How to Become Mentally Strong

Strategies for Building Resilience

By Michelle Ribeiro,

How resilient are you?

Some people seem to quickly bounce back from personal failures and setbacks, while others find it much more difficult.

When life knocks you down, are you quick to pick yourself up and adapt to the circumstances? Or do you find yourself completely overwhelmed with little confidence in your ability to deal with the challenge?

If you find yourself in the latter category, not to worry. Luckily there are many practical strategies for building mental resilience; it is a quality that can be learned and honed through practise, discipline and hard work.

Our resilience is often tested when life circumstances change unexpectedly and for the worse — such as the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or the end of a relationship. Such challenges, however, present the opportunity to rise above and come back even stronger than you were before.

Read on to learn techniques to build and improve your mental resilience, and deal effectively with the challenges of life.

How to Be Mentally Strong

Mental Strength is the capacity of an individual to deal effectively with stressors, pressures and challenges and perform to the best of their ability, irrespective of the circumstances in which they find themselves (Clough, 2002).

Building mental strength is fundamental to living your best life. Just as we go to the gym and lift weights in order to build our physical muscles, we must also develop our mental health through the use of mental tools and techniques.

Optimal mental health helps us to live a life that we love, have meaningful social connections, and positive self-esteem. It also aids in our ability to take risks, try new things, and cope with any difficult situations that life may throw at us.

Mental strength involves developing daily habits that build mental muscle. It also involves giving up bad habits that hold you back. Morin, 2017

In order to be mentally healthy, we must build up our mental strength! Mental strength is something that is developed over time by individuals who choose to make personal development a priority. Much like seeing physical gains from working out and eating healthier, we must develop healthy mental habits, like practising gratitude, if we want to experience mental health gains.

Likewise, to see physical gains we must also give up unhealthy habits, such as eating junk food, and for mental gains, give up unhealthy habits such as feeling sorry for oneself.

We are all able to become mentally stronger, the key is to keep practising and exercising your mental muscles — just as you would if you were trying to build physical strength!

On Building Resilience and Mental Toughness

The term “Resilience,” commonly used in relation to positive mental health, is actually borrowed from engineering, where it refers to the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape (“Resilience,” 2019). In the same way that a material object would require strength and flexibility in order to bounce back, so too does an individual require these characteristics in order to be mentally resilient.

The American Psychological Association defines Mental Resilience as:

“The process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or even significant sources of stress.”

A similar concept, Mental Toughness, refers to the ability to stay strong in the face of adversity; to keep your focus and determination despite the difficulties you encounter. A mentally tough individual sees challenge and adversity as an opportunity and not a threat, and has the confidence and positive approach to take what comes in their stride (Strycharczyk, 2015).

To be mentally tough, you must have some degree of resilience, but not all resilient individuals are necessarily mentally tough. If you think of it as a metaphor, resilience would be the mountain, while mental toughness might be one of the strategies for climbing that mountain.

Strycharczyk (2015) finds it useful to think of the difference in terms of the phrase ‘survive and prosper.’ Resilience helps you to survive, and mental toughness helps you to prosper.

Mental toughness begins when you choose to take notice of what’s passing through your mind, without identifying personally with those thoughts or feelings. Then, finding the determination to evoke optimistic thoughts about the situation at hand.

Techniques for developing mental toughness revolve around five themes:

1. Positive Thinking
2. Anxiety Control
3. Visualization
4. Goal Setting
5. Attentional Control

As with building mental strength, developing mental toughness does require self-awareness and commitment. Generally speaking, mentally tough individuals appear to achieve more than the mentally sensitive and enjoy a greater degree of contentment.

Turner (2017) describes four important traits of mental toughness, which he calls the 4C’s: Control, Commitment, Challenge, and Confidence. One may possess a few of these traits, but having the four qualities in combination is the key to success.

The 4 C’s of Mental Toughness:

1. Control

This is the extent to which you feel you are in control of your life, including your emotions and sense of life purpose. The control component can be considered your self-esteem. To be high on the Control scale means to feel comfortable in your own skin and have a good sense of who you are.

You’re able to control your emotions — less likely to reveal your emotional state to others — and be less distracted by the emotions of others. To be low on the Control scale means you might feel like events happen to you and that you have no control or influence over what happens.

2. Commitment

This is the extent of your personal focus and reliability. To be high on the Commitment scale is to be able to effectively set goals and consistently achieve them, without getting distracted. A high Commitment level indicates that you’re good at establishing routines and habits that cultivate success.

To be low on the Commitment scale indicates that you may find it difficult to set and prioritize goals, or adapt routines or habits indicative of success. You might also be easily distracted by other people or competing priorities.

Together, the Control and Commitment scales represent the Resilience part of the Mental Toughness definition. This makes sense because the ability to bounce back from setbacks requires a sense of knowing that you are in control of your life and can make a change. It also requires focus and the ability to establish habits and targets that will get you back on track to your chosen path.

3. Challenge

This is the extent to which you are driven and adaptable. To be high on the Challenge scale means that you are driven to achieve your personal best, and you see challenges, change, and adversity as opportunities rather than threats; you are likely to be flexible and agile. To be low on the Challenge scale means that you might see change as a threat, and avoid novel or challenging situations out of fear of failure.

4. Confidence

This is the extent to which you believe in your ability to be productive and capable; it is your self-belief and the belief that you can influence others. To be high on the Confidence scale is to believe that you will successfully complete tasks, and to take setbacks in stride while maintaining routine and even strengthening your resolve. To be low on the

Confidence scale means that you are easily unsettled by setbacks, and do not believe that you are capable or have any influence over others.

Together, the Challenge and Confidence scales represent the Confidence part of the Mental Toughness definition. This represents one’s ability to identify and seize an opportunity, and to see situations as opportunities to embrace and explore. This makes sense because if you are confident in yourself and your abilities and engage easily with others, you are more likely to convert challenges into successful outcomes.

How to Build Resilience

As mentioned earlier, mental resilience is not a trait that people either have or don’t have. Rather, it involves behaviours, thoughts, and actions that can be learned and developed in everyone. Of course, there may be a genetic component to a person’s level of mental resilience, but it is certainly something that can be built upon.

Simply put, resilience can be cultivated through willpower, discipline, and hard work; and there are many strategies by which to do so. The key is to identify ways that are likely to work well for you as part of your own personal strategy for cultivating resilience.

1. Skill Acquisition

Acquiring new skills can play an important part in building resilience, as it helps to develop a sense of mastery and competency — both of which can be utilized during challenging times, as well as increase one’s self-esteem and ability, to problem solve.

Skills to be learned will depend on the individual. For example, some might benefit from improving cognitive skills such as working memory or selective attention, which will help with everyday functioning. Others might benefit from learning new hobbies activities through competency-based learning.

Acquiring new skills within a group setting gives the added benefit of social support, which also cultivates resilience.

2. Goal Setting

The ability to develop goals, actionable steps to achieve those goals, and to execute, all help to develop willpower and mental resilience. Goals can be large or small, related to physical health, emotional wellbeing, career, finance, spirituality, or just about anything. Goals that involve skill acquisition will have a double benefit. For example, learning to play an instrument or learning a new language.

Some research indicates that setting and working towards goals beyond the individual, i.e. religious involvement or volunteering for a cause, can be especially useful in building resiliency. This may provide a deeper sense of purpose and connection, which can be valuable during challenging times.

3. Controlled Exposure

Controlled exposure refers to the gradual exposure to anxiety-provoking situations, and is used to help individuals overcome their fears. Research indicates that this can foster resilience, and especially so when it involves skill-acquisition and goal setting — a triple benefit.

Public speaking, for example, is a useful life skill but also something that evokes fear in many people. People who are afraid of public speaking can set goals involving controlled exposure, in order to develop or acquire this particular skill. They can expose themselves to a small audience of one or two people, and progressively increase their audience size over time.

This type of action plan can be initiated by the individual, or it can be developed with a therapist trained in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. Successful efforts can increase self-esteem and a sense of autonomy and mastery, all of which can be utilized in times of adversity.

Further Strategies

1. Make connections.

Resilience can be strengthened through our connection to family, friends, and community. Healthy relationships with people who care about you and will listen to your problems, offer support during difficult times and can help us to reclaim hope. Likewise, assisting others in their time of need can benefit us greatly and foster our own sense of resilience.

2. Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems.

We cannot change the external events happening around us, but we can control our reactions to these events. In life, there will always be challenges, but it’s important to look beyond whatever stressful situation you are faced with, and remember that circumstances will change. Take notice of the subtle ways in which you may already start feeling better as you deal with the difficult situation.

3. Accept that change is a part of living.

They say that the only thing constant in life is change. As a result of difficult circumstances, certain goals may no longer be realistic or attainable. By accepting that which you cannot change, it allows you to focus on the things that you do have control over.

4. Move toward your goals.

Though it is important to develop long-term, big-picture goals, it is essential to make sure they’re realistic. Creating small, actionable steps makes our goals achievable, and helps us to regularly work towards these goals, creating small “wins” along the way. Try to accomplish one small step towards your goal every day.

5. Take decisive actions.

Instead of shying away from problems and stresses, wishing they would just go away, try to take decisive action whenever possible.

6. Look for opportunities for self-discovery.

Sometimes tragedy can result in great learnings and personal growth. Living through a difficult situation can increase our self-confidence and sense of self-worth, strengthen our relationships, and teach us a great deal about ourselves. Many people who have experienced hardship have also reported a heightened appreciation for life and deepened spirituality.

7. Nurture a positive view of yourself.

Working to develop confidence in yourself can be beneficial in preventing difficulties, as well as building resilience. Having a positive view of yourself is crucial when it comes to problem-solving and trusting your own instincts.

8. Keep things in perspective.

When times get tough, always remember that things could be worse; try to avoid blowing things out of proportion. In cultivating resilience it helps to keep a long-term perspective when facing difficult or painful events.

9. Maintain a hopeful outlook.

When we focus on what is negative about a situation and remain in a fearful state, we are less likely to find a solution. Try to maintain a hopeful, optimistic outlook, and expect a positive outcome instead of a negative one. Visualization can be a helpful technique in this respect.

10. Take care of yourself.

Self-care is an essential strategy for building resilience and helps to keep your mind and body healthy enough to deal with difficult situations as they arise. Taking care of yourself means paying attention to your own needs and feelings, and engaging in activities that bring you joy and relaxation. Regular physical exercise is also a great form of self-care.

11. Additional ways of strengthening resilience may be helpful.

Resilience building can look like different things to different people. Journaling, practising gratitude, meditation, and other spiritual practices help some people to restore hope and strengthen their resolve.

The Road to Resilience

The American Psychological Association (2014) defines resilience as the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress — such as family and relationship problems, serious health problems or workplace and financial stressors. In other words, “bouncing back” from difficult experiences. Resilience is not a trait that people either have or do not have.

It involves behaviours, thoughts, and actions that can be learned and developed in anyone.

Research has shown that resilience is ordinary, not extraordinary and that people commonly demonstrate resilience. A good example of this is the response of many Americans to the September 11 2001, terrorist attacks, and individuals’ efforts to rebuild their lives.

According to the APA, being resilient does not mean that a person doesn’t experience hardships or adversities. In fact, a considerable amount of emotional distress is common in people who have dealt with difficulties and trauma in their lives.

Factors in Resilience

Many factors contribute to resilience, but studies have shown that the primary factor is having supportive relationships within and outside of the family. Relationships that are caring, loving, and offer encouragement and reassurance, help cultivate a person’s resilience.

Factors that are associated with resilience, include:

- The capacity to make realistic plans and actionable steps to carry them out.
- A positive self-view and confidence in your strengths and abilities.
- Communication and problem-solving skills.
- The capacity to manage and regulate strong feelings and impulses.

All of these are factors that people can develop within themselves.

Strategies For Building Resilience

When it comes to developing resilience, strategies will vary between each individual. We all react differently to traumatic and stressful life events, so an approach that works well for one person might not work for another. For example, some variation as to how one might communicate feelings and deal with adversity may reflect cultural differences, etc.

Learning from your Past

Taking a look at past experiences and sources of personal strength may provide insight as to which resilience building strategies will work for you. Below are some guiding questions from the American Psychology Association, that you can ask yourself about how you’ve reacted to challenging situations in the past. Exploring the answers to these questions can help you develop future strategies.

Consider the following:

- What types of events have been most stressful for me?
- How have those events typically affected me?
- Have I found it helpful to think of important people in my life when I am distressed?
- To whom have I reached out for support in working through a traumatic or stressful experience?
- What have I learned about myself and my interactions with others during difficult times?
- Has it been helpful for me to assist someone else going through a similar experience?
- Have I been able to overcome obstacles, and if so, how?
- What has helped make me feel more hopeful about the future?

Staying Flexible

A resilient mindset is a flexible mindset. As you encounter stressful circumstances and events in your life, it is helpful to maintain flexibility and balance in the following ways:

- Let yourself experience strong emotions, and realize when you may need to put them aside in order to continue functioning.
- Step forward and take action to deal with your problems and meet the demands of daily living; but also know when to step back and rest/reenergize yourself.
- Spend time with loved ones who offer support and encouragement; nurture yourself.
- Rely on others, but also know when to rely on yourself.

Places to Look for Help

Sometimes the support of family and friends is just not enough. Know when to seek help outside of your circle. People often find it helpful to turn to:

- Self-help and community support groups
Sharing experiences, emotions, information and ideas can provide great comfort to those who may feel like they’re alone during difficult times.
- Books and other publications
Hearing from others who have successfully navigated adverse situations like the one you’re going through, can provide great motivation and inspiration for developing a personal strategy.
- Online resources
There is a wealth of resources and information on the web about dealing with trauma and stress; just be sure the information is coming from a reputable source.
- A licensed mental health professional

For many, the above suggestions may be sufficient to cultivate resilience, but sometimes it’s best to seek professional help if you feel like you are unable to function in your daily life, as a result of traumatic or other stressful life events.

Continuing on your Journey

To help summarize, a useful metaphor for resilience involves taking a journey on a kayak. On a rafting trip, you can encounter all kinds of different waters — rapids, slow water, shallow water and all kinds of crazy turns.

Much like in life, these changing circumstances affect your thoughts, mood, and the ways in which you will navigate yourself. In life, as in travelling down a river, it helps to have past experience and knowledge from which to draw on. Your journey should be guided by a strategy that is likely to work well for you.

Other important aspects include confidence and belief in your abilities to navigate the sometimes choppy waters, and perhaps having trusted companions to accompany and support you on the ride.

Improving Mental Stamina

“Stamina” is defined by The Oxford Dictionary as the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort (“Stamina,” 2019).

Mental Stamina is the single defining trait that enables us to endure the adversities of life. It is essential for withstanding both long-term challenges or unforeseen and unexpected struggles, concerns or trauma, and is only developed by practice and repetition.

Mental stamina requires planning, strength, perseverance, and concentration (Walkaden, 2016).

Mental Stamina is like an evolved hybrid between grit and resilience. (Walkaden, 2016).

Often when we talk about stamina we reference elite athletes and sports teams, as both physical and mental stamina is crucial for this type of performance. However, everyone can benefit from increased mental stamina, not just athletes. Although no one builds mental stamina overnight, below Corb (n.d.) offers 5 tips for building your mental stamina over time:

1. Think Positively

Self-confidence and the belief in one’s ability to perform and to make decisions is one of the most important characteristics of a healthy mind. Training yourself to think optimistically and find the positive in every situation will most certainly help to build mental stamina over time.

2. Use Visualization

Visualization is an excellent tool for managing stress, overwhelming situations, and performance anxiety. Close your eyes and imagine a time that you succeeded in a similar situation. This includes remembering the feeling that accompanied that achievement, not just the visual.

3. Plan for Setbacks

Life most certainly does not always go the way we hoped or planned that it would. It’s important to re-centre yourself and regain focus after a setback, as opposed to dwelling on the loss or misfortune. We cannot control the external events that happen around us, but we can control what we do afterwards. It’s a good idea to have a plan in place that will help you to deal when things don’t go according to plan.

4. Manage Stress

Our ability to manage stress plays a large role in our ability to build mental stamina. Though not all stress is bad — positive stress (excitement) can be a motivating factor — it has the same physical effects on our bodies.

Useful techniques for managing stress include meditation and progressive muscle relaxation. It’s important to remember that you are in control and of your mental state, and how you will handle the stressor at hand.

5. Get More Sleep

It’s no secret that getting enough sleep is vital to our physical and mental functioning in everyday life. Sufficient sleep can help with on-the-spot decision making and reaction time. A sufficient amount of sleep is said to be seven to nine hours, or more if you are performing high-stress activities, both physical and mental.

How Do People Learn to Become Resilient for Life?

If you want to become resilient for life, it’s best to start with building your resilience in the present moment! Practice and commitment to the strategies and tips discussed above, will over time increase your ability to bounce back and adapt once life has presented you with hardships.

The silver lining to experiencing adverse life events is that the more you are able to flex your resiliency muscle, the better you will be able to bounce back again the next time life throws you a curveball!

How to Get a Better, Stronger and More Confident Mind

Confidence is one of the 4C’s of mental toughness! Nurturing a positive self-view and developing confidence in your ability to solve problems and in trusting your instincts, is one of the main factors in building resiliency. So how do we cultivate a more confident mind?

Below are 10 ways that you can begin building your confidence (Bridges, 2017):

1. Get Things Done

Confidence and accomplishment go hand-in-hand. Accomplishing goals, and even taking small steps towards your goals, can help build your self-esteem and confidence in your abilities.

2. Monitor Your Progress

When working towards a goal, big or small, it is important to break it down into smaller, more manageable steps. In doing so, one will find it easier to monitor their progress and build confidence as they see the progress happening in real-time. It helps to quantify your goals, as well as the actionable steps towards those goals.

3. Do The Right Thing

Highly confident people tend to live by a value system and make decisions based on that value system, even when it’s not necessarily in their best interest. When your decisions are aligned with your highest self, it can cultivate a more confident mind.

4. Exercise

Exercise not only benefits your physical body but your mind as well. Mental benefits of exercise include improved focus, memory retention, and stress and anxiety management. Exercise is also said to prevent and aid in depression. Confidence from exercising comes not only from the physical, visible benefits but also from the mental benefits.

5. Be Fearless

To be fearless in the pursuit of your dreams and goals requires a level of confidence. Conversely, challenging yourself by diving head first into things that scare you, will help to build your confidence. Often when we set big goals for ourselves it is easy to get overwhelmed and be fearful of failure. In these instances, it is important to gather up your courage and just keep going, one step at a time.

6. Stand-up For Yourself

To stand up for yourself when someone tells you that you can’t accomplish something is an effective way to develop your confidence. All too often we may end up believing the naysayers, as they are echoing the self-doubt we may be hearing in our heads. To nurture a positive self-view is to replace those negative thoughts with positive ones. Try to do so as well when someone does not believe in you.

7. Follow Through

Following through on what you say you’re going to do, not only helps to earn the respect of others but also respect for and confidence in yourself. Developing your follow-through skills will also help you accomplish your goals and likely strengthen your relationships, too.

8. Think Long-term

Often times, we trade in long-term happiness for more immediate gratification. We can build up our confidence by making sacrifices and decisions based on long-term goals rather than short-term comforts. Finding the discipline to do so will bring greater happiness in the long term and a higher likelihood of achieving the goals you’ve set for yourself.

9. Don’t Care What Others Think

It is easy to fall into the trap of wondering what others may think of you, but it’s important to remember that what others think actually means nothing in the pursuit of your dreams. Build your confidence by believing in yourself and continuing to move forward, even when others might not agree with you.

10. Do More Of What Makes You Happy

When we take time for self-care and doing the things that bring us joy, it helps to enrich our lives and becomes our best selves. Confidence comes when we are aligned with our highest selves and proud of it.

A Take-Home Message

At the root of many of these strategies for building your mental fitness, are Self-Awareness and Acceptance. In order to enhance, improve or build upon our existing mental strength, we must be aware of where we are at, and also accept that this is where we are at. Only then can we begin to take steps toward a stronger, healthier mental state.

Another key takeaway is that you cannot control everything that happens to you but you absolutely can control how you react to what happens. In these cases, your mind can be your biggest asset or your worst enemy. When you learn how to train it well, you can bounce back from difficult situations and can accomplish incredible feats.

If you want to experience greater overall life satisfaction, you must be in good mental health. Mental fitness includes strength, toughness, and resilience. Building these muscles may be very challenging, and might take years of effort and commitment, but the benefits of being mentally fit and resilient will be seen in all aspects of your life.

Enhanced performance, better relationships, and a greater sense of wellbeing can all be achieved by developing healthy mental habits while giving up unhealthy mental habits.

You can improve your mental health by implementing these strategies and committing to the process for the long-term.

 Content source: https://positivepsychology.com/mentally-strong/