Mental Strength: Fact or Fiction?
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I’ve always believed that mental strength meant accepting the feelings you have in the middle of a crisis but not letting them heavily influence how you come with a solution. However, that might be part of a common misconception. There’s more to strength than just how you deal with the influence of emotions, controlling them rather than just letting them control you.
What is mental strength?
A lot of people will associate it with how well you’re able to adjust yourself emotionally when facing a problem or how determined and resilient you are towards achieving a goal. I guess many of us just expect it to feel like an unshakable force somewhere inside our heads that doesn’t allow us to fall off the proverbial rails and in case you do, it pulls you back up or at least entices you to bounce back.
After watching a few of David Goggins's interviews I’m under the impression that we have to think of mental toughness as a skill; it needs to be developed. You need to train your mind as you would your body. It’s advisable if you want to see it change.
I would love to say that as an individual mental toughness is what you make of it but the truth is, it involves commitment and consistency. You have to be open to change, adaptation and acknowledge the need for resilience if you want it to be sustainable.
Misconception vs truth
I conducted a few interviews with university students asking what their perspective is of mental strength. To my surprise, one of them said she didn’t believe it was real. In her opinion, it would seem that some of us are living on coping mechanisms and mistaking the fact they work as a means to build the stability of our minds.
“We have equalized stability to how well we escape our problems or distract from them.” — Source
Additionally, sometimes it’s not even the coping mechanism or what we equate them to. A few more interviews and I discovered that for the longest time people think that we have allowed ourselves to believe that if we can just push our emotions aside long enough to deal with the hurdles in front of us then perhaps we will grow stronger intellectually. Basically, we’ve allowed ourselves to accept the ideology that feelings play a small role in our mental strength.
The truth is, to be mentally strong doesn’t mean casting aside how you feel. Running away or suppressing how you feel because you believe that your feelings may make you weaker or bias towards judgement.
How do you grow stronger?
There are various methods to improve your mental strength, people practice several exercises that affect their mind, feelings and overall behavior.
Uplifting yourself by engaging in activities you enjoy or attending events that bring about positive feelings within you affect both your feelings and behavior. So indulge in hobbies, social ventures with friends and or family where you feel free to express yourself.
Sometimes, keeping a diary or personal journal where you note down what went on during the day and how it made you feel allows you to pin your emotions down and acknowledge them. Cognitive practices like this are effective in strength building because they encourage you to come face to face with your feelings and address them perceptively.
Additionally, turning negative emotions into a positive practice such as a reason to do something you enjoy is a method that could lead your mind to associate bad feelings with good emotional responses thus, leading you to no longer feeling upset.
It’s easy to say you want to be mentally stronger or maybe you don’t believe it exists, whatever the case what matters is how you want to develop your mind to be better.
