Mental strength doesn’t come without practice. Mentally strong people have some things to avoid that make them calm, strong and successful.
Execution of a task, how big or small it is, requires your concentration and focus. Apparently, we all are exercising it while completing our tasks, but if you’ll stop for a minute and actually think about what you are doing, you’ll see you are doing things without the conscious presence of mind. So, here’s where the role of mental strength comes in.
As a mentally strong individual, your brain must be concentrated on your task and not the things that have happened already or the points that must be at your least concern while you want to focus. If you feel that you are the opposite, even then, there is nothing to worry about.
Mental strength is not something that is innate. You need to develop it. Some people manage to get it early in life, whereas the others have to strive for it even in the later years. But as you have landed here and reading this article, you have actually figured out your weakness. Now you just need to work on the gaps, and for that, here we are highlighting things that mentally strong people avoid. Keep this list handy. It will help you in getting over your weakness in lesser time.
Things That Mentally Strong people should avoid:
This list is going to help you in a lot of different ways, including the development of mental strength. So, let’s see what’s packed in it that we are suggesting you avoid.
1. Wasting time:
“A man who dares to waste one hour of time has not discovered the value of life.” ~ Charles Darwin
Rightly said! This could have actually come from an individual mentally strong enough to know the importance of time. Usually, we don’t like time with mental strength because, for most of us, there is no clear relationship between these two variables.
But this is what happens. When you are wasting your time in activities that are not important or are merely being used for delaying the other activities, you are fooling your mind. Being fooled once allows you to make a habit. And when you can fool your mind, why don’t you expect it to get tricked by others as well?
What you can do to become a mentally strong individual is to create a plan for your activities and consider each of them time-sensitive. Not immediately, but gradually, you’ll see your things working properly for you.
2. Being apprehensive:
Everyone is scared of one thing or the other. Sometimes, it is just about the fear of meeting new people, whereas sometimes it is about investing in a risky industry. However, unless you’ll realize that these fears are just in your mind, you won’t be able to do the best things or use the best of your abilities.
This shows it again to be a mind game. If you want to be the part of mentally strong people, then you must come out of your fears. Most of which are the perceptions created by your mind and nothing else.
3. Giving up:
Failure is part of success. Mentally strong people have the courage to get up after a failure and continue their journey until they reach their goals. C.S. Lewis said:
“Failures, repeated failures, are finger posts on the road to achievement. One fails forward toward success.” – C. S. Lewis
However, it is not as easy as it looks. Failure can drain away all your energy, and you might feel that you won’t be able to start it again. However, once you get up and start from where you left, you can automatically feel the energy coming back. The only thing that you have to do is to take the first step. And this is how mentally strong people are ahead of you or everyone else who does not show enough strength to start again.
4. Fearing risk:
Certainty cannot be seen unless you reach your goal. Students can’t be certain about their grades, business people can’t be certain about their success, and similarly, investors can’t be certain about the profits until everything is in their hands.
But each of these groups of people has to take the first step without knowing what is actually going to happen. You have to show some faith in your abilities, and it requires mental strength. Martin Luther King Jr. described this ambiguous situation in the following words:
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”
5. Not accepting change:
“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” ― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley.
True indeed! But not for the minds that are strong enough to know that certain changes are necessarily part of life and endorsing them with a full heart can make the entire process easier.
Have you ever read an autobiography of some of the most successful people? One of the things that you’ll find common in them is the ability to accept and implement the change in their life. So, you’ll have to realize that nothing is permanent; neither it should be. Change provides room for betterment and flexibility, and you should go with it, no matter how difficult it gets (for starters).
6. Not asking for help:
This is a people’s world. Someone is good at management tasks, while others could be good at creative thinking, critical analysis, or some specific skill. You can’t take everything in your hand, and this is what mentally strong people also avoid.
They are aware of their capabilities, so the things that aren’t their piece of cake, they ask for others’ help in it and don’t make it a matter big enough to impact their own personality.
Initially, it could be difficult to let things go off your hand, but making yourself realize that it is for the good and someone adept in the task would handle it more professionally, can help you in avoiding this unhealthy habit of not asking for help.
7. Keep dwelling in the past
Past is the time gone. We are not emphasizing the literal meaning or the definition here, but the point is to ensure that you aren’t living in the gone phase.
You can’t change anything from the past; neither can make anything good, nor recreates it. So, why would you allow it to make your present complex?
“You realize that our mistrust of the future makes it hard to give up the past.” ― Chuck Palahniuk
One of the things that you can, and you should do with the past, is to reflect on it and learn some lessons. This is one of the abilities of a strong mind and can save you from future problems as well.
8. Not realizing your strengths:
One of the biggest mistakes that mentally strong people should avoid is not realizing your strengths. Till the time, you won’t realize what you can do and how good, how do you expect to even get into it?
People with strong mental capabilities know that this is the first thing to figure out, and nobody can do that for you. Even one of the most given suggestions by successful people is to identify your strengths and weaknesses, especially in consideration of the situation at hand.
So, one thing that you should do and is the easiest one to gain mental strength is to conduct a SWOT Analysis of your personality. It will help you in seeing where you are at the moment and which strengths should you develop over time to be in your dream position.
9. Trying to please everyone:
When you aren’t strong enough, your aim is to keep everyone happy, even at the expense of your capabilities and peace of mind. But even after putting in considerable effort, you don’t achieve that, and the result is demotivation or lack of energy.
But mentally strong people don’t have an aim to please people around them because they know that the conflicting interests would create resentment in at least a few people around them, and that is quite normal.
These people adjust their goals and prioritize the people around them. It makes it easier to make decisions that are going to be beneficial and helpful in the achievement of goals. And we suggest this what you should do as well.
10. Having negative people around
“Stop letting people who do so little for you control so much of your mind, feelings, and emotions.” Will Smith
Negativity can ruin your life. It can push you into the delusion that you don’t have the right mix of capabilities and opportunities to succeed.
You should try doing the same; it can make your life a lot easier than it currently is. And you’ll be able to see a visible difference in your life too.
11. Assuming the expected outcome
It is better to plan things and the expected outcomes seeing the overall conditions and external factors. However, just believing something because you want to believe it is no way a practical approach.
It can actually yield more problems for you rather than bringing any sort of good. By doing this, you actually get stuck into the delusion that things will always go the way you want to be, and the result is the lack of acceptance of the failure or the non-achievement of goals. Getting over it is immensely difficult and often requires more energy to handle the consequences.
Mentally strong people avoid it, and so should you!
12. Repeating the same mistakes:
Failing in something once is completely acceptable. You don’t even have to worry about it in any way. But make sure that you should find the causes of the failure and not to repeat those mistakes again.
It is one of the characteristics of the wise people that they don’t make the same mistake twice. It is part of learning and actually shows that you are moving one step closer to success.
13. Bashing people on constructive criticism:
Feedback is an integral part of learning. So, if you are getting constructive feedback from your boss or colleagues and you start considering them toxic, then such an attitude would reveal a weak state of mental strength.
No one has enough time to evaluate your work and provide you with ways through which you can improve. If someone does that, you should appreciate it and ensure that you make progress according to it, so you can excel and create an environment where constant learning can take place.
By showing such an irresponsible attitude, you’ll be restricting any positive feedback from the people who’ll be trying to help you out.
14. Being jealous:
Mentally strong people have a win-win approach. They make sure that all the people in the loop should be getting something good out of the engagement. It can involve monetary benefits or an opportunity to grow. It depends. But it is nowhere restricted to being jealous in anyway.
So, make sure if you are involved in a project with someone, give them a chance to excel and have a stake in what you are doing.
15. Not scared of solitude:
Last thing, the mentally strong people are not scared of solitude. They know that happiness comes from within, not from other people. There can be times when others are not around and you have to be alone. So, you should be respecting your privacy as well and learn to live some time with your own thoughts.
Conclusion:
You’ll have to spend some time practicing these things, so that you can transform them into a habit. With their adoption, one major thing that you’ll get is the peace of mind – a thing missing in most of our lives.
What’s your say on it? Do you have some strategies that can help in easy adoption of these habits. If yes, please share them in the comments section below.
