Do THIS to Stay Mentally Strong During the Hardest Times!
Be strong when it counts. Life is a highway, sometimes a roller coaster, and occasionally it consists only of a never-ending low point from which there seems to be no escape anytime soon. Crises are unfortunately part of life. They are unavoidable, and no human being leads a life entirely without them.
Serious health impairments, financial problems or private and personal rough times are the major things that challenge us. The really difficult thing about these dark times is that, in the end, we have to face them alone.
Even if we know that we have a family and a circle of friends behind us who support us and have our backs, all too often it’s in the evening and at night that we are alone with our demons and have to make sure that they do not gain control over us.
Mental strength is therefore indispensable if you don't want to let the bad times get you down. In this article, we'll show you three ways to strengthen your resilience and better face the challenges of everyday life in the future.
1. Act professionally, matter-of-factly, and productively.
What sounds like part 1 from an employee manual is basically the most important ingredient for effective crisis management. Depending on the cloth we're cut from, we may find this attitude easier or harder. Not everyone is born with a robust nervous system, but you can work on it.
There's no point in burying your head in the sand or locking yourself in your room for days on end with chocolate and soap operas. Of course, crises take us by surprise at first. They throw all our plans out of kilter, take the light out of our existence and sometimes literally bring us to our knees. But it is precisely at this point that we must choose to fight and not to flee.
We are all much stronger than we think we are in good times. When it really comes down to it, we are tough creatures, designed by nature to survive wars, famine, disease and all the other hardships that life can bring. Our bodies can handle crises, now all we need to do is train our minds not to succumb to adversity.
Mental strength always has something warrior-like about it. Even hunger strikers in prisons do so not for pacifist reasons, but to show their political colors. A catastrophe can bring out the worst in us humans, but it can also bring out the best. The choice is ours. Pragmatically inclined people certainly have an easier time of it here; they take matters into their own hands that they can control and distract themselves with coping with organizational or very practical tasks.
The ostrich tactic has never proven itself in life crises, but taking the snorting bull by the horns has. Losing your nerve for a moment and letting yourself go is perfectly fine. But a sovereign master plan for crisis management looks different. Many generations before us had to face the worst tragedies that human history has ever known. If we take them as a model, no disaster in the world can bring us to our knees.
2. Accept what is.
If there's one thing that really doesn't get us any further in life crises, it's persisting in self-pity and anger at fate. It is what it is. Of course, in the first moment we tend to consider this blow of fate, this illness or this defeat as punishment and as unfair. We compare ourselves with others and think that only we are the disadvantaged and marked by life.
It seems as if everyone else is always lucky and we are always unlucky. This is not true, of course, but it is due to the perception of the moment. The sooner we manage to come to terms with the current unpleasant situation, the sooner we find ways and means to leave it behind us. An illness or a death in the family are heavy burdens that no one can put away so easily.
However, treating them like a blind spot only delays the pain, which eventually makes us feel it with double and triple force. Grief in particular is an emotion that needs all the space and time it requires. Ignoring misfortune usually makes it bigger, not smaller, and some events require action.
Letting tragedies and setbacks overwhelm us idly is no more a solution than denying the sad truth. If you can accept things as they are, you will find a way to deal with them more quickly, not avoid them.
3. Keep your thoughts in check.
Mental strength and resilience are all about the head. We can't and shouldn't control our emotions at all during tough times. They are the catalyst for everything that is going on inside of us right now. Essential for overcoming the crisis is our mindset.
Our head is the control center of our thoughts and actions. We can use it wisely, for example, to devise a master plan or problem-solving strategy to maneuver us out of the current dilemma. However, there is also a great danger that our mental cinema will take control and we will drown in a whirlpool of negative thoughts, worries, fears and visions of the future that are not based on any facts. Of course, low points in our lives call up all our senses.
Fear in particular is essential when it comes to our survival. But too much of it can paralyze us, blinkering us from gaining perspective, so that we cannot see the silver lining on the horizon. We need hope and confidence. They are what keep us going, even when we are down. Mental strength therefore means first and foremost: control over our thinking. We have to manage to give negativity and doomsday moods as little room as possible in our minds.
Instead, it helps most people to focus on practical things and processes that also distract them a bit at the same time. If we want to take direction in our lives and regain the upper hand despite the blows of fate, we need to steer our thoughts in the appropriate direction. In times of turmoil, chaos and a total state of emergency, this is easier said than done.
But our willpower is happy to help us here. Those who want to survive will survive, those who want to fail will fail.
Our conclusion
Mental training for every day. Resilience is not a superpower that we get overnight from some supernatural powers. It can be learned and trained, but it also needs something like constant supervision or tutoring. In the meantime, there are numerous good and free instructions on how to train your mental strength to peak form.
All it takes is a few small things that we can integrate into our daily routine. The basics are once again: healthy nutrition in the sense of nourishment for the nerves, exercise in the sunlight and fresh air, phases of retreat and regeneration, and the necessary mindfulness every day. We humans can endure the superhuman when the situation demands it. Only the very few of us are spared low blows and personal tragedies. Like any siege, however, this too shall pass.