If you want to toughen up, mentally, you need these five tactics. Train your brain to be stronger and more resilient and life will be smooth sailing for you!
Do you ever get envious of those people who seem to have it all together?
You know the type: When life happens, they just smile and spout platitudes about how every hardship is a character-building lesson?
You may wonder how those people always manage to find the silver linings. They learn how to do it — usually by getting knocked down a few times and finding their way back up!
This skill that you may feel like you are missing is resiliency, and it determines how mentally strong you can be in the face of adversity. It’s not on reserve for the elite. You can develop it on your own!
If you want to build and strengthen your mindset to become stronger, start by adopting these healthy practices into your day.
1. Learn the Truth About Control
Many of us begin to see “control” as necessary early on in life. When we can control environments, people, and outcomes, we can limit the pain and suffering we have to deal with.
But there are three types of control in a healthy mindset: things we can control, things others can control, and things that are out of everyone’s control.
Learning how to adapt to these levels can help you reduce stress and anxiety.
When you’re feeling overwhelmed with problems, chances are you’re trying to predict the outcome of things outside of your control zone.
Take a step back and evaluate what is causing your stress. Which of those things is within your ability to handle? Focus on those, and you’ll feel more powerful.
2. Acknowledge Your Emotions
It’s common to think that being happy is the only emotion that we should accept.
The truth is that all our emotions are valid and deserve considering — within limits.
Ignoring your pain and sadness doesn’t make it go away. It bottles it up, and it will likely come out in the wrong situations. But there are healthy outlets that you can use to validate your feelings.
The trick is to find the right way to let your emotions out.
Psychologists recommend strategies like:
- Journaling
- Writing poetry
- Talk therapy with a counselor
- Lunch or dinner with a good friend
- Spending time in nature
- Exercising
Whatever works for you, grab onto it and use it faithfully when you need to balance your feelings.
3. Cultivate Proper Responsibility
Once we become adults, we are wholly responsible for our own choices and behavior. This is a philosophy that takes the majority of adults a long time to internalize.
It’s a standard way of thinking to justify your choices by associating them with events or people from your past. Choosing to blame your faults and weaknesses on others, though, is a negative mindset and will not help you grow.
You must begin to take responsibility for how you handle every obstacle. Once you adopt that thought process, you can become mentally stronger.
4. Be Willing to Embrace Challenges
When everything goes your way, it’s harder to be flexible in the face of problems. On the other hand, when it seems like life is always trying to knock you down, it’s harder to appreciate challenging situations.
Still, if you can’t control the situation you’re in, you have two choices: Let it knock you down, or embrace it as a challenge and see how you can grow from it.
Seeing obstacles as a deterrent to your success might cause you to give up instead of trying to overcome them. Instead, look at them as a chance to shift your perspective.
Try to find a healthy balance where you can step back and see how the situation you are dealing with teaches you a lesson. This difference in the way you know a challenge will slowly strengthen your mindset.
5. Set Healthy Boundaries
A common trait for many people who struggle to be strong mentally is that they lack boundaries. It’s hard to say no when someone asks you to do something, even if it means you lose out on time for yourself.
Wanting everyone to like you or to make everyone else happy is understandable, but not acceptable. Set boundaries that help you to be healthier yourself first.
Think about the areas in your life where you tend to feel the most emotionally vulnerable or frustrated. What boundaries could you enact to reduce these feelings?
Simple ways to start are to do things like setting a strict schedule for when you are willing to listen to the complainers in your life. If there is someone who is always sapping your energy, and you can’t cut them out completely, limit the time they take from you.
Avoid social media and news if you notice you feel unsettled or depressed after scrolling through or listening to the posts. Getting caught in this vortex is dangerous because it’s silent and seemingly innocent. But social media and the news are two of the worst culprits for weakening the mind.
Give yourself a structured time for self-care, even if it’s just a relaxing bath or an uninterrupted book-reading session. This might require training your family to leave you alone for this chunk of the day, but stay consistent! They will learn, and you won’t have to deal with the constant redirection for too long.
These small boundaries will help you begin to create tougher ones. Soon enough you’ll be naturally setting walls between stress and your mindset.
Conclusion
Shifting your mind to become stronger is a lot like becoming physically healthier. It takes practice, exercise, and a healthy diet. Watch what you eat, but also pay attention to what you’re feeding your mind.
As you dedicate your energy toward actively practicing healthy mental habits, you’ll become a mentally strong person!
[Author Bio]:
Dominique Daniels has five years of Property Management experience working primarily in high-end apartment community living. Her ability to consistently deliver white-glove service to her residents and prospects has propelled her in a successful career that now finds her leading the team at The Cove.
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