Reclaiming the Biblical framework for responding to life's struggles. Thomas Nelson.
• Tozer, A. W. (2015). The Pursuit of God. Wingspread Publishers.
• Blackaby, H., & King, C. (2017). Experiencing God: Knowing and Doing the Will of God. B&H Publishing Group.
• Alcorn, R. (2015). If God is good: Faith in the midst of suffering and evil. Multnomah.

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A Challenging Situation I’ve Faced, Essay Example

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Everyone has been confronted with challenges throughout their lives, especially during their formative years in which adolescents and young adults have not yet developed effective coping mechanisms in order to grow . A handful of those struggles unequivocally have changed who a person is and how one approaches and views life. The biggest challenge I have faced thus far in my short life is my shyness, which has caused me immense anxiety both in education settings and in my social life. I have always felt a heightened level of anxiety and stress in so many situations, even just participating in class to an objective question about the reading. My teachers would always encourage me to speak in class because they said I have a lot of contribute, but I could never muster up to courage to volunteer so I would shy away as my heart started to beat faster prior to actually raising my hand.. I felt as though I had a physiological reaction that overwhelmed me, and I could not overcome the feeling. I felt ashamed, so my academic studies suffered as a result of this herculean challenge I confronted on a quotidian basis.

Despite this challenge, I soon realized I needed to have a strong desire to overcome my shyness, which was a protracted process and did not happen overnight. I believe I have come a long way as a result of my performance and success in the arena of athletics. I excelled as a basketball player and  track and field, and constant reaffirmation from my coaches, teammates, and friends slowing gave me more confidence as a student and athlete.  High school instilled that desire in me to change because I was so sick of freezing up in certain social situations and in the classroom. Speaking in front of people, especially my classmates, used to make me feel sick to my stomach.

I also decried the fact that my shyness hindered me from being an effective leader and communicator. Ironically, I want to pursue a career in politics, so I knew I had to overcome my shyness in order to develop as a person, a leader, and a social individual who is not afraid to express an opinion out of fear of humiliation.

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My Hard Times In Life

The life is full of events that happened since birth to end of life’s moment. It helps to understand the world and shapes our perception to behave towards our environment. Some events change your life and stay alive in the rest of life as it happened in the last day. It helps to understand the reality of life and change our behavior to respond our culture as encouraged us to face difficult events with patience. We learn a lesson from these events to avoid happening again in case of a mistake to have serious loss that is never recovered in the rest of life.

As I was 15 years old, my grandfather had a road accident while going to the office. I heard a phone ring and picked by my grandmother to answer it. She sits down with panic saying, “O My God” and asked me to get ready to go the hospital. We reached hospital in 20 minutes and found my grandfather in ICU. We asked to the doctor about condition and got reply that this is in serious condition and trying to save him. After one hour we entered into the ICU and saw my grandfather who was in an unconscious condition and did not able to understand me and my grandmother. My grandmother was trying to overcome her feeling, but it was very difficult to stay calm at this moment. After one day, my grandfather dead in ICU and we were helpless to do anything to save his life. This was a great shock to my grandmother and me to have this incident.

My family experienced troublesome times, and it was difficult to stay created for one another. It images to see somebody who once bore you behind him, and grinned gigantically stay there and not react back to you. There are a few things I don't think I'll have the capacity to do in life, similar to I'll never have the capacity to be as solid as my grandma. I know my granddad is still alive in him, and step by step, even as it deteriorates, I get more grounded, and our security as a family gets more grounded. I have seen such a variety of marvels through what appears like a disaster, and have picked up so much despite the fact that I now and then feel like I lost the most vital individual in my life, despite the fact that he is still alive. Tragedies make us more grounded, they make us to a greater extent a man, and they give us more character.

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Essay Service Examples Life Challenges

Difficult Situation and How You Overcame It: Narrative Essay

Introduction

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My weaknesses

• Impatient- In the past I was very impatient. I do things very quickly without even thinking. In other words, I was impulsive. I took the decisions without thinking anything. But since I came to Canada, my decision power become stronger as compared to the past. Canada taught me many things but taking decisions in the right manner and at right time is the most important thing I could have. Although from 12th grade, I took all decisions of my life. Canada made me independent and taught me many lessons. I took many good and bad decisions after I came here. Now, I am very patient and take my decisions very precisely and carefully.
• Aggressive- I am a very vigorous kind of person. Although I do not get aggressive instantly, yes if someone pushes my limit then I got hostile sometimes. But in that case, I do not give harm that person. Instead of that I just stop talking to them. But in the work environment, if someone does something like with me, I will try to solve things between us because it will be good for the team and good for the project too.
• Blunt- I am a very straightforward kind of person. I do not mix up things. I told them as they are, not in a diplomatic way. Some people like this attitude and some do not. But I take this as my weakness because I think, I have to mold things before talking to someone. This is how things work, people love to hear their praise, so sometimes it is good to give them what they want.

Weaknesses perspective to work place

• Unorganized- This was my past weakness. When I was in college back in-home country India doing my graduation, I was given a project in term 7. My group was of 8 members and I was the leader of the group. After all the research and gathering information, we decided to build a solenoid engine. Because this was our first project and I was not sure how things work. So, before I was very casual, and didn’t do anything like how to build the engine and gather the material for it. But by the time I come to know that leadership is very important. I have to take the initiative and divide the duties among the team members. Then I started working on the project and divided the work among the team members. I searched on the internet about the material and the parts and talked to our instructors to help us out. In the end, the project was successful, there were some issues that came up while doing it but as a team, we overcome all the conflicts.
• Poor time management- As I discuss our project. I was also poor at managing time during the project. The deadline was 4 months, we have to complete the project in 4 months. But I was very casual about the project my team haven’t done anything for the first month. That was very bad for us. In the end, we have to ask for an extension. We got the extension for 2 weeks, but what I am trying to discuss here is poor time management. We didn’t manage our time so well.

How to overcome my Weaknesses

• Semeniuk, M. (2010). Project management institute. Retrieved from https://www.pmi.org/learning/library/managing-conflicting-expectations-6893.

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The Interplay of Values on Decision-Making

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The Complexity of Decision-Making in Difficult Situations

Environmental Influences on Decision-Making

The integration of values in decision-making.

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15 Best ‘Describe a Difficult Situation and How You Handled It’ Answer Examples

When it comes to behavioral interview questions like asking you to describe a difficult situation and how you handled it, you need a strategy to prepare a good answer. The best approach is to take a challenging difficult experience and use it to show your emotional intelligence and your work experience.

This is a great opportunity to leave a strong impression on the hiring manager and show them you’re the best fit for the job.

5 Tips for Your Answer

• Choose a real work-related situation.
• Provide enough detail, but be concise.
• Show your thought process and your abilities in problem-solving.
• Show your leadership, communication, and technical skills.
• Make sure that the story has a positive outcome.

5 Mistakes to Avoid

• Avoid problems that you created yourself.
• Don’t focus on the negative aspects.
• Don’t blame or speak ill of other people.
• Avoid drama.
• Don’t downplay your strengths, but avoid sounding cocky.

How to Answer: STAR Format

You can use the STAR technique to organize your ideas and create a great answer to standard interview behavioral questions, like this one. STAR stands for:

S: Situation – give the interviewer some context to better understand your story.

T: Task – explain what the challenge in that situation was and include the main points.

A: Action – tell them how you handled that challenge.

R: Result – show the results you achieved.

Use the following examples of the best answers to this common interview question as guidelines to help you choose a difficult work situation you’ve experienced. Then use the STAR method to outline your talking points where you turn a tough situation into something positive and show you’re a good fit for the job.

Best Example Answers to “Describe a Difficult Situation and How You Handled It” Interview Question

1. Example Answer: In my previous job, I had to take over a troubled project from a colleague who had quit. In my first meeting with the customer, he walked into the room yelling. He was angry about the problems we hadn’t solved yet. I didn’t interrupt him. I made notes of the issues he raised. When he finished, I told him I was going to address all complaints.

As I asked him questions about each issue, he started to calm down while giving me more information. I went over the specific actions I was planning to take and got our top specialists working on the issues. I made sure to frequently update the customer on my progress. He eventually apologized for his behavior. It took us one week to solve all problems, but I was able to gain his trust back in our company.

Key Takeaways: This answer shows the candidate handled an angry customer in an effective way. Instead of arguing back, they listened, asked questions, and communicated frequently. It also shows the candidate’s problem-solving abilities and efficiency.

2. Example Answer: In the first week of my internship, a client asked for a major change on their website just a few days before its launch. The team had to work late, but the manager said that I didn’t need to. I decided to stay and help the team anyway. I wasn’t trained in the tools they used, but I offered to test the website. I tested every page over and over until all errors got fixed. After that, the manager decided to include me in the next project as a trainee.

Key Takeaways: This answer is a great way to answer this question if you don’t have a lot of experience and so don’t have other good examples you can use. Here, despite the lack of experience, this answer shows the candidate’s willingness to go beyond what was expected of him and be a team player.

3. Example Answer: Back when I was the customer support team leader at ABCD Corporation, we had a new client who was often very rude to my team. I decided to meet with him in person to understand him better and hopefully create a more positive dynamic. My department only communicated with customers by phone and email, but I thought more was needed in this case.

During our meeting, I politely framed the issue in a way that communicated that we wanted to understand how to serve him better. I did not focus on his behavior, but rather on what we could do to exceed his expectations. He ended up apologizing and explaining that he was extremely stressed because of personal issues. After that, he was considerably easier to service.

Key Takeaways: This answer shows the candidate’s ownership of their team’s problem and how they took the initiative to solve it. It also shows their communication skills, interpersonal skills and problem-solving skills. It is an especially great way to answer the interviewer’s question if you are seeking a customer service job.

4. Example Answer: When I started working at a small publishing company, my boss asked me to get some high-profile endorsements for a new book. I had never done that before, but I embraced the challenge. I made a list of about 60 names of great prospects. I first reached out to the top 10 names on that list. When I got the first positive answer, I continued contacting the other people, now mentioning the one who had accepted, and so on. I was able to get 18 endorsements that impressed my boss and were crucial to boosting the book’s sales.

Key Takeaways: The candidate didn’t shy away from a challenge, and their boldness was rewarded.

5. Example Answer: Let me tell you about a difficult situation I had with a new project manager. She needed more billable hours in that quarter to reach her financial goal. So, she asked me to enter 80 more hours that month, and then I would subtract those hours from the following month’s timesheet.

I carefully explained to her that doing so was against the company’s policies. I couldn’t register hours that I hadn’t worked. And if that project got audited, she and I would be in trouble. She understood, thanked me for warning her, and gave up that idea.

Key Takeaways: It shows the candidate’s integrity and courage to do what is right even when having to stand up to a superior.

6. Example Answer: When I started my last job as an HR training specialist, I noticed that every internal audit revealed some of the same errors in certain HR processes. I checked the training material they used for the managers. The training material was an extremely dry online course with a lot of text and no illustrations or media. I decided to create a new version of that course, with videos and multiple-choice tests after each lesson. Every manager ending up taking the course, and after that, the internal audits showed we were performing those processes correctly.

Key Takeaways: The candidate noticed a problem, came up with a good idea to solve the problem, and then took the initiative to make it happen.

7. Example Answer: One of the most difficult challenges I’ve had so far was when a colleague was hospitalized one day before a presentation to a potential client. My manager asked me to fill in for him, but I wasn’t familiar with the products he was selling to the client. I used every minute I had to study everything he had already prepared and finish the presentation. I asked a specialist from the support team to help me with the technical aspects. The presentation was a success, and we were able to close the deal.

Key Takeaways: The candidate made the effort to learn and prepare the presentation in the short time they had, wisely seeking help from experts.

8. Example Answer: In my first team meeting at ABCD Corporation, my manager told a couple of prejudiced jokes. Most people laughed. I noticed that a few other people were uncomfortable, but no one said anything. Even though I was new, I later approached him in private and respectfully explained that those jokes could be offensive to some people. He was surprised and said he didn’t realize it. In the next meeting, he apologized to everyone.

Key Takeaways: The candidate was bold to confront his manager’s inappropriate behavior, and he did so in a professional manner.

9. Example Answer: I had a very difficult situation where the company I was working for was having financial problems. Because of that, I had to fire one person from my team. I chose the team member we had hired most recently. She had great potential, but she still needed guidance to do her job. Before I talked to her, I reached out to some acquaintances from other companies, and one of them was hiring. So, when I gave her the bad news, I also told her about that opportunity. I gave her a recommendation letter and she ended up getting hired.

Key Takeaways: The candidate showed well-thought reasoning in choosing who to fire. They also showed compassion by actively seeking alternate employment for the employee.

10. Example Answer: While I was in college, I worked part-time at a coffee shop. The owner asked me to suggest a way to promote his new doughnut flavor. I suggested making mini doughnuts with that new flavor and adding one for free to each combo order during the launch period. It was a success. It became the third top-selling doughnut after only two weeks. Customers also wanted to buy the mini doughnuts, so we started making mini doughnuts in all flavors, and they also became top sellers.

Key Takeaways: This is a good example of a candidate who was able to add incredible value, even though they were still in college at the time, had little/no job experience, and only worked at the coffee shop on a part-time basis.

11. Example Answer: In my previous job, there was this time when a customer wanted a new website built on a very tight schedule and with a limited budget. I knew it was too risky. I turned down the work and respectfully explained my reasoning to the customer. The customer was upset and hired another company for the job.

Sometime later, the customer called me. They had a lot of delays with their project and realized that the schedule and budget combination was unworkable. They should have allowed for a longer schedule or a larger budget for that project. The customer told me that they wanted to work with us in the future because they valued our judgment and appreciated the honest feedback we had given.

Key Takeaways: The candidate made a tough decision to refuse a project that proved to be problematic. Though it initially resulted in a tense situation, the customer eventually realized that the candidate was right and appreciated their integrity.

12. Example Answer: About two years ago, we had a new team leader. He was constantly overworked while my teammates and I had free time, so I decided to talk to him. I told him that there were many tasks that we were used to doing, and that he could delegate them to us instead of doing everything himself. At first, he hesitated. But he eventually realized that we could handle those tasks, and our team’s workload got more balanced. Our results also improved after that.

Key Takeaways: The answer shows that the candidate has the courage to approach a superior and essentially tell him that he could improve his delegation skills…respectfully. The candidate identified an area for improvement and took initiative. In pursuing a fair workload distribution, it also shows that the candidate is hard working.

13. Example Answer: On my last job, I was asked to join a large project that was almost finished. When I studied the specifics of the tasks I was responsible for, I realized someone had made a wrong estimate. It should take at least two weeks longer to finish them. I talked to the project manager, and I helped him redo the plan. I also suggested adding a junior specialist to help me with the simpler tasks. We were able to finish everything in time and within the budget.

Key Takeaways: In this example, the candidate had to join a project at the tail end and get up to speed quickly. Not only did the candidate do this, but they discovered a critical problem, had the courage to diplomatically raise the issue and worked to solve the problem in a way that minimized negative impact on the project goals.

14. Example Answer: I was working late at the office one day when a customer called. My colleague had sold them a vacation package, including reservations in a hotel in Orlando, Florida. However, the hotel receptionist couldn’t find them. I immediately checked our system. I saw that the reservations got canceled due to incorrect information, but my colleague hadn’t noticed. So, I called the hotel manager, explained the situation, and the hotel manager was able to get the customer a room. I apologized to the customer and gave them a bonus for their next vacation.

Key Takeaways: This is a great example if you are applying to customer service jobs because mistakes inevitably will happen. The candidate didn’t hesitate to help the customer. They solved the problem and offered a bonus to try to make the customer satisfied despite what had happened.

15. Example Answer: I once had to lead an application development project on an extremely tight budget and schedule. It was a strategic client, so I couldn’t refuse it. I got our IT team to set up a VPN tunnel to the customer’s internal network, so most of my team worked remotely, reducing the travel expenses. I also had the junior programmers do some of the work, which reduced the labor cost. I was able to finish the project within schedule and budget. The customer was impressed, and I got a promotion.

Key Takeaways: The candidate showed how they handled a tough project for an important client. They came up with solutions to lower costs and finish the project successfully.

Some standard interview questions may seem a bit scary at first. But if you plan your answer and practice it, you can turn this difficult interview question into a great example of your skills. Prepare your STAR interview answer using what you have learned here and show your potential employer that you have what it takes to get that job. Good luck!

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• Describe a Difficult...

Describe a Difficult Situation and How You Overcame It

5 min read · Updated on August 13, 2021

Deftly explaining how you handle difficult work situations will help take you from interviewee to new hire.

One of the more creative ways employers learn about a candidate's abilities and experience is with open-ended questions requiring detailed answers. Often-used queries include, “Describe a difficult situation or project and how you overcame it,” and “Tell me how you handled a difficult situation.”  

Regardless of how the question is asked, here are some tips to help you ace the answer and get the job.

Why employers ask this question

As part of a behavioral-based interview , this is an effective way for a hiring manager to learn a great deal about an applicant without using multiple questions. It also helps in assessing your emotional intelligence, a deciding factor for many companies today.

Asking this question gives an interviewer insight on many key traits including:

How well you listen

How you prioritize

Your initiative

Your communication skills

Whether you own up to your mistakes

Whether you can avoid creating drama

The ways you deal with conflict, deadlines, and other work pressures

The strength of your leadership skills

Your instincts to ask for help when needed

Your ability to think on your feet 

People with these behavioral traits already intact can immediately handle the unforeseen challenges that come with the job, making them desirable candidates — especially for high-level positions. That's why it's critical to answer this question effectively.

Note: The interviewer may decide to ask about a specific situation rather than leaving that up to you. If so, you can state that you haven't handled that particular issue and offer to describe how you would deal with it. You may be asked about that particular scenario for a reason, so do your best to answer it rather than trying to use a different example.

How to respond to “Tell me how you handled a difficult situation”

Because this is likely part of a behavioral interview, use the STAR method to prepare a great answer beforehand so you can confidently respond during the interview.

STAR stands for S ituation, T ask, A ction, and R esult, the four areas you want to touch on when answering this type of question:

Situation: Explain the event/situation in a few concise sentences.

Task: Briefly describe the task/situation you handled, giving relevant details as needed.

Action: Explain the actions you used to complete your task or solve your issue. This is the place to be very detailed and specific so take your time providing this information.

Result: Present the specific results you achieved. If applicable, provide statistics or other quantifiable information used to achieve your results.

Following the STAR technique will help make sure you answer this question effectively so that the interviewer clearly sees that you have everything they desire in a qualified candidate.

Sample responses to get you started

Some general topic areas to focus on when developing your answers for a behaviorial interview include:

Choosing to act with integrity during an ethical dilemma or challenge

Taking initiative to approach and effectively solve difficult situations

Using a particular thought or action process to find a solution to a tough problem

Use the following sample answers to help you:

At my current job, a client called late Friday afternoon with an urgent question about their project status. Usually my boss directly interacts with our clients, but he'd already left for the weekend. I told the client that while I might not know the exact answer, I could possibly help because I was also working on the project. The client was fine with that. We worked through the question together, and I was able to provide enough information that the client felt the rest could wait until Monday. I left a detailed note for my boss asking him to check in with the client on Monday.

In my recent job as a department manager, there was a new hire who consistently provided incomplete reports. They were asked multiple times to include all the required information, but the reports continued to lack all the data and had to be redone for others to do their jobs. I wondered if the new employee was getting clear information, so I created a sample report for the new hire showing all the required data. I also asked other supervisors to review this with their reports and to post a chart of when the reports were due. As a result, the quality of everyone's reports improved, not just those of the new employee. I learned that it's really important to listen and to clearly communicate expectations to get the desired results.

Add all the specific actions and thought-processes that apply to your example, and try to make it sound like you're telling a story versus rattling off facts.

Avoid these mistakes

When answering this type of behavioral-based interview question , try to avoid topics that make you or anyone else look bad. Examples include:

Avoid speaking badly of current/former company, co-workers, supervisors, or direct reports.

Try not to come across as “superior” in your past or current role.

 Conversely, don't play yourself down — unless it's explaining how you've grown.

Don't describe a non-work-related situation, unless you have no relevant work experience to share.

The more you prepare for your job interviews, the more confident you'll be in describing how you handled a difficult work situation — and that greatly increases your chance of getting hired.

When it comes to acing the job interview, it's all about practice. That's where our coaches come in . 

Recommended Reading:

The Art of the Job Interview

How to Use the STAR Interview Method Like a Pro

Answering “What Are Your Strengths?” Interview Question

Related Articles:

How to Prepare for a Software Engineering Job Interview

27 Financial Analyst Interview Questions (with Great Answers)

27 Supervisor Interview Questions (and Great Answers)

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• Positive Psychology

4 Ways to Deal With the Most Difficult People in Your Life

How would the world change with wider understanding and acceptance of each other.

Updated June 19, 2024 | Reviewed by Lybi Ma

• What Is Positive Psychology?
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• Set your intentions through positive self-talk.
• Confrontation leads to resistance, use thoughts of loving kindness with difficult people.
• Use self-affirmations to maintain your composure during difficult interactions.

While counseling a group of seventh-graders I asked them to reflect about what they would like to improve in their lives. Two of them said that they wished they could do better in science. They explained that they had a difficult science teacher. One of them said, “My teacher makes fun of me.”

Another student said she wished she wasn’t antagonistic against her math teacher. She said that her math teacher hates her. “She told me she would rather have pneumonia than have me in her second-period class. That’s why I really enjoy making trouble in that class.”

“You do not appear to have good teachers,” I responded. “When teachers badmouth their students, they disrupt the learning process. But the questions you might consider are: How do you deal with these difficult teachers? You’re going to continue to encounter some difficult people in your lives. Is there something you are doing to contribute to the difficult interactions? What can you change to best deal with your teachers when they cannot be avoided?”

We discuss four tips to keep in mind when interacting with people you dislike, or those who dislike you. As we talked about these ideas, I recognized that they are applicable to how we deal with each other in our society at large.

Thoughts of Loving Kindness

I explained to the students that my first tip involves a counterintuitive suggestion: Use thoughts of loving kindness with their difficult teachers. In other words, think good thoughts about their teachers including that they should be happy, healthy, calm, and at ease.

I explained that when my students have used such loving kindness thoughts they often report an improvement in their relationships with someone they disliked, such as a classmate, teacher, family member, or employer. This improvement may occur because the students changed their attitude or behavior during their interactions. In turn, the disliked person may pick up an improvement in my students’ verbal and non-verbal cues toward them that can help change their response to the students.

What You Say Is What Happens

The students seemed incredulous when I told them about using loving kindness with a teacher they disliked. The student who disliked her math teacher exclaimed, “I can’t do that!”

I cautioned her about making such a statement. I reminded her of automobile manufacturer Henry Ford’s quote: Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you are right.

I showed the students how their statements could affect their arm strength. I demonstrated with one of them. After extending his right arm and resisting having it pushed down, he became noticeably weaker when he said “I’m weak,” while he became stronger when he said, “I’m strong.”

Thus, I emphasized that the students should be careful about the messages they tell themselves, and aim for their self-talk to lead them in a desirable direction, including in dealing with difficult teachers. For example, a student might say, "I wish I could deal better with my teacher."

Treat Each Other with Respect

We further discussed that during disagreements, it’s important to remember the adage taught to me by psychiatrist Ellen Cook Jacobsen: Confrontation leads to resistance.

I suggested that antagonizing one’s teacher is a surefire way to make the teacher defensive. Similarly, when teachers antagonize students, their students tend to shut down or resist improvement.

If the goal is to improve a relationship or situation, it is important to treat each other with respect and develop a genuine desire to understand the other person. For example, perhaps a difficult teacher is going through a health crisis and has little remaining emotional bandwidth to deal patiently with energetic students. Or perhaps a teacher misunderstood a student’s intentions, which led to the development of friction between them.

Positive Self-Talk

Finally, sometimes we run into disagreeable people who seem incorrigible. For example, some teachers refuse to change their educational method, even when it appears to be ineffective or to upset some of their students. In such situations, it is important for students to maintain their self-esteem and confidence even in the face of negative input from their teachers.

This can be accomplished with the use of positive self-talk . By focusing on encouraging, truthful statements about themselves, people can counter the negativity they might otherwise absorb from others. For example, if teachers berate their students by telling them that they are disliked, the students can counter this statement in their minds by thinking, “I am a good and likable student,” or “I can do well in this class.”

I wish that many people in our society would adopt the tips I reviewed with my students. Imagine how our world would change with the widespread use of loving kindness, self-affirmation, setting our intentions through positive talk, and understanding that change is best promoted by avoiding confrontation and rather working toward understanding and accepting of each other.

Facebook image: Bricolage/Shutterstock

Ran D. Anbar, M.D., FAAP, is board-certified in both pediatric pulmonology and general pediatrics. He is the author of the new book Changing Children’s Lives with Hypnosis: A Journey to the Center .

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At any moment, someone’s aggravating behavior or our own bad luck can set us off on an emotional spiral that could derail our entire day. Here’s how we can face triggers with less reactivity and get on with our lives.

• Emotional Intelligence
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Election latest: Farage urged to 'get a grip' of Reform UK amid racism row

John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, has urged Nigel Farage to "get a grip" of Reform UK after a racism row involving the prime minister. It comes as a Reform UK canvasser who used a racial slur against Rishi Sunak called himself a "total fool" and said he has learned his lesson.

Saturday 29 June 2024 12:55, UK

• General Election 2024

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• Farage urged to 'get a grip' of Reform UK
• Reform canvasser in PM racism row says he was 'a total fool'
• Faultlines:   Eight-hour school runs and kids too hungry to sleep - the families caught up in housing 'social cleansing'
• Politics at Jack and Sam's : The last weekend
• Live reporting by Faith Ridler

Election essentials

• Manifesto pledges: Conservatives | Greens | Labour | Lib Dems | Plaid | Reform | SNP
• Trackers:  Who's leading polls? | Is PM keeping promises?
• Campaign Heritage:  Memorable moments from elections gone by
• Follow Sky's politics podcasts:  Electoral Dysfunction | Politics At Jack And Sam's
• Read more:  Who is standing down? | Key seats to watch | What counts as voter ID? | Check if your constituency is changing | Guide to election lingo
• How to watch election on Sky News

By Ben Bloch , political reporter

Two Reform UK parliamentary candidates have shared material deemed "vile" and in breach of the internationally-recognised definition of antisemitism.

Candidates of the right-wing party have previously shared on social media material defending Adolf Hitler, denying the Holocaust, conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family and Jewish financier George Soros, denial of antisemitism, and comparisons of the state of Israel with Nazi Germany.

The uncovering of these social media posts, in a dossier compiled by the Campaign Against Antisemitism and verified by Sky News, raises yet further questions about the vetting process undertaken by  Reform UK  ahead of nominating these candidates to stand for parliament.

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has threatened to take legal and police action against a vetting firm, Vetting.com, saying it was paid £144,000 to carry out candidate checks but "not a single piece of work was delivered", and alleged political bias.

Today is the final Saturday of the general election campaign, with people across the UK preparing to cast their vote on 4 July.

There's still plenty that could happen between now and Thursday - so now isn't the time to turn away.

It's 12.30pm - here's everything you need to know so far:

• Party leaders are on the election campaign trail on  Armed Forces Day;
• Rishi Sunak will later hail the "duty, dedication and selfless personal sacrifice" of servicemen and women and claim his is the only party to meet the Help for Heroes Veterans' Pledge;
• Meanwhile, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has pledged to introduce a new armed forces commissioner and lead a "government of service" if Labour is elected;
• However, there is another story holding attention today - a racism row involving a Reform UK canvasser and Rishi Sunak;
• Footage from an undercover Channel 4 reporter showed Reform campaigner Andrew Parker using a discriminatory term about the prime minister, as well as saying the army should "just shoot" migrants crossing the Channel;
• The canvasser has called himself a "total fool" and said he has learned his lesson;
• But John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, has urged Nigel Farage to "get a grip" of Reform UK after a racism row involving the prime minister.
• Sir Keir Starmer has also commented today, urging Mr Farage to "set the tone" in his party;
• And Tom Tugendhat , the security minister, has criticised those "in Nigel Farage's company" who have "rather extraordinary and unpleasant views".

Stick with us through the afternoon for the latest news and analysis from the campaign trail.

Our live poll tracker collates the results of opinion surveys carried out by all the main polling organisations - and allows you to see how the political parties are performing in the run-up to the general election.

With under a week to go, the Tories and Labour have taken a drop, while support for Reform UK and the Liberal Democrats is on the rise.

Read more about the tracker  here .

Sir Keir Starmer today refused to say whether David Lammy would be his foreign secretary under a Labour government.

Speaking to reporters, the Labour leader said he will "work hard until 10 o'clock on Thursday" to get votes, adding: "I'm not going to announce anybody who may be in a cabinet after Thursday if we win."

Asked if he was concerned about the prospect of a super-majority, Sir Keir said that "the numbers are really tight, it'll go down to a few hundred in many constituencies".

He added: "We have to win every vote, earn the trust across the country."

More from Sir Keir Starmer, who has hit out at "desperate" and "ridiculous" Conservative attempts to portray Labour as a risk to national security.

Speaking on a campaign visit, he told reporters he had been granted access to sensitive intelligence by the government so it was wrong for ministers to now claim he would be a danger.

He said: "I think this is desperate stuff from the Tories. We are the party that were the founder member of NATO. 

"If you go to Brussels and see the treaty there for NATO, it's a Labour secretary of state that signed that and our support for NATO has been unshakeable since then.

"On the nuclear deterrent, we're clear about the triple lock that we've put in place, not only the current deterrent but the future upgrades of that deterrent and the jobs that go with it.

"We have also - and this is why it is really desperate from the Tories - united with this government, the Tory government, on really important issues of national security. As a result of that, they have given me high-level sensitive briefings, so much do they trust us on national security. 

"I'm very glad that they have and I do thank the defence secretary for facilitating that, particularly during Ukraine when they gave us very regular, very sensitive briefings.

"To now turn around and make this ridiculous claim just shows how desperate they have become going into this election. It does them no good."

Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has urged Nigel Farage to "set the tone" in his party after a racism row involving Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.

Speaking to Sky News at Aldershot Football Club in Hampshire, Sir Keir was asked what he believes attracts people to joining a party like Reform UK.

He said: "Leadership accepts the culture and the tone of an organisation, in this case a political party.

"It's no good Nigel Farage after the event saying that he doesn't agree with certain comments. 

"You set the culture, you set the tone. That's what leadership is about. 

"And that's why I set about changing the Labour Party four and a half years ago. And that took an act of leadership, steely determination, so that we could ensure the Labour Party going into this election is a changed Labour Party."

Sir Keir went on to insist that Mr Farage is "not a spectator" - but is the leader of Reform UK: "Leaders have to set the tone."

He added: "Leaders have to set the tone, set the standards and take the action so that people know in advance what is acceptable and what's not acceptable. 

"I think that's a very important part of leadership."

Pledges and promises are coming thick and fast from every party as the general election approaches. 

Struggling to keep up with who is saying what?

Here is a summary of where the main parties stand on major issues.

For a more in-depth look at what each party has pledged, scour our  manifesto checker ...

By David Blevins , senior Ireland correspondent

Fermanagh and South Tyrone is the UK's most westerly constituency and its most marginal.

Sinn Fein won the seat by just four votes in 2010 and by a mere 57 in 2019.

Witness to one of the worst terrorist atrocities - Enniskillen's Poppy Day bombing in 1987 - it has been scarred by the past.

But at Erne Wrestling Club in Irvinestown, they refuse to submit to those divisions.

Coach Alex Edgar said: "Activities like this bring everybody together and religion doesn't mean anything.

"It's all about having fun and at the end of the day, it gets them out of the house and keeps them fit and active."

One topic many people will be watching closely throughout the general election campaign is how parties are approaching LGBTQ+ issues.

Below, Sky News has wrapped up everything you need to know...

By Dr Hannah Bunting, Sky News elections analyst, and Joely Santa Cruz, data journalist

This week the party leaders made their final pleas to voters.

The Labour and Lib Dem leaders visited some of their most ambitious targets so far, while the prime minister took a scattergun approach, fighting for votes in even some of the safest of Tory seats.

This campaign is being fought on new electoral boundaries, with many constituencies undergoing significant changes since 2019.

For the purposes of this analysis, we use notional results based on  calculations by Colin Rallings and Michael Thrasher , honorary professors at the University of Exeter, which estimate the 2019 election seat results if they had taken place on the new constituency boundaries.

You can read more from our experts in the link below...

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