The 9 Essential Habits Of Mentally Strong People
At our overnight summer camps near Chicago, we strive to be intentionally empowering and intentionally challenging, so that our campers maximize their potential. Carolyn Gregoire posted this Huffington Post article, summarized below, (and in full at this link) describing nine essential habits of mentally strong people:
Mental strength is a difficult-to-define psychological concept that encompasses emotional intelligence, grit, resilience, self-control, mental toughness, and mindfulness. …It’s the reason that some people are able to overcome any obstacle, while others crumble at life’s daily challenges and frustrations.
The ability to cope with difficult emotions and situations is a significant predictor of our success and happiness. The most capable individuals in this way are able to turn any obstacle into a source of growth and opportunity. And while much has been made of what mentally strong people avoid doing—things like dwelling on the past, resenting the success of others and feeling sorry for themselves—what do they actually do? What tactics do they use to overcome adversity time and time again?
Here are 9 essential habits and practices of mentally strong people that can help you get through any challenge or hardship.
1. They see things objectively.
The way we perceive a situation has a tremendous power to either help or harm us. So often, we react emotionally and project negative judgments onto a situation, when the first key to overcoming a challenge is to see things objectively. Ryan Holiday, author of the forthcoming The Obstacle is the Way found that mental toughness came down to three things: Perception, action, and will. “What’s required [for mental strength] is some sort of philosophical framework that allows you to look past your emotions or what your first impressions of a situation might be,” Holiday said. “So the elements of that are, 1) Your perception. Can you see things clearly and evenly? 2) Can you think about creative or out of the box kinds of solutions or actions? And finally, what is the kind of determination or will you can apply that action to the situation with?”
2. They let go of entitlement.
We all deserve happiness, but we don’t deserve a life free from obstacles or setbacks. An attitude of entitlement—thinking that we deserve to get what we want most or all of the time—can make it much more difficult to deal with challenges when they come around and take you by surprise. Mentally strong people recognize that their entire life plans, and life itself, could be derailed at any moment—and they don’t waste their effort feeling wronged by destiny when things don’t quite go their way.
3. They keep an even keel.
Emotional stability and the ability to keep a cool head is an enormous asset when it comes to dealing with challenging situations. Fortunately, emotional stability tends to increase with age—and it should come as no surprise that we become happier as a result.
4. They don’t aspire to be happy all the time.
Excessive preoccupation with happiness can actually lead to an unhealthy attitude towards negative emotions and experiences. Mentally strong people don’t try to avoid negative emotions—rather, accepting both positive and negative emotions and letting different feelings coexist is a key component of resiliency. “The idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness,” Australian social researcher Hugh Mackay writes in The Good Life. “Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are.”
5. They’re realistic optimists.
Mentally tough people make a habit of getting up after they fall. Instead of getting upset, feeling hopeless and giving up in the face of obstacles, they take the opportunity to put on their thinking caps and come up with a creative solution to the problem at hand. Mentally strong people tend to be realistic optimists—they have the hopefulness of optimists and the clarity of pessimists—which gives them both the motivation and the critical thinking required to come up with creative solutions.
6. They live in the present moment.
Being present—rather than dwelling on the past or anticipating the future—allows you to see things as they really are. Whether or not they have a formal meditation or mindfulness practice, mentally strong people tend to have a mindful, attentive way of engaging with the world. The science has demonstrated that mindfulness really can boost your brain power. Mindfulness practice has been linked with emotional stability, reduced stress andanxiety, and improved mental clarity.
7. They’re persistent in the pursuit of their goals.
We’ve all heard inspiring stories of amazingly successful people who overcame significant hardships and failures to get there. They’re exhibiting one of the most fundamental qualities of resilient people: Perseverance, or as psychologist Angela Lee Duckworth puts it, grit. In her studies of students in a number of different educational environments, and teachers and workers in various professional environments, Duckworth found that grit more than any other single quality (IQ, emotional intelligence, good looks, physical health) accounts for success.
8. But they know when it’s time to let go.
A mentally strong person can say to themselves, “I tried everything I could in this situation, and now I can let it go,” says Holiday. Just as important as perseverance is the ability to recognize that you can control only your own actions—not the results of those actions. Accepting this fact allows us to resign to the things that are beyond our power. There’s an idea in Stoicism, Holiday explains, called the “art of acquiescence,” which is yielding to the things that you can’t change and making the best of them, rather than allowing them to upset or frustrate you. We need strength, determination and perseverance, but these aren’t the answer in every situation. The mentally strong person lives by the Serenity Prayer—they change what they can control, accept what they can’t control, and know the difference between the two.
9. They love their lives.
Amor fati is a Latin term that translates to “love of fate,” a concept derived from the ancient Greek and Roman Stoic philosophers that later reemerged in the work of Nietzsche. And it’s perhaps the single most important key to mental strength. Mentally strong people are grateful and appreciative of obstacles because of the simple fact that obstacles are life itself. Shortly before her death, Seattle-based author Jane Lotter left that advice with her family in a powerful self-written obituary. As Lotter put it, “May you always remember that obstacles in the path are not obstacles, they ARE the path.
What mental toughness habits can you add to those above? Please share!