6 Ways To Stay Mentally Strong In The Face Of Challenges
The day to day is full of situations that require us to stay mentally strong From asking for a raise to preparing for an exam or competitive exam, to managing a breakup, no adult is immune to these types of challenges that test our ability to face complex problems.
Now… how can we keep a cool head in these contexts? Fortunately, there are some psychological tricks that predispose us not to avoid problems and to direct all our actions towards achieving goals. Let’s see what they are.
The strategies and exercises you can see below are forms of training to become mentally strong, which means doing our part to think and make decisions constructively instead of taking refuge in oneself and hoping that everything turns out well by pure luck.
You can alternate these simple exercises between them, or focus on those that best suit your needs. Of course, you must keep in mind that the effectiveness of these strategies depends on you, and that if you do not want to make certain sacrifices to change, they will not work. To reach your goals, at least, you have to leave your comfort zone.
1. Practice Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a set of exercises and a style of thinking closely linked to the different ancient forms of meditation. However, beyond the traditional value of this type of habits, Mindfulness has proven to have the power to modify our way of thinking and perceiving things.
Specifically, it has been seen that it serves to reduce stress levels and that also allows you to better endure physical pain, among other advantages. Likewise, it helps avoid relapses in episodes of depression.
The effectiveness of Mindfulness has made it a tool increasingly used in elite athletes, to help them manage anxiety, and in children’s schools, to train children to better manage their attention, something that can also be used in adults. , for example, so as not to be distracted from goals and avoid procrastination.
2. Look for allies
Having people who provide support, even for short periods of time, has spectacular effects on mental performance and also on the ability to maintain determination to achieve a goal. It doesn’t matter if these people are in a position to give advice or not, the important thing is your company
3. Take a distant point of view
In the face of the toughest and most complex problems in which it is difficult to make decisions due to the large number of emotions that are linked to this process, adopt the point of view of an external observer helps to choose the best option The idea is to visualize yourself as if you were a fictitious third person, someone who has all the information necessary to know what is happening but who is not as emotionally tied to the events.
In fact, it has been proven that considering the situation that one experiences by referring to ourselves in the third person helps reduce anxiety that, in excess, can paralyze us.
There are many ways to think about a challenge or problem, but there is only one way to do it so that we become mentally stronger and more capable of achieving our goals. The trick is in always keep in mind that our goal is to win not losing with dignity or trying conservatively to not put too much at stake.
In fact, although in a game there are only two possible outcomes (win or lose), it has been seen that facing the challenge thinking about avoiding defeat is not the same as doing so aspiring to victory; In the second case the chances of success are greater.
5. Rest well
No one can maintain mental strength if they do not rest adequately. The simple fact of sleep the recommended hours and disconnect from time to time It allows the brain to rest and deal with problems more effectively. Otherwise, attention problems and poor memory fluidity can greatly complicate the achievement of objectives.
6. Fantasize about achieving the goal
Daydreaming, recreating in our imagination what is experienced when obtaining what we want helps us achieve that goal, since keeps motivation high
Furthermore, if we not only imagine victory but also include in this “mental simulation” the process by which we have obtained it, we will be overcoming a good part of our fears in our imagination, so that when the moment of truth comes we will be safer. of ourselves and we will have anticipated more possible problems and our reactions to them.
