5 Ways To Develop Mental Strength

Mental strength—let’s face it, we could all use a bit of that. Mental strength is necessary to get us through tough times and to help us do what needs to be done.

One of the main reasons that people fail at things is that they lack mental strength. Yes, you can dress it up in all sorts of other ways. It’s easy to find an excuse when you need one. What is not so easy is recovering the opportunity cost that you squandered because you weren’t tough enough to follow through with what you were doing.

As an example: say you have a friend who you know is bad for you. This person saps your confidence, is constantly berating you and ridiculing your ideas, and generally keeps you trapped in a spiral of negativity. You know you should cut him off. And so you do—for a couple of weeks.

But then you find that you miss him. Your friendship group is small and not hanging out with this particular friend has left a big hole. One day you message him, just to see how he’s getting on. Soon enough you’re meeting up again as though nothing had happened.

But unfortunately you’re now saddled with a toxic influence dragging you down once more.

Had you been more mentally strong you would have stuck to your guns and avoided this. But you weren’t, and so you didn’t.

Actually, being mentally strong isn’t all that hard—you just need to build up resistance, toughness and discipline. Here’s how:

1. Put yourself in uncomfortable situations 

Classic, but it damn well works. Put yourself firmly outside of your comfort zone at least once a day. It’ll harden you up, and make you see what is possible when you put your mind to it.

No excuses for not doing this–it’s remarkably easy. Whether it’s going into a confrontation you’d rather avoid with a colleague or defending a view that you’d normally conceal, getting uncomfortable is great for the soul.

2. Stop confusing feelings with facts 

Yeah, you might feel bad as a result of an action you or someone else has taken, but so what? It’s a feeling, not a fact.

You might feel the emotion of missing someone—and that can be hard—but at the end of the day it is a response that your mind has created to a given stimuli rather than something tangible and ‘real’.

Which leads us onto  . . .

3. Realise that you don’t HAVE to act on your feelings 

However bad you might feel, realise that you don’t have to act on your feelings. You don’t have to do anything at all.

Actually, the best thing that you can do is to simply sit with those feelings, and allow them to pass through you.

Hard as it might be to believe they will pass, and you will start to feel better in time.

4. Be accountable 

Getting accountable is a great way to help you maintain mental strength and focus since peer group pressure is incredibly powerful.

As an example: if you intend to spend the whole month of May at home working on a project then inform a good friend of the fact and arrange to call him once or twice a week to check in.

The simple act of having to share your progress with another human being will keep you on the straight and narrow to an incredible degree.

5. Get out of your head by helping others 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, a great way to maintain your mental strength is to take yourself out of your own head and focus on someone else for a while instead.

Most of us are far too self-absorbed. In fact, we are a self-absorbed planet. Just look at what we do on the internet and on social apps all day. If you can just concentrate on someone else for a little while, then you’ll be amazed how much less your problems upset you.

There are plenty of people around who are far less fortunate than you. You could help a family member, you could serve meals to the homeless or you could volunteer at a retirement home. Something—anything—to take the spotlight off of you for a while.

Helping others will give you much-needed perspective—probably enough to convince you that your problems are manageable. And that will help keep you on your path.

By the way, if you want to learn more about what makes a person mentally tough in a world where sociopaths seem to rule not only the corporate workplace, but also in the dating market, then pick up a copy of my book How To Be An Assh*le—it’s packed with all the information, tips and techniques you need to be effective in the boardroom and the bedroom.

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