Hey, everyone! This post is a bit of an unconventional one, but it's one that I'm super excited about, so I hope you guys enjoy this. Welcome to the introduction to a series on mental strength! In this course, we'll go over how to optimize your mental strength, what may make you weaker mentally, and many other things. If you'd like to know more than what I share in these posts, make sure you check out Amy Morin's book "13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do." That's what gave me the idea and that'll be one of my main sources for this series.
Now, I did run a survey for this, so I do have a decent bit of my own gathered data, but it was a very small survey (around 10 people responded), so beware that this was almost certainly not a good sample of the whole population. This was simply a survey of my blog readers, so this is things that should be directly applicable to you guys. While the tips I share will still be relevant to those you share this with, the statistics I give may not be. Just as a warning.
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The results of my first survey question was nearly a 50/50 split, the question being "Do you consider yourself to be mentally strong?" There were answers such as "sometimes" and "in certain situations" but overall, there was a definite answer for each person as to whether they thought themselves to be mentally strong. Amy Morin (2014) states that "it's not that people are either mentally strong or mentally weak" (p. 9). But how can this be?
Think about it this way: in the world, there are very few definites. We think things are definitive, but in the end, there's always something about it that could be improved. We define things as "perfect" but in the end, we know that it's truly not. However, how often do we take the time to take apart things to figure out what we can improve? These factors—these variables—end up being defined as "perfect", as if they're a definite, when the truth is that they're not.
Morin (2014) separates mental strength into a few factors, those being genetics, personality, and experiences (p. 9). None of us can say that we have perfect genetics, that we have the best personality, or that every experience in our life has made us stronger, can we? Ultimately, each person is predisposed to one side of the "spectrum" that is mental strength. Think of it as being similar to physical strength: we're all born more on the strong side or more on the weak side, and some of us are better at "bulking up" than others. Fitness is a factor, as is genetics, as is life habits, etc. But in the end, it's all a spectrum.
In the brief survey I sent out on this topic, I ended up with a variety of responses on what they think mental strength may be—some of which may be true to a point—but in the end, we are left with a question of what it is, and Morin has a few answers for this. While some of my survey respondents defined mental strength as being a result of God's grace, being how easily manipulated you are, or how well you cope with everyday life, the idea is that mental strength is more than just one thing. It's a combination of our thoughts, our behaviors, and our emotions, and Morin (2014) asserts that "optimism alone isn't enough to help you reach your full potential" (p. 11).
Ultimately, there are a ton of things about mental strength that I could go into, but the main ones that Morin (2014) emphasizes in her book are the following:
being mentally strong isn't about acting tough
mental strength doesn't require you to ignore your emotions
you don't have to treat your body like a machine to be mentally strong
being mentally strong doesn't mean you have to be completely self-reliant
being mentally strong is not about positive thinking
developing mental strength isn't about chasing happiness
mental strength isn't just the latest pop psychology trend
mental strength isn't synonymous with mental health (p. 12 - 13).
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In this series, we're going to be addressing 13 things that you shouldn't do if you want to be mentally strong, including how to detect them, how to avoid them, and what benefits you should see.
Are there any people in your life who you think are mentally strong based on this brief overview? I'd love to hear in the comments. And if I missed anything or ended up raising more questions than answering questions, let me know and I'll try to answer those questions in another post. God bless, Warriors! Thanks for reading!