Mental strength is one of those things that we all wish we had more of, and when we are faced with times of adversity, or experience setbacks, do we fold at the first hurdle, or do we keep going? Sometimes we feel that we lack those internal resources to meet those challenges. But learning to become more strong in mind, or resilience is about ensuring that, whatever obstacle you face, you learn to practice mental fortitude. What does it take?
Tolerating Discomfort
Learning to tolerate discomfort is beneficial in many ways. It’s not always easily done, especially when you are taking those initial steps to reduce addictive behaviors, for example, smoking. But learning to tolerate discomfort, or reducing your comfort levels, can help you develop that all-important internal strength. When it comes to something like smoking, it’s important that sometimes, the little swaps can help you to tolerate a slight amount of discomfort, so you can then turn up the dial later, and companies like Blinc provide vapes and e-cigarettes products that can help in the practice of giving up smoking.
Use Your Mental Energy Wisely
We can be very scatterbrained, and learning to choose things to think about the take us towards our goals, rather than be distracted, will help. Learning to focus your mind on the things that are beneficial will foster that internal strength.
Taking Time to Reflect
When was the last time you sat and thought about your day? Taking these opportunities to reflect on how you’re progressing, and if you need to make fixes or improvements, will help to develop that internal strength. Taking a few minutes every day to sit in peace and quiet and reflect on the things you could have done better means that you will come back fighting the next day.
Reframing Negative Thoughts
If you think about yourself negatively, or you use negative statements, this is a problem that further compounds itself, and you are not surprised when you give in to temptation, or mental weakness comes to the fore, because you told yourself this would happen. Instead, reframing negative thoughts, and slowly edging them out in favor of positive ones will gradually take over your life.
Practicing Gratitude
To be mentally strong, we’ve got to be grateful for any good fortune we have. When we feel that bad things happen to us constantly, we feel that we are in the firing line for more bad things. This goes back to the idea of taking stock at the end of the day. When you are grateful for any little positive, this will help you set yourself up for success. This is embodied in practices such as the Law of Attraction.
Living According to Your Values
We can measure ourselves according to other people’s success, but mentally strong people measure their own sense of self-worth by staying true to their own values. To improve your mental health, it is vital that you learn to feel good about your actions, and acting according to your values rather than anybody else’s will view that belief in yourself.
Learning to develop mental strength can help overcome many obstacles in life, and practicing some of these habits will make a massive difference.
