Someone who is strong, confident, and determined and is not easily influenced or worried by other people. A strong person can deal with everyday situations better, he knows what he wants and takes action.
That doesn’t seem to be you. It’s okay, it’s not easy to get there… Good things don’t (most of the time) come easy.
We all strive to get better, it is a process, not a destination.
Some people are born stronger than others, some people become stronger from their life experiences. Others need to get stronger…
We’re gonna explore what we can develop to become mentally stronger and deal better with life challenges. Below, I wrote 10 things that I personally think, will help you become mentally stronger.
1. Being okay with being alone
It would be much more difficult for a person to be strong in situations, where he has to do what he thinks it’s ok if he is influenced by people’s opinions because he fears being left alone.
Therefore, it is very important to learn to be alone, since in life very often we have to rely on ourselves, and we will often be put in situations where we will have only ourselves.
If you find out your partner doesn’t respect you, you have to have the power to part with him. To be able to part with people who don’t respect you, you’re going to have to learn to be alone when you need to.
And… When you learn to be alone, people start to appreciate your time with you.
2. Being knowledgeable
Update: It’s true for me, that some of my confidence comes from my knowledge. Although, I do believe this will be true only for individuals who value being knowledgeable. Knowing your own values and following them, will definitely help the way you view yourself.
I think a lot of people don’t realize how important it is to have (yes nerds, keep learning) knowledge to feel and be a strong person. Knowledge makes you competent. When you’re competent in a particular field, you’ll feel more confident in yourself. Confidence will bring you the self-respect you’re going to need to be strong in situations where you need knowledge.
We need to learn new things all the time. Books are a good way of improving your knowledge, however, we should gain knowledge from empirical experience, as well. Very often we absorb knowledge (sorry nerds) only from books, but the best way to learn and memorize something is through its practice.
Knowledge + practice = capable person.
3. Being healthy
Being healthy is a broad concept, it involves being in a good physical and mental state. We will focus on having good healthy habits, such as exercising, eating healthier, and exercising our minds by (reading books) in some form. If we’re physically healthy, we’ll feel strong mentally. When you feel good in your body, you gain self-esteem, which in turn makes you stronger mentally.
The daily tasks we have to do are much easier when we get some sleep and get the necessary nutrients that the body needs to function properly.
4. Having self-respect
When we have self-respect, we don’t put ourselves in situations where we’re being treated badly. Self-esteem gives us the power not to tolerate mistreatment by people. It makes us feel important (in the good sense of the word) and able people. Self-respect builds, it would be hard to have respect for yourself if you didn’t do what you knew you had to do. If you’ve been through difficult times in life, if you tell yourself every day, that you have to do certain tasks that you’ve set yourself for the day, and you do them. You’re going to get self-respect for yourself because you know your word is worthy.
5. Hard times
Hard times are probably one of the most important things a person goes through to build character and become stronger. In my personal life, every difficulty I’ve had has made me stronger. When we are in difficult situations, think about how these difficulties will make us stronger in the long run. Difficulties are necessary, we must not avoid them. Many of my best lessons in life come from the difficult times I’ve been through. The injury to my knee has taught me to accept the things I’m struggling with and focus on what I can do right now rather than what I can’t do. It also taught me to look at things in the long run.
Dream, struggle, create, prevail. Be daring. Be brave. Be loving. Be compassionate. Be strong. Be brilliant. Be beautiful.
– Caterina Fake
When I moved to live alone, in a city I didn’t know anyone. With no job, no place to live, and no savings, it wasn’t easy. I had to learn to cope on my own in life and be responsible for myself. The memories of the hard times we’ve been through will bring us respect for ourselves. In the long run, they make us stronger. Our mindset is also very important, we need to know that it will make us stronger. Difficult moments can make us stronger or weaker. With the right mindset, we get stronger.
6. Discipline
To be able to build, or do anything, we need discipline. For example, above I gave an example of how in order to be a strong (food, sleep literally makes you weaker or stronger) person, we need to eat well, sleep enough, and exercise. For all these things, most people will need discipline. Discipline means doing the things you know you have to do, not just the things you feel you want to do. Even though it’s nice and we need to do the things we want to do to feel good mentally.
Discipline is what reason tells us to do. It’s not what emotion makes us do. It’s easy to do something we want because it gives us quick pleasure. But when we do something that reason tells us, we may not feel good at the moment, however, we’ll feel better in the long run, because we’ll have done what we should have done.
7. Emotional intelligence
Being emotionally intelligent means being able to read and understand people, their (your) motives, and emotions. An emotionally intelligent person is good at social situations, he knows when to listen and when to speak. Understanding people’s motives and emotions. Can help him adapt more easily to such situations. He won’t start jumping with laughter during (believe it or not, some people will) a speech at the funeral.
Understanding our emotions and other people’s emotions is an important skill that we can acquire. It makes us more reasonable because we understand our own and other people’s emotions, and motives. It’ll make us better with people. To feel stronger and have good friends to rely on, to know the right people, is definitely something important. Being emotionally intelligent makes it easier. Although we must learn to be alone with ourselves, so as not to be afraid to express our opinions. It’s also important to have good friends to rely on. Understanding people’s motives, and why they do what they do, on the other hand, will help us to understand which people are with good intentions and those with bad ones.
8. Forgive yourself
When we start doing more things in life as we develop, it’s normal to make more mistakes. If you don’t make any mistakes, you probably are not doing anything new in your life. Mistakes give us feedback on what we need to fix and how. We must learn from them, not repeat them over and over again.
However, since they are inevitable, we don’t have to judge each other more than we should. A little self-criticism can be helpful, too much can stop you from acting and making you insecure about yourself. In life, a lot of things don’t work out the way we want to, we make mistakes, and we criticize ourselves too much. We focus on the bad criticisms of us. We have to learn to forgive ourselves, after all, we are not sinless. In moments like this, we can remember the things we’ve done well, not just what we didn’t. When we forgive ourselves, we will feel better about ourselves, and that will make us stronger.
9. Acceptance
We need to know ourselves and accept ourselves for who we are. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to try to get strong and better as a person. However, there are things that we cannot change, it is not wise to try to change something that we cannot. We can’t change, we have to learn to accept it.
Some of us think holding on makes us strong; but sometimes it is letting go.
– Hermann Hesse
Do I need to be angry, because it’s raining outside since this anger of mine won’t stop the rain? Sometimes, accepting something doesn’t mean you’re giving up. If you ever lose to someone, you can accept the loss and try to improve for the next time.. Now that you’ve lost, you can’t turn back time, the only way is to accept the loss and focus on the lessons of it. Instead of feeling like a loser and criticizing yourself, focus on winning next time.
10. Get out of your comfortable zone
I think we know that most people stay in their comfort zone. Why? When we know that a person’s growth is outside his comfort zone. Well, because it’s easier to stay in a place you know and feel comfortable. Instead of doing things that scare you because they’re something new to you and you’d feel like a fool doing them. Comfort, however, makes us weaker.
To be strong, we have to train. In the same way, we train our muscles, that’s how we have to train our minds, to get stronger mentally. As we emerge from our comfort zone, we become stronger, and more confident in the long run, though not at the moment, we are doing something new. What you want to be as a person requires you to put yourself in uncomfortable situations where you can build yourself up as the person you want to be.
Well…
Here are the 10 things I think will help us become stronger. It is important to stress that, everything requires time and practice. We need to enjoy the process, not just the ultimate goal.
What are your personal experiences in life, that have made you stronger?
