10 Habits of Mentally
Strong People
Despite West Point
Military Academy’s rigorous selection process, one in five students
drop out by graduation day. A sizeable number leave the summer before
freshman year, when cadets go through a rigorous program called
“Beast.” Beast consists of extreme physical, mental, and social
challenges that are designed to test candidates’ perseverance.
University of Pennsylvania psychologist Angela Duckworth conducted a
study in which she sought to determine which cadets would make it
through the Beast program. The rigorous interviews and testing that
cadets went through to get into West Point in the first place told
Angela that IQ and talent weren’t the deciding factors. So, Angela
developed her own test to determine which cadets had the mental
strength to conquer the Beast. She called it the “Grit Scale,”
and it was a highly accurate predictor of cadet success. The Grit
Scale measures mental strength, which is that unique combination of
passion, tenacity, and stamina that enables you to stick with your
goals until they become a reality. To increase your mental strength,
you simply need to change your outlook. When hard times hit, people
with mental strength suffer just as much as everyone else. The
difference is that they understand that life’s challenging moments
offer valuable lessons. In the end, it’s these tough lessons that
build the strength you need to succeed. Developing mental strength is
all about habitually doing the things that no one else is willing to
do. If you aren’t doing the following things on a regular basis,
you should be, for these are the habits that mentally strong people
rely on.
1. You have to fight
when you already feel defeated. A reporter once asked Muhammad Ali
how many sit-ups he does every day. He responded, “I don’t count
my sit-ups, I only start counting when it starts hurting, when I feel
pain, cause that’s when it really matters.” The same applies to
success in the workplace. You always have two choices when things
begin to get tough: you can either overcome an obstacle and grow in
the process or let it beat you. Humans are creatures of habit. If you
quit when things get tough, it gets that much easier to quit the next
time. On the other hand, if you force yourself to push through a
challenge, the strength begins to grow in you.
2. You have to delay
gratification. There was a famous Stanford experiment in which an
administrator left a child in a room with a marshmallow for 15
minutes. Before leaving, the experimenter told the child that she was
welcome to eat it, but if she waited until he returned without eating
it, she would get a second marshmallow. The children that were able
to wait until the experimenter returned experienced better outcomes
in life, including higher SAT scores, greater career success, and
even lower body mass indexes. The point is that delay of
gratification and patience are essential to success. People with
mental strength know that results only materialize when you put in
the time and forego instant gratification.
3. You have to make
mistakes, look like an idiot, and try again—without even flinching.
In a recent study at the College of William and Mary, researchers
interviewed over 800 entrepreneurs and found that the most successful
among them tend to have two critical things in common: they’re
terrible at imagining failure and they tend not to care what other
people think of them. In other words, the most successful
entrepreneurs put no time or energy into stressing about their
failures as they see failure as a small and necessary step in the
process of reaching their goals.
4. You have to keep
your emotions in check. Negative emotions challenge your mental
strength every step of the way. While it’s impossible not to feel
your emotions, it’s completely under your power to manage them
effectively and to keep yourself in control of them. When you let
your emotions overtake your ability to think clearly, it’s easy to
lose your resolve. A bad mood can make you lash out or stray from
your chosen direction just as easily as a good mood can make you
overconfident and impulsive.
5. You have to make the
calls you’re afraid to make. Sometimes we have to do things we
don’t want to do because we know they’re for the best in the
long-run: fire someone, cold-call a stranger, pull an all-nighter to
get the company server back up, or scrap a project and start over.
It’s easy to let the looming challenge paralyze you, but the most
successful people know that in these moments, the best thing they can
do is to get started right away. Every moment spent dreading the task
subtracts time and energy from actually getting it done. People that
learn to habitually make the tough calls stand out like flamingos in
a flock of seagulls.
6. You have to trust
your gut. There’s a fine line between trusting your gut and being
impulsive. Trusting your gut is a matter of looking at decisions from
every possible angle, and when the facts don’t present a clear
alternative, you believe in your ability to make the right decision;
you go with what looks and feels right.
7. You have to lead
when no one else follows. It’s easy to set a direction and to
believe in yourself when you have support, but the true test of
strength is how well you maintain your resolve when nobody else
believes in what you’re doing. People with mental strength believe
in themselves no matter what, and they stay the course until they win
people over to their ways of thinking.
8. You have to focus on
the details even when it makes your mind numb. Nothing tests your
mental strength like mind-numbing details, especially when you’re
tired. The more people with mental strength are challenged, the more
they dig in and welcome that challenge, and numbers and details are
no exception to this.
9. You have to be kind
to people who are rude to you. When people treat you poorly, it’s
tempting to stoop to their level and return the favor. People with
mental strength don’t allow others to walk all over them, but that
doesn’t mean they’re rude to them, either. Instead, they treat
rude and cruel people with the same kindness they extend to everyone
else, because they don’t allow another person’s negativity to
bring them down.
10. You have to be
accountable for your actions, no matter what. People are far more
likely to remember how you dealt with a problem than they are to
recall how you created it in the first place. By holding yourself
accountable, even when making excuses is an option, you show that you
care about results more than your image or ego. Bringing It All
Together Mental strength is as rare as it is important. The good news
is that any of us can get stronger with a little extra focus and
effort.
AUTHOR: Travis
Bradberry, Ph.D.
