9 Things
Mentally Tough People Always Do
Talent is important, but success is also based on persistence,
focus, and standing fast in the face of criticism. Fortunately, mental
toughness is something you can develop.
Sure, some
people may have greater self-discipline than you possess. Some people may be better at resisting
temptation than you are. But that's probably not because they were born with some certain special
something inside of them--instead, they've found
ways to develop mental toughness and use it when it really matters.
They're mentally strong because they've
learned how to be--and you can too.
Here's how:
1. Always assume you are in complete
control.
There's a quote often credited to Ignatius:
"Pray as if God will take care of all; act as if all is up to you."
The same premise applies to luck. Many people
feel luck has a lot to do with success or failure. If they succeed, luck
favored them, and if they fail, luck was against them.
Most successful people do feel good luck
played some role in their success. But they don't wait for good luck, or worry
about bad luck. They act as if success or failure is totally within their
control.
If they succeed, they caused it. If they
fail, they caused it.
By not wasting mental energy worrying about
what might happen to you, you can put all your effort into making things
happen. (And then, if you get lucky, hey, you're even better off.)
You can't
control what luck does for you, but you can definitely control what you do
for yourself.
2. Make a lot fewer choices.
We all have a finite store of mental energy
for exercising self-control.
The more choices we make during the day, the
harder each one is on our brain--and the more we start to look for shortcuts.
(When you're tired, you're a lot more likely to say, "Oh, the heck with
it.")
Then we get impulsive. Then we get reckless.
Then we make decisions we know we shouldn't make, but we just can't seem help
ourselves.
In fact, we can't help
ourselves: We've run out of the mental energy we need to make smart choices.
That's why the fewer choices we have to make,
the smarter choices we can make when we do need to make a decision.
Say you want to drink more water and less
soda. Easy: Keep three water bottles on your desk at all times. Then you won't
need to go to the refrigerator and make a choice.
Or say you struggle to keep from constantly
checking your email. Easy: Turn off all your alerts. Or shut down your email
and open it only once an hour. Or take your mail program off your desktop and
keep it on a laptop across the room. Make it hard to check, because then you're
more likely not to.
Or say you want to make fewer impulse
purchases. Easy: Keep your credit card in a drawer. Then you can't make an
impulse buy. Or require two sign-offs for all purchases over a certain amount,
because you will have to run those decisions by someone else (which
probably means you'll think twice and won't even bother).
Choices are the enemy of mental toughness. So
are ease and convenience. Think of decisions that require you to be mentally
strong, and then take willpower totally out of the equation.
3. Put aside things you have no
ability to impact.
Mental strength is like muscle strength--no
one has an unlimited supply. So why waste your power on things you can't
control?
For some people, it's politics. For others,
it's family. For others, it's global warming. Whatever it is, you care, and you
want others to care.
Fine. Do what you can do: Vote. Lend a
listening ear. Recycle, and reduce your carbon footprint. Do what you can do.
Be your own change--but don't try to make everyone else change.(They won't.)
4. See the past as valuable
training and nothing more.
The past is valuable. Learn from your
mistakes. Learn from the mistakes of others.
Then let it go.
Easier said than done? It depends on your
perspective. When something bad happens to you, see it as an opportunity to
learn something you didn't know. When another person makes a mistake, don't
just learn from it--see it as an opportunity to be kind, forgiving, and
understanding.
The past is just training; it doesn't define
you. Think about what went wrong but only in terms of how you will make sure
that next time, you and the people around you will know how to make sure it
goes right.
5. Actively celebrate the
success of others.
Many people--I guarantee you know at least a
few--see success as a zero-sum game. To them, there's only so much to go
around, so if someone else shines, they think that diminishes the light from
their star.
Resentment sucks up a massive amount of
mental energy--energy better applied elsewhere.
When a friend does something awesome, that
doesn't preclude you from doing something awesome. In fact, where success is
concerned, birds of a feather tend to flock together--so draw your successful
friends even closer.
Don't resent awesomeness. Create and
celebrate awesomeness, wherever you find it, and in time you'll find even more
of it in yourself.
6. Never allow yourself to
complain. Or criticize.
Your words have power, especially over you.
Whining about your problems always makes you feel worse, not better.
So if something is wrong, don't waste time
complaining. Put that mental energy into making the situation better.
So why waste time? Fix it now. Don't talk
about what's wrong. Talk about how you'll make things better, even if that
conversation is only with yourself.
And do the same with your friends or
colleagues. Don't just serve as a shoulder they can cry on. Friends don't let
friends whine; friends help friends make their lives better.
7. Don't try to impress others;
impress yourself instead.
No one likes
you for your clothes, your car, your possessions, your title, or your
accomplishments. Those are all things. People may like your things--but
that doesn't mean they like you.
Genuine relationships make you happier, and you'll only form genuine relationships when you stop trying to impress and start trying to just be yourself.
Genuine relationships make you happier, and you'll only form genuine relationships when you stop trying to impress and start trying to just be yourself.
And you'll have a lot more mental energy to
spend on the people who really do matter in your life.
8. Consistently review your
long-term goals.
Say you want to build a bigger company; when
you're mentally tired, it's easy to rationalize that you'll do your best tomorrow,
not today. Say you want to lose weight; when you're mentally tired, it's easy
to rationalize that you'll start changing your eating and exercise habits
tomorrow, not today. Say you want to better engage with your employees; when
you're mentally tired, it's easy to rationalize that you really need to work on
some report today; tomorrow you'll worry about your employees.
Mental fatigue makes us take the easy way
out--even though the easy way takes us the wrong way. That's why it's so
important to maintain tangible reminders to pull you back from the impulse
brink.
A friend has a
copy of his bank note taped to his computer monitor as a constant reminder of
an obligation he must meet. Another keeps a photo of himself on his
refrigerator taken when he weighed 250 pounds so he's constantly reminded of
the person he never wants to be again. Katheryn Winnick, the star of Vikings,
keeps a list of goals on her computer desktop so she's forced to look at them
every day.
Think of moments when you are most likely to
give in to impulses that take you further away from your long-term goals. Then
use tangible reminders of those long-term goals to interrupt the impulse and
keep you on track.
9. Count your blessings.
Take a second every night before you turn out
the light and, in that moment, quit worrying about what you don't have. Quit
worrying about what others have that you don't.
Think about what you do have. You have a lot
to be thankful for. Feels pretty good, doesn't it?
Feeling better about yourself is the best way
of all to recharge your mental batteries.
BY JEFF
HADEN
WWW.INC.COM
