Why Doing DIY May Make Your Life Better

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There is a big, dedicated, and lively “self-help community” out there, as well as a related industry that churns out large numbers of books, video tutorials, pamphlets, retreats, seminars, and other guides and techniques for becoming your “best you” and getting over whatever situation might be holding you back in life.

In the self-help sphere, in general, you often hear about things like meditation, holistic health techniques, certain dietary practices, and so on. You’re not so likely to hear about the ways in which performing DIY can help to make your life better, and bring out your “best you”, however.

DIY is probably less popular these days than it has been in some time. The abundance of information provided by the World Wide Web in general means that we can always contact specialists when we need to conduct some roof maintenance, or replace a leaking faucet.

And of course, there are many situations where you really should leave it to the experts.

That being said, by living a life devoid of DIY, you’re doing yourself a disservice.

Here are some reasons why doing DIY may make your life better.

It can help to get you out of your own head

From time to time, we are all likely to fall victim to the phenomena of being “stuck in our own heads.” That is to say, we're all vulnerable to getting caught up in our negative ruminations, daydreams, uncertain reflections and fears, and all the rest.

Often, we construct mental prisons for ourselves that essentially stall our ability to make progress in our lives in general, to live the kind of lives we want to live, or to become the kind of people we want to be.

Often, people try and think their way out of their mental prisons, and there may be something to that. The “Positive Psychology” school that brought us the concept of “Learned Optimism” emphasises the importance of challenging critical thoughts, and they seem quite successful in doing so.

Then again, it can be the case – and often is – that what we really need to do when we’re caught in our own mental prisons, is to find ways of breaking out altogether.

Largely, this is a matter of doing things that force you to engage physically and directly with the world around you – whether that means socialising with friends in a public place, engaging in an active hobby, exercising, or in fact doing DIY.

When you’re working on repairing a damaged appliance, or sanding a table, you’re physically active, and it can be easier to get out of your own head.

It can boost your self-esteem by making you more self-reliant

One of the downsides of having so many amenities, services, and goods at our disposal these days, is that we tend to be significantly less self-reliant than the generations that came before us.

That lack of self-reliance can often be tied into a lack of self-esteem, and a sense of being somewhat more vulnerable and helpless in the world and we would like.

When you get into DIY properly, however, you are making yourself significantly more self-reliant, and more capable of dealing with the issues that are likely to arise in everyday life.

A lot of anxiety can melt away when you feel that you are up to the challenge of facing the world head-on, and dealing with the problems you find there.

It can help you to appreciate the complexity of the everyday amenities you take for granted

These days, we all tend to be pretty spoiled, and take for granted the amazing variety of amenities that we enjoy, that people only just recently in history would have considered supreme blessings from above.

For example, how much appreciation do you feel on an everyday basis when you turn on the hot water tap in your shower, and the water actually comes out hot?

When we take things for granted, we essentially strip them of their special value and meaning, and react to them as if they were just unremarkable features of the environment.

But when you take up DIY as a pastime, however, you are constantly confronting those amenities from a problem-solving state of mind. This will very quickly motivate you to see the value in these things, to be reminded of the miracle of their very existence, and to appreciate them.

This, in turn, can help you to feel more grateful for your life in general.