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Hey, welcome back to my site! Today, I wanted to share some highlights from this book I finished reading a while ago. It had some great tips and tricks on how to become mentally strong. Since there are so many amazing quotes, I am going to separate this post into a part 1 and 2, so we can look at every chapter together. This book is called 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do by Amy Morin. Enjoy and prepare to grow!
Beginning:
- I knew I couldn’t be effective at helping other people unless I was able to productively deal with my own feelings.
- I knew that time doesn’t heal anything; it’s how we deal with that time that determines the speed at which we heal.
- Grief is an emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausting process.
- You’re only as good as your worst habits.
What is Mental Strength?
- Developing mental strength is about improving your ability to regulate your emotions, manage your thoughts, and behave in a positive manner, despite your circustances.
- You develop mental strength through your genetics, personality, and experiences.
- In order to develop mental strength, it requires looking at your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.
- We make our best decisions in life when we balance our emotions with rational thinking.
1. They Don’t Waste Time Feeling Sorry For Themselves
- Even when you can’t alter your circumstances, you can alter your attitude.
- Misery loves company, and sometimes self-pity becomes a bragging right.
- Self-pity can also provide a reason to avoid responsibility.
- Self-pity becomes an act of defiance.
- Feeling sorry for yourself is self-destructive.
- One day feeling tried at work was well worth the memories you created.
- Gratitude is about thinking I have more than I deserve.
2. They Don’t Give Away Their Power
- Be more proactive in preventing problems.
- Retaining your power is about being confident in who you are and the choices you make, despite the people around you and the circumstances you’re in.
- Anytime you don’t set healthy emotional and physical boundaries for yourself, you risk giving away your power to other people.
- Successful people don’t allow one person’s opinion to define them.
- Retaining your power is about evaluating feedback to determine if it has any validity.
- Criticism is a reflection of the critic.
3. They Don’t Shy Away From Change
- If you aren’t ready to create change, you likely won’t be successful at maintaining it.
- Five Stages of Change:
- 1. Pre-contemplation: people who don’t yet identify any need to change.
- 2. Contemplation: people who are actively contemplative are considering the pros and cons of making a change.
- 3. Preparation: people prepare to make a change by establishing a plan with concrete steps that identify what they are going to do differently.
- 4. Action: where the concrete behavioral change takes place
- 5. Maintenance: Often overlooked, this step is essential. You have to track progress and check-in to ensure the change you made is productive, useful, and making a positive impact.
- The world will change with or without you.
- Many problems that are waiting to be solved require you to do something different.
- Breaking bad habits requires a willingness to try something new.
- The longer change gets delayed, the harder it is to do.
- “I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.” -Mother Teresa
- It’s important to pay close attention to the reasons why you want to change so you can determine whether the decision is about doing what’s ultimately best for you.
- Don’t allow your emotions to make the final decision.
- Balance your emotions with rational thinking.
- Preparing for the change can be the most important step.
- Start changing your behavior now.
- Clearly identify the type of person you’d like to be. Then, be proactive about becoming that person.
- Positive change leads to increased motivation and increased motivation leads to more positive change.
- Embracing change is a two-way street.
- Your life will change whether you want it to or not.
- Pay attention to the way you handle change.
4. They Don’t Focus On Things They Can’t Control
- Locus of control: deciding what is within your control and what isn’t depends largely upon your belief system.
- External locus of control: people who believe that their lives depend highly on fate, luck, or destiny.
- Internal locus of control: people who believe that they have complete control over their future.
- Bi-locus of control: people who strike the right balance of control recognize how their behaviors can affect their chances of success, but they also identify how external factors can play a role.
- Your locus of control will determine how you view your circumstances.
- By focusing on what you can control, it is much easier to let go of worrying about what you can’t.
5. They Don’t Worry About Pleasing Everyone
- People pleasing is about trying to control how other people feel.
- There aren’t any guarantees people will like you just because you try to please them.
- Just because it’s a popular choice doesn’t mean it’s the right choice.
- If you want to be successful at reaching your goals, you need to define your path, not just do what other people want you to do.
- Before you automatically change your behavior based on what you think other people want, evaluate your thoughts and feelings.
- Just because someone gets mad, it doesn’t necessarily mean you did anything wrong.
- Accept that some people will just never be pleased, and it isn’t your job to make them happy.
- It’s important to know exactly what your values are so you can make the best choices.
- Speak up if someone takes advantage of you and ask for what you need.
- Your words and your behavior must be in line with your beliefs before you can begin to enjoy a truly authentic life.
6. They Don’t Fear Taking Calculated Risks
- A lack of knowledge about how to calculate risk leads to increased fear. And fearing risk often leads to avoidance.
- Risks don’t have to be reckless.
- We base our decisions on emotion instead of logic. We incorrectly assume there’s a direct correlation between our fear level and the risk level.
- The truth is, most of us don’t really invest much time calculating which risks to take and which risks to avoid. Instead, we base our decisions on emotions or habit.
- If we only take risks that make us the most comfortable, we’re likely missing out on some great opportunities.
- Often, we’re not good at separating what factors are influencing our feelings so we lump them all together.
- Increase your rational thoughts about the risk you’re facing to balance out your emotional reaction.
- Most people choose the option that will cause them the least amount of anxiety. Pay attention to the thoughts you have about taking the risk and make sure you’re basing your decision on facts, not just feelings.
- The more often we take a risk, the more we tend to miscalculate how big of a risk we’re actually taking.
- The level of risk you’ll experience in a given situation is unique to you.
- Monitor the outcome of the risks that you take. Take notice of how you felt before, during, and after taking a risk. Ask yourself what you learned and how you can apply that knowledge to future decisions.
- Success won’t find you. You have to pursue it. Stepping into the unknown to take carefully calculated risks can help you reach your dreams and fulfill your goals.
- Remember that calculating risks takes practice, but with practice, you can learn and grow.
- Be aware of emotional reactions to risk taking.
Thank you so much for checking out my post! Let me know in the comments which chapter has been most impactful for you so far. I will see you for part 2.
I hope you are having a wonderful day. I will see you soon with something new!