What it means to be mentally strong
Being mentally strong means that one is in tune with one’s own body, emotions and thoughts. Mentally strong people can find courage, within themselves, during tough and challenging times in life. Even if mentally strong people feel depressed, anxious and worn out, they always find ways to bounce back and continue to live their life to the full.
Mentally strong people feel fear. Feeling afraid is perfectly normal. But instead, to allow that fear to stop them, they assess the situation and decide what steps to take, to overcome it.
Why does mental strength matter?
Life presents us not only with happy and fulfilling experiences but with painful and challenging ones as well. Being able to control the emotional triggers and thoughts, helps us to sail through much more successfully instead of drowning and feeling sorry for ourselves.
When life is easy, it is easy to enjoy it. However, when difficulties in life appear, mentally resilient people, look at the situation from all possible angles. They make the necessary adjustments, to overcome the obstacles.
Six things mentally strong people do:
- Mentally tough people move on. They do not waste time feeling sorry for themselves – moving on is an important part of life. Life waits for no one. We cannot put everything on hold until we feel stronger. Although sometimes it feels like we want everything to stop and wait for us, deep inside, we know that is not possible. Accepting this simple, yet uncomfortable sometimes truth helps a lot in our journey to mental strength.
- Mentally stable people embrace change. They welcome challenges – Change is one of the constants in life. It is inevitable. Some people will embrace change, others will moan and groan about the change. The latter ones keep on living in the good old days and this brings a lot of misery to their lives
- Mentally balanced people stay positive. They do not waste energy on things, they cannot control – we all have heard that we cannot control anything but ourselves. It is true. We cannot control other people’s thoughts and actions. All we have got control over is our thoughts and actions. In that case is it worth it to spend an ample amount of time and energy, trying to convince others that we are right and they are wrong? This is what mentally strong people are really good at discerning where to invest their time and energy.
- Mentally strong people are kind, fair and not afraid to speak up – being mentally aware means that one has got a lot of empathy for others and tries to look through their eyes and understand why they make certain decisions. A mentally balanced person will not judge others’ actions simply as good or bad, but that doesn’t mean that he/she will condone them. When someone is mentally strong they do not feel afraid to speak up, when injustice or unfairness has taken place.
- Mentally strong people are willing to take calculated risks – taking a leap of faith shows great courage. However taking a leap of faith, that is detrimental is pure ignorance. Mentally strong people plan carefully their steps and do not allow fear to sabotage them on their chosen path.
- Mentally strong people celebrate other people’s success. They do not resent it or feel jealous of it – Celebrating others’ success requires mental strength, especially if we haven’t reached our goals. This requires a degree of grace and appreciation that we are all in different stages in our individual journeys. Learning from those, who are more successful than us is a great way not to repeat their mistakes and to accelerate our own success.
If you think you need help in becoming more mentally strong, book your session with me
