Mental strength separates the powerful from the powerless. It is a must-have skill in today's world.
You cannot think your way into developing mental strength. Rather, you have to build it up every single day.
Never allow the events of your life to determine whom you become. You have the power to choose how you want to show up in this world. You are stronger than you think.
Are you ready to learn how you can build up your resilience when life gets tough?
Watch the video below where I talk about how to step up in moments of crisis and adversity:
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
Do you want to learn how you can master your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!
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We all possess mental strength.
Unfortunately, not everyone knows how to embody it. As a result, they give up when adversity strikes. We've all reached moments in our lives when our mental strength is tested. Maybe this means getting fired from a job, overcoming a difficult breakup, or dealing with an abusive boss. During these times, it can be difficult to stay grounded and keep moving forward.
One of my favorite mental strength quotes is by Inc.com who says that it is, “The ability to work hard and respond resiliently to failure and adversity; the inner quality that enables individuals to work hard and stick to their long-term passions and goals.”
Would you consider yourself to be mentally strong?
The ability to rise above your circumstances and see the silver lining takes patience, courage, and resilience. If you don't feel strong, that is merely a bad habit that you have created. Negative thoughts feel uncontrollable but that's only because they are unconscious. It's important to understand that you can change any behavior pattern by controlling your thoughts.
At the end of the day, mental strength is a choice.
You are responsible for your life. You cannot wait for anything or anyone to come along and make you strong. Only you have the power to move your life in a better direction. The sooner you are able to figure this out, the sooner that you will be able to develop a champion mindset.
I believe that mental strength plays a more important role than anything else for achieving your goals in life. You can have all of the resources in the world and be the most intelligent person on the block, but if your mind is a mess, you won't get far.
It takes time, effort, and consistency to develop mental strength and make it part of your everyday life. To help you develop your mental muscle, here are some tips on how to build up your resilience during tough times.
1. Find Meaning In What You Do
If you can find meaning in what you do, then there is no obstacle or setback that will stand in your way of success. Not only does meaning make you more resilient, but it also makes you experience more happiness. If meaning is so important, then why is it so hard to find?
Limiting beliefs are usually the culprit. They hold you back from living your true potential in life. Moreover, when adversity strikes, they like to tell you all of the reasons why you can't get through it. When your life lacks meaning, you feel a sense of emptiness. In this place, it's easy to lose faith for a better tomorrow.
In his book, Man’s Search For Meaning, Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl said, “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” During his time in the concentration camps, he found that all of the survivors had one thing in common – they found meaning in the midst of extreme suffering and devastation. That is powerful stuff.
If you can commit to shifting your mindset, you will give you the power to create a life that is rich in meaning. How do you want to be remembered? When you know this, the next time that life hands you lemons, you won't give up. Rather, you will bounce back and make some kickass lemonade.
2. Think Positive Thoughts
I believe that the biggest difference between those who succeed versus those who don’t is their mindset. A lot of people spend an insane amount of time and energy taking care of their bodies because they want to look and feel good. However, less priority is given to the mind. Why?
Well, largely because it is assumed to be something that is entirely out of your control. This is so far from true. Did you know that you have the ability to consciously create your life in a way that supports you? All of the events that have occurred in your life up to this moment have been created by your thoughts.
If you aren't happy with how your life currently looks, now is the time to go inward and start deconstructing your thoughts. If you choose to think angry and self-defeating thoughts then you will never experience true freedom in life.
The only purpose of negative thoughts is to prevent you from becoming the person that you are destined to be. Conversely, if you harness the power of positive thoughts, you will inevitably attract more positive experiences into your life. Positive thoughts end up creating your reality. Which path do you prefer?
3. Take Care Of Yourself
Having a regular routine is critical to building your resilience in the face of tough times. If you don't get enough sleep, eat poorly, and overwork yourself, how do you think you will respond to challenges? Probably not very well.
As Heidi Reeder, Ph.D. says, “Some people don't decide to take care of themselves—in terms of sleep, good food, fresh air, and time to just reflect—until they are well into a difficult time.” In order to live a full power life, you need to have a lot of fuel in your tank.
Your mind and body are connected to one another. If one is out of whack, the other will follow suit. Mentally strong people take good care of themselves. As a result, they experience more positive emotions, which allow them to build up their mental strength.
I find the very act of exercising to be really empowering. By pushing my limits at the gym, I am consciously building my mental muscle. As a result, I feel unstoppable. This confidence motivates me to achieve even more. Healthy body, healthy mind. Make that your new mantra.
4. Believe In Yourself
If you don't believe in yourself, it will impossible to possess mental strength. If you haven't already, eliminate the word, “can't” from your vocabulary.
All of us have mental blocks from time to time. Even the most successful people in this world have moments when they doubt their abilities. However, the difference between them and everyone else is that they don't live in this dark place. They have the confidence to know that they are stronger than their inner critic.
Once you believe that you are somebody (which you already are), you will immediately start to embody that feeling. That is the point at which you will find your inner awesomeness.
Being successful in life comes down to having an empowering belief system about who you are. Belief is the one thing that drives and ignites your behavior. Believing that you will get through the difficult times is what will allow you to overcome adversity.
Every new challenge will transform into an opportunity. This is the moment at which you become a master of your life.
5. Become The Master Of Your Emotions
When adversity strikes, it's easy for your emotions to get the best of you. I'm not saying that there is something wrong with feeling down sometimes. However, if you allow your emotions to control your life, you will constantly be in a reactive mode.
You need to understand that, at any given moment, you are in control of how you feel. A lot of people believe that emotions happen to them. As a result, they don't take responsibility for how they feel. Instead, they choose to play the victim. Don't buy into it this line of thinking.
In order to become a master of your emotions, the meaning that you associate with an event has to be positive. Two people can have the exact same experience, yet perceive it in entirely different ways.
If something bad happens in your life, you can either see it as a bad thing or you can find something good from it. Those with a higher degree of emotional resilience are able to more effectively handle life's stresses with grace and ease. As a result, they thrive through life.
6. Face Your Fears
Nothing holds people back from tapping into their full potential in life more than fear does. Fear is the killer of dreams. What would you do if you weren't afraid? For most people, fear becomes such a normal part of their everyday lives that they don't think twice about it.
However, as author and speaker Monica Berg explains in her new book, Fear Is Not an Option, “We have the remarkable ability to excise irrational fear from our lives—and that practice is as simple as it is life-changing.” So, how do you do this? Face it, head on.
Mentally strong people possess the same fears as everyone else. Rather than avoid the things that cause them to experience pain and discomfort, they make friends with them. They are willing to risk failure if it means growing and evolving into a better version of themselves.
If you fall, get back up and keep fighting. Failure is merely a steppingstone to success in life. A life without fear is something that everyone deserves, and that includes you.
7. Be Grateful
Gratitude is the simple practice of expressing a deep appreciation for all of the blessings that you have in life. One of the greatest barriers to gratitude is the fact that our lives have become extremely busy. This means that there is less time to slow down and reflect upon what matters in life.
People who possess the resilience to keep moving forward are thankful for what they already have. They always focus on the good, knowing that there is someone out there that is struggling more than they are. Their mantra is, “It could always be worse.”
Dr. Robert Emmons, a leading gratitude researcher said it best – “Gratitude elevates, energizes, inspires and transforms, and those who practice it will experience significant improvements in several areas of life including relationships, academics, energy level and even dealing with tragedy and crisis.”
Gratitude is one of the most important rituals that I practice in my daily life. It primes my brain for happiness and keeps me grounded when I feel overwhelmed. The beauty of gratitude is that you can experience this emotional state at any given moment of the day.
At this moment, step back and ask yourself, “What am I grateful for?” Feel into it and remind yourself what makes life worth living. You may be surprised how many reasons you find.
When you connect to your inner power, there is no obstacle too big to stop you.
Make mental strength your strongest skill by developing it every single day. Remove any bad habits that hinder your ability to do so and counter them with healthy ones.
Life isn't always fair. However, if you change your perception of what fairness is, getting through tough times won't hurt as much. Doing so will give your brain the strength training that it needs in order to withstand anything and everything.
Are you ready to flex your mental muscle?
Do you want to learn how you can master your life? CLICK HERE to join my Life Mastery Accelerator program!
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