By I used to believe that mental strength came from reading books and training your brain day in day out.
That does have some effect, but it’s not going to provide you lasting change — something that knocks you right in your tracks to make that much-needed transition of your mind.
You aren’t going to like this, but it’s the truth.
Becoming mentally strong is a step by step process when you proceed through those hard times.
Hard times are your most treasured and precious times to grow your mental muscle.
Those times will knock you down, and there will be moments where you don’t believe you will make it.
But, as you push through some of the most challenging times in your life, you will come out stronger and more mentally, emotionally and physically prepared for the next level life gives you.
I’m here writing this to you; all the thoughts of my mother rush through my mind, piercing my heart as tears stream from my eyes.
Her cancer diagnosis and end of life care has been the most challenging and most painful time in my life to date.
She is my rock, the one who always gave me strength. The pain of losing someone so important in my life is excruciatingly painful.
I have come to understand that life is your best teacher, and putting yourself in highly challenging situations will always build your mental strength in more ways than one.
Here are a few things that can help you get a head start in building that mental toughness:
One: Listen and read a lot of successful books.
One thing I found is that every time I’d listen to a successful person tell their story, it would add more tools to my success building mindset.
People like Les Brown, Napoleon Hill and Tony Robins all help me with tips, tricks and everyday activities that make a big difference to my own life.
So what you have to do is keep working on those tools every day.
If a successful person tells you something works, you must go ahead and try it out for yourself; To be in a successful position, they must know a thing or two. It does pay to listen to the advice of those who have been there.
Two: Put your hand up for challenging projects
Sometimes we feel that we can’t do a certain thing, and we shy away from trying.
The only way you will ever know if you can do it is if you try.
It’s better to try and fail than to be the kind of person that sits on the fence afraid of failure. Failure is a result of not even attempting anything at all.
The only natural way to learn is to do something wrong because you won’t do it again. Unfortunately, there isn’t a rule book of any sort to give you fail-proof instructions.
Could you write your own life lessons and keep adding to them all the time? How valuable would that be to note your mental training progression?
Three: Lift weights!
Lifting weights might make some people laugh, but I say this with absolute certainty — this has helped me build my own mental toughness so much.
I used to be weak and couldn’t even lift my body weight. I was weak-minded too. I never believe in my own self, or even tried things I loved.
When I started training, I would get stronger and stronger, gaining confidence in my abilities. That filtered through to my life, not only what my gym personal best lifts were.
Slowly, I became an expert and studied to become a personal trainer, competing in women bodybuilding shows and developing expertise in nutrition and dieting.
One thing always builds upon another.
Try running a marathon, boxing or some other competitive sport. Soon enough, you won’t believe just how far you’ve come — just by challenging yourself.
Four: Do things that scare you
This one can be hard — but you can do it. It’s not easy to build courage, but every courageous act leads you towards developing the guts to do more.
No one will ever fully know if they are capable of certain things. To find out is to try it out and see what happens.
Why are we all so caught up in getting it right? So what if it doesn’t work out?
Is it going to have that much of an impact on your life?
Think of the big picture — you tried something, didn’t like it, and then you moved on. That’s how the world operates — and that’s a great way of seeing things.
It’s all a part of the school of hard knocks, learning lots as you go along.
There is no easy road to mental strength and courage.
Most of us are thrown in with the wolves before we are ready.
It definitely wouldn’t have happened if we had the chance, but here we are, in the arena of life. Good and bad things happen, and it’s how we understand what matters the most. So take it all in, whatever it is, learn and grow from it. There is never an abundance of bad times or good — they kind of weave in between one another to make this experience we call life