Health & Wellness Magazine Community Of Caring - Summer 2019 | Page 10

MENTALLY
>>
STRONG
Developing mental strength is all about
habitually doing the things that no one
else is willing to do. If you aren’t doing
the following things on a regular basis,
you should be, for these are the habits
that mentally strong people rely on.
1. YOU HAVE TO FIGHT WHEN
YOU ALREADY FEEL DEFEATED. A
reporter once asked Muhammad Ali
how many sit-ups he does every day.
He responded, “I don’t count my
sit-ups, I only start counting when it
starts hurting, when I feel pain, cause
that’s when it really matters.” The same
applies to success in the workplace.
You always have two choices when
things begin to get tough: you can either
overcome an obstacle and grow in the
process or let it beat you. Humans are
creatures of habit. If you quit when
things get tough, it gets that much
easier to quit the next time. On the
other hand, if you force yourself to push
through a challenge, the strength begins
to grow in you.
2. YOU HAVE TO DELAY
GRATIFICATION. There was a famous
Stanford experiment in which an
administrator left a child in a room
with a marshmallow for 15 minutes.
Before leaving, the experimenter told
the child that she was welcome to eat
it, but if she waited until he returned
without eating it, she would get a
second marshmallow. The children that
were able to wait until the experimenter
returned experienced better outcomes
in life, including higher SAT scores,
greater career success, and even lower
body mass indexes. The point is that
delay of gratification and patience
are essential to success. People with
mental strength know that results only
materialize when you put in the time
and forego instant gratification.
3. YOU HAVE TO MAKE MISTAKES,
LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT, AND
TRY AGAIN—WITHOUT EVEN
FLINCHING. In a recent study at
the College of William and Mary,
researchers interviewed over 800
entrepreneurs and found that the most
10
successful among them tend to have
two critical things in common: they’re
terrible at imagining failure and they
tend not to care what other people
think of them. In other words, the most
successful entrepreneurs put no time
or energy into stressing about their
failures as they see failure as a small
and necessary step in the process of
reaching their goals.
4. YOU HAVE TO KEEP YOUR
EMOTIONS IN CHECK. Negative
emotions challenge your mental
strength every step of the way. While
it’s impossible not to feel your emotions,
it’s completely under your power to
manage them effectively and to keep
yourself in control of them. When you
let your emotions overtake your ability
to think clearly, it’s easy to lose your
resolve. A bad mood can make you lash
out or stray from your chosen direction
just as easily as a good mood can make
you overconfident and impulsive.
5. YOU HAVE TO MAKE THE CALLS
YOU’RE AFRAID TO MAKE. Sometimes
we have to do things we don’t want to
do because we know they’re for the best
in the long-run: fire someone, cold-call
a stranger, pull an all-nighter to get the
company server back up, or scrap a
project and start over. It’s easy to let
the looming challenge paralyze you,
but the most successful people know
that in these moments, the best thing
they can do is to get started right away.
Every moment spent dreading the task
subtracts time and energy from actually
getting it done. People that learn to
habitually make the tough calls stand
out like flamingos in a flock of seagulls.
6. YOU HAVE TO TRUST YOUR GUT.
THERE’S A FINE LINE BETWEEN
TRUSTING YOUR GUT AND BEING
IMPULSIVE. Trusting your gut is a
matter of looking at decisions from
every possible angle, and when the facts
don’t present a clear alternative, you
believe in your ability to make the right
decision; you go with what looks and
feels right.
7. YOU HAVE TO LEAD WHEN NO
ONE ELSE FOLLOWS. It’s easy to set
a direction and to believe in yourself
when you have support, but the true
test of strength is how well you maintain
your resolve when nobody else believes
in what you’re doing. People with
mental strength believe in themselves
no matter what, and they stay the
course until they win people over to
their ways of thinking.
8. YOU HAVE TO FOCUS ON THE
DETAILS EVEN WHEN IT MAKES
YOUR MIND NUMB. Nothing tests
your mental strength like mind-numbing
details, especially when you’re tired.
The more people with mental strength
are challenged, the more they dig in and
welcome that challenge, and numbers
and details are no exception to this.
9. YOU HAVE TO BE KIND TO PEOPLE
WHO ARE RUDE TO YOU. When
people treat you poorly, it’s tempting
to stoop to their level and return the
favor. People with mental strength don’t
allow others to walk all over them, but
that doesn’t mean they’re rude to them,
either. Instead, they treat rude and cruel
people with the same kindness they
extend to everyone else, because they
don’t allow another person’s negativity
to bring them down.
10. YOU HAVE TO BE ACCOUNTABLE
FOR YOUR ACTIONS, NO MATTER
WHAT. People are far more likely
to remember how you dealt with a
problem than they are to recall how you
created it in the first place. By holding
yourself accountable, even when
making excuses is an option, you show
that you care about results more than
your image or ego.
Bringing It All Together
Mental strength is as rare as it is
important. The good news is that any
of us can get stronger with a little extra
focus and effort.