What an excellent question to ask during this challenging year!
Developing our mental strength can help us in many ways. Being mentally strong essentially means knowing how to survive as an adult. It means being able to deal with challenges and obstacles. It means learning from mistakes instead of being paralyzed by them. Essentially, being mentally strong helps us process the world — and our role in it — better.
I wouldn’t say that my way of developing mental strength is necessarily unique. It’s more a matter of understanding what I need at this point in my life, which skills I need to work on more, and which habits I want to incorporate into my day so I can get better at those skills.
Here are three habits I’ve been practicing to develop mental strength.
✅ Mental strength building habit #1. Riding with the turbulence.
It’s nothing unusual to encounter unexpected situations in life. Granted, the current situation with the pandemic and COVID-19 is definitely something out of the ordinary, but it’s not the first time I have encountered a turbulent time. We’ve all been there in the past. We study for an exam, yet when exam day comes we aren’t able to concentrate and this affects our final grade. We get laid off from work or find a new job that turns out to be worse than the previous one we’ve had. We spend more time working from home and have to homeschool our siblings or children because they, too, are stuck indoors during the pandemic. Everyone is nervous because our lives have been disrupted. What is something we should be aware of? It’s important not to let emotions take over our whole day, whether they are feelings of sadness, anger, helplessness, or frustration. It will actually benefit us more if we go with the flow, and take things day by day.
How can you do this?
Step one is to be aware of the thoughts that are running through your mind as you’re reacting to the unexpected event. The thoughts might sound something like this. I’ve had it — this pandemic will never be over! I’ll never see my friends! We will never feel safe going to a concert again! Step two is to tell yourself that whatever emotion you are feeling is only going to be temporary. You can say, Of course I’m upset, no wonder — everyone else is going through the same thing! It’s normal to have an emotional reaction right now but it will pass. And step 3 is to ask yourself, What can I do right now to make myself feel better? You can choose to turn off the news on TV for one hour, take a few deep breaths, pick some music to listen to with eyes closed, make yourself a warm meal or get a snack, or take out a pen and write in your journal to give your thoughts and emotions a place to live.
✅ Mental strength building habit #2. Seeing obstacles in a new light.
If we’re really honest about it, there are obstacles we run across every single day of our lives. Some are really small ones, like running out of laundry detergent just when we realize we have no more clean clothes left to wear. Others are bigger ones, like not being able to pay bills at the end of the month because those textbooks we had to purchase last week were more expensive than we anticipated. And then there are all those obstacles in between — road construction that’s slowing down traffic, being late to a meeting, a difficult landlord, friends who demand our time and want to party, or maybe that box of cookies calling your name right when you’ve decided you want to lose ten pounds and go back to your fitness regimen. In all of the cases, what do we typically do? We blame the obstacles for not “allowing” us to achieve a short or long-term goal. But what if obstacles were to serve a different purpose in our life? Instead of using them as an excuse to avoid something or even quit something, we can use them to our advantage.
How can you do this?
There’s a cool hack for overcoming obstacles that I read in the book Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual by retired US Navy SEAL Jocko Willink. He says that when you reach an obstacle, instead of saying, Oh no, this is really bad! try embracing it and say, GOOD! Why talk about an obstacle in a positive light? It’s a subtle switch of your mindset that can yield big results because it affects how you react to a problematic situation, gives you a greater feeling of control, and allows your brain to be more flexible instead of rigid. If you’ve been getting bad grades in your college courses, GOOD! Now you’ll have more time to prepare and organize your study days in the following semester more effectively. If you’ve been complaining that there’s no more laundry detergent left, GOOD! Now you’ll have to plan ahead by writing a shopping list. If you feel bad that you ate 5 cookies after dinner, GOOD! Now you can use the time sitting on the couch to write a list of healthy meals you can prepare ahead for the week so you’re not tempted to eat too much.
✅ Mental strength building habit #3. Growing my mindset.
There is one book that has completely changed the way I think about the capabilities of the human brain. It is called Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck, professor of psychology at Stanford. Dr. Dweck makes an important distinction between two mindsets: fixed and growth mindset. A fixed mindset is when you think the world is “fixed” i.e. everything stays the same forever, and people never change and are incapable of being in control of their lives. You’re lucky if you have good genes, a particular talent or gift; conversely, if your IQ isn’t high “enough,” too bad because you can’t do anything to improve your intellect.
To apply this way of thinking to the present challenges we are facing around COVID-19, having a fixed mindset can mean we see the world completely out of our control. Governments are in power, presidents can “save” or “destroy” the population of their country depending on the decisions and laws they put into effect. And we, the regular people, just react — no choices, no decision-making is up to us. We merely receive — the news, changes in laws, restrictions, you name it. And that way of thinking can make us feel powerless. It’s exactly what we should avoid. Here’s where having a growth mindset can prove helpful.
How can you do this?
Shift your focus from awfulizing about the global health crisis to identifying something that is within your control and that you can work on every single day. Instead of reading the news on Twitter for hours and getting more anxious by the minute, you can find one area of your life that you can improve and that has a positive side effect of making you feel better about yourself. For example, you can dedicate 30 minutes a day to practice a skill. Go on YouTube and learn how to bake bread from scratch. Take that book that’s been sitting on your shelf for months and read the first chapter. Take 15 minutes early each morning to take a brisk walk outside to get some daylight and also produce more endorphins (your “happy” hormones).
Remember — all these little habits, if you practice them every day, will help you build mental strength so you can manage your life, regardless of its ups and downs, more effectively. You can do it!
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