Mental Strength and Relaxed Confidence

Confidence killers

We all have moments when our self-confidence takes a hit. But sometimes, without even realizing it, we’re the ones dealing the blows.

Some behaviors can unintentionally broadcast low self-esteem to the world, leading others to perceive us as less capable than we truly are.

Here are some habits that emasculate men. Stop doing these things.

emasculate - deprive (a man) of his male role or identity.

Source: https://nickwignall.com/confident-people/

Like happiness, confidence is one of those things you can’t really get directly.

You can’t just try to be confident any more than you can try to be happy. In fact, sometimes this direct approach to seeking confidence can backfire: You’re so worried about being more confident, that you make yourself anxious and insecure—the opposite of confident!

What if we need a completely different approach to building confidence? What if becoming more confident is about what you should do less of rather than more of?

These are some patterns and habits that cause people to lose confidence and feel insecure.

When people work to overcome things like anxiety and low self-esteem, a happy side-effect is that they end up becoming far more confident in nearly all areas of their lives.

If you can identify these habits in your own life and work to eliminate them, I think you’ll find that confidence has a way of showing up on its own.

If you struggle with low self-confidence, a new strategy might be to approach it in reverse: rather than trying to do things that will add confidence or make you feel more confident, work on eliminating things that are killing your confidence.

When it comes to doing something or not doing something, always remember Learn by Inverting

Avoiding eye contact

Comparing yourself to others

Constantly apologizing

Downplaying your achievements

Excessively self-deprecating

Getting upset

Neglecting self-care

Not ending conversations

Not setting your boundaries and not asserting your boundaries

See Set and assert your boundaries. Respect other people’s boundaries.

Not speaking up in group settings

https://soft-skills.vercel.app/posts/20250214225738-speak_up_in_group_settings/

Second Guessing Yourself and Buckling on stance

Seeking external validation

Seeking permission from others

Asking for reassurance

When you’re worried or afraid, nothing could be more natural than wanting reassurance that everything is going to be okay:

1. You’re worried about your son being safe on his road trip back to college, so you text him and his friends every hour asking if everything’s okay.
2. You’re anxious that you’re wife’s upset at you for something because she looks tense and irritable, so you ask her repeatedly if everything’s okay and if you’ve done something wrong.
3. You’re worried about blowing the big interview tomorrow so you spend the evening before calling friends and family members asking for tips and reassurances that it will go alright.

And it works! Sort of…

When we feel anxious, ask for reassurance, and then get it, we temporarily feel relieved of our anxiety and fears. Like a fast-acting pain medication, reassurance is great at alleviating emotional pain and doubt in the short term. But just like all pain medication, reassurance is a Band-Aid that treats the symptoms, not the cause.

Maybe you get relief for a few hours, a few minutes… maybe just a few short seconds and then, inevitably, the fear and worry and insecurity are back, usually stronger than ever.

And that’s the big problem with reassurance-seeking: While it sometimes feels good in the short-term, it makes your anxiety and insecurity worse in the long-term.

Here’s how it works:

1. When you’re worried about something—an upcoming performance, what other people think of you, whether someone is safe, etc.—you feel anxious, which is an uncomfortable feeling.
2. And while extremely uncomfortable—painful, even—anxiety is not dangerous. It can’t hurt you, no matter how intense. But by seeking reassurance, you’re telling your brain that the feeling of anxiety is dangerous and needs to be eliminated. Or else something bad will surely happen.
3. So even though reassurance-seeking often makes you feel a little better now, in the long term, it’s only intensifying your anxiety and low confidence because it’s training your brain to be afraid of being afraid.
4. Which means, the next time something worries you, you’re going to feel even more anxiety and lack of confidence. Which means you’re going to want that reassurance even more.
5. Cue the vicious cycle…

The solution to this dilemma of reassurance-seeking and continually worse confidence is in a very subtle distinction when it comes to fear: Just because something feels scary doesn’t mean it is dangerous.

If you want to be more confident, you must train your brain to believe that feeling anxious is uncomfortable but not dangerous. That it is something you can handle. But your brain is never going to believe you can handle your fear and insecurities if you’re always running to other people to get reassurance.

The next time you feel anxious, validate that feeling as scary and uncomfortable but remind yourself that simply being afraid isn’t dangerous. Show your brain that you can tolerate feeling afraid without resorting to reassurance-seeking, and it will reward you with confidence in the future.

Trying to be a perfectionist

See Strive For Progress, Not Perfection

Avoid Fatal Mistakes that Kill Conversations

https://soft-skills.vercel.app/posts/20250301191139-conversation_skills/#fatal-mistakes-that-kill-conversations

Ruminating on past mistakes

Rumination is a form of thinking where we repeatedly review and replay previous mistakes or negative events in the past even though doing so has no real benefit but does have the side-effect feeling bad about yourself:

1. Laying in bed replaying the mistake you made at your presentation at work for hours.
2. Thinking over and over about that conversation between you and your husband when he said you were being overly-critical and you thought he was being insensitive.
3. Brooding about the mistakes you made as a father when your children were young.

But if rumination is so unhelpful and only makes us feel bad about ourselves and saps us of confidence, why do we do it? Why does it feel so compulsive?

Like reassurance-seeking, rumination does kind of work in a superficial sense.

See, rumination is a form of thinking very close to problem-solving, analysis, and reflection—all of which tend to be helpful and positive. So when we ruminate, we often feel as if we’re doing something constructive—we’re thinking about it, and thinking’s always good!

Not really. Even if a fact is true—you did make mistakes as a father, you did screw up a portion of your presentation—continuing to think about it isn’t necessarily helpful. This is the key distinction: Just because something is true doesn’t mean thinking more about it is helpful.

Even though rumination erodes our confidence and wellbeing in the long-run, we easily get addicted to it because it actually feels good in the very short-term. It makes us feel competent and proactive, which briefly alleviates the strong discomfort of helplessness.

When mistakes have been made, we can’t actually change them. Intellectually that may sound obvious, but experientially it’s a fact we avoid and deny like the plague because it feels so awful to acknowledge.

The key to undoing a habit of rumination and useless self-criticism is to realize what you’re getting out of it and how it’s not really worth it. Is the temporary relief of helplessness really worth the long-term blows to your confidence? Is that brief feeling of “I can figure this out!” really worth a night of terrible sleep and sluggishness the next day?

Learn to accept helplessness and uncertainty. We make mistakes. And often we can’t do anything about it. Such is life.

The best we can do is work to be better going forward. And one of the best ways to be better in the future is to improve our confidence and self-worth. So drop the habit of rumination and give yourself permission to live life going forward instead of keeping yourself a prisoner of the past.

Expecting too much of themselves

Confident people are anti-perfectionists.

Despite the common belief that perfectionism is about being perfect (perfect grades, perfect home, perfect performance), perfectionism is really about feeling perfect.

See, perfectionists have a hard time tolerating the emotional impact of imperfection. Deep down, they believe that the only way to be truly lovable or useful or good is if they’re perfect. And when they inevitably fail to live up to the rather high standard of perfect, they feel bad. And in order to feel less bad about being less-than-perfect, they strive all the more to be perfect. Once again, cue the vicious cycle…

Perfectionism and the need to feel perfect are a setup for poor confidence and low self-esteem. It means that anytime you feel bad, you’re not doing things correctly and need to work harder.

Of course, what most confident people understand is that feeling perfect—or even feeling good—isn’t a requirement for anything. In fact, most of the best things in life don’t feel good, at least for a time:

1. Being healthy and fit requires that we go through the discomfort of working out.
2. Falling in love often ends in heartbreak.
3. Creating a successful company usually means failing at 5 unsuccessful ones first.

In other words, confident people don’t expect that they can or should feel good all the time. And they’re okay with not feeling great. They’re also okay with not producing perfect results because they understand that good results only come through a string of not so good results.

If you want to be more confident, think of standards and expectations as a tool—something you should cultivate and use but not become a slave to.

Practice tolerating and welcoming imperfection, uncertainty, and failure. Just because these things feel bad doesn’t mean they are bad.

If you stop fighting imperfection and learn to embrace it, confidence will follow.

Worrying about things they can’t control

Worry is the flip side of rumination. Just like rumination is unhelpful thinking about mistakes or bad things in the past, worry is unhelpful thinking about potential dangers in the future:

1. Imagining telling your boss about the mistake you made and getting stuck going over and over various worst-case scenarios.
2. Thinking about all the negative, critical things your friends might be thinking about you during the party.
3. Obsessing over that strange pain in your leg, convincing yourself it’s cancer, and imagining how awful chemo is going to be.

We all know worry makes us feel awful—anxious and stressed in the short term, but also lacking in confidence and self-worth in the long-term. And yet, we keep doing it. Over and over and over again… Why?

The key to understanding worry is that, like rumination, in the very short-term it actually feels good! Worry gives us the illusion of control.

On a primitive level, we believe that if we think hard enough and long enough and prepare ourselves for every possible negative outcome, things will be better—people we love will stay safe, disasters will be averted, etc. But more importantly, worry preoccupies our mind. It gives us something to do instead of simply feeling scared or helpless or unsure.

The problem is, the act of worry trains our brain to believe that those imaginary bad things are real and likely possibilities, which keeps us anxious and afraid in the long run. And when we’re constantly anxious and afraid, it’s awfully hard to be confident.

None of us like feeling out of control. But it’s a fundamental truth of reality that we can’t control everything—especially the two things most worriers obsess about: the future and other people.

The key to undoing the habit of worry, lowering your chronic anxiety, and building up your confidence is to become okay with lack of control.

If you can practice acknowledging and accepting how little control you actually have in your life, you’ll find your confidence will grow. And on top of that, you’ll have more energy and time to invest in the things you do actually have control over.

If you want to be confident, stop worrying about the life you don’t have and take responsibility for the life you do have.

Making decisions based on how they feel

Confident people use values-based reasoning to make decisions, not emotion-based reasoning.

Imagine the following scenario most of us have found ourselves in some form or another:

Your alarm goes off, you roll over and see that the alarm reads “5:00 AM.” You glance outside, and while it’s still pretty dark, somehow you just know it’s cold out there—really cold. On the other hand, your bed is so toasty! Which brings you to a decision point: Should you get up and go for that run like you planned? Or hit snooze, roll over, and hopefully hit the gym after work?

After a few back and forths with yourself, you decide that it’s just too cold out there, pull your blankets a little closer to you chin, roll over, and promptly fall back asleep.

This is emotion-based reasoning. You’ve made a decision based primarily on how you feel, rather than what’s most important to you. Your value was to start exercising regularly to improve your health (and physique, of course!). Your feeling was anxiety over the discomfort of running in the cold and the relief of your warm toasty bed. Ultimately, you decided to stay in bed in order to avoid the discomfort of getting up early and going for a run.

Now, I’m not here to tell you that going for a run at 5:00 AM is good or bad, right or wrong, healthy or not. The point is that you made that decision and then chose to act otherwise. And that’s a problem for your confidence.

When we consistently act in a way that’s contrary to our own values, we erode our trust in ourselves—and along with it, our self-confidence.

Each time you say something’s important, then act contrary to that commitment, you teach your brain that you can’t be trusted and that you’re not reliable. And the biggest reason we all do this is because our feelings tell us something different.

See, our feelings and emotions tend to be oriented toward what feels good in the short-term: Avoiding pain, feeling pleasure, eliminating uncertainty, etc… Of course, there’s nothing wrong with any of these per se. The problem is, the pursuit of feeling good now often comes at the expense of doing good in the future:

1. It’s hard to eat healthily, keep off weight, and lower your cholesterol if you constantly decide to pursue the pleasure of a second bowl of ice-cream (feelings).
2. It’s hard to finally write that novel you’ve been dreaming about (value) if you consistently decide to avoid the anxiety of starting a book and choose the easy relief and cheap excitement of video games (feelings).

On the other hand, when we regularly follow-through on what we say is important to us, our brain trusts us more. Which means, the next time we’re faced with something difficult, your brain is likely to respond with confidence (Yeah, we got this!) as opposed to fear (I don’t know… Seems too tough.).

In short, if you want to build confidence, you need to change your relationship with your emotions. Try to see them as potentially useful messengers but never primary decision-makers.

Begin in small ways to consistently follow through on decisions you’ve committed to, each time knowing that you’re building trust in yourself. And when your brain really starts to trust that you’re the kind of person who goes after what’s really important—as opposed to what feels good or easy now—that’s when the confidence comes.

Confidence builders - How to build Mental Strength and Relaxed Confidence?

References: The article “How to Seem Like You Always Have Your Sh*t Together” by Brianna Wiest

You need to seem like you always have your sh*t together.

It’s hard to nail down exactly what it means to ‘have your shit together,’ but you always know when you meet someone who does.

These people are functional and competent, but never pretentious or elitist. They make their beds and do their jobs and always seem to be level-headed about all the nonsense the rest of us conflate into huge crises.

No matter what your personal goals are, at the root of them all, you just want to have your shit together too. But, while this might be hard to believe, the truth is that nobody really has it all together’not entirely, not all the time. But aspiring to function well in your life, own personal responsibility, have real diplomacy and social grace, a healthy temperament, and other similar traits is definitely noble, if not crucial, to being well-received by the world.

Therefore, here is your official cheat sheet to getting your shit together’ or at the very least, convincing everyone else you do.

You Must Be The Master of Your Own Kingdom

Make a habit of practicing speaking in front of a mirror

Refuse to settle

Habits - Banish the word fine. Refuse to settle.

Have a Uniform Style

Decide what you love and then wear it often. Either have a signature scent, accessory, or color scheme that sets you apart. When people see you, your appearance should align with who you say you are and what you say you care about. Your style should match your personality, and it should stay as consistent as possible. Think of CEOs who wear the same thing every day or cartoon characters who stay in the same clothes. People respond well to consistency.

Don’t Flaunt Weaknesses

If you don’t want people thinking your life is a hot mess, then stop talking about it being a hot mess on every platform every chance you can. There’s a huge, enormous, world-altering difference between being authentic and capitalizing on your struggles to earn sympathy or whatever else some dark corner of your mind thinks you’re achieving by complaining every hour of the day. You can keep it real without overemphasizing what you’re not that great at. What you share is what builds other people’s image of you.

Stop Oversharing

On the same note, realize that the 2012-2014 era of confessional essays is over. Not every single person online and in your personal life needs to know every single detail about your life. Not only that, but they don’t even want to know. If you feel truly moved to share your struggle in some part of your life hoping it will be therapeutic and help another person going through it’amazing, please do that. But if you are just constantly telling people way more information than is appropriate to share, it might seem as though you don’t understand healthy boundaries.

Keep Things Clean

This might seem really obvious, but it’s totally overlooked: People who have their shit together have one really simple thing in common’they are always clean. They clean themselves, their spaces, and their belongings. They take care of themselves, their spaces, and their belongings. This doesn’t require much money and really only minimal effort. Keeping your life a little more tidy and organized will go a really long way.

Assume What You Say in Private Is Actually Public

I’m not saying nobody is trustworthy, but we are all dealing with what I’m going to call the ‘one person’ phenomenon. Every single time you tell a secret or important information to someone, if it’s interesting enough, they will tell their one person. Then that person will their one person. Ultimately, what you tell one person is what you tell everyone at the end of the day’so don’t say anything in private you do not want repeated in public.

Minimize Drama

Instead of being someone who creates drama and issues, be someone who problem solves and innovates with new ideas. Instead of creating more chaos around a disagreement or issue, create a solution.

Talk About Things, Not Other People

Other people and their lives are not topics of conversation. This is a lazy way to forge connection with others if you have nothing more important or interesting to discuss. Ultimately, being a gossip isn’t a good look. It makes you seem vindictive and judgmental. Find things to talk about that aren’t other people’s business. Your relationships will be better for it.

Be Clear About Who You Are

For people to respect you, they first have to understand you, and that really begins with your language and approach to explaining yourself, both online and in person. In general, you should have a single sentence explanation that adequately sums up what you do professionally and then another that sums up what you’re interested in personally. If you can’t sum it up easily, you’re assuming your life is too complex and nuanced’but you’re achieving the opposite effect than you desire because you’ll just seem sort of lost.

Don’t Act Like an Authority When You’re Not

We do one another a disservice by insisting on answering immediately and impulsively in conversations and arguments. This is not how brains work. This is also not how intelligent people behave. Instead of spewing out whatever first comes to mind when you’re questioned about something, pause, think about what you want to say, and calmly express that you haven’t done enough research or hold enough expertise to speak on it with authority, but you’d like to share your opinion or viewpoint. And what isn’t in your authority? Anything you’re not an actual expert in or don’t have personal, direct experience with. So most things you talk about - but that’s okay. The point is to try to share opinions with one another to generate more conversation, not to convince one other about what’s absolute fact.

Keep Your Composure

People who fly off the handle at every little thing do not seem strong and tough, they seem weak and weak-willed. Anger is like gasoline when there’s some kind of friction between people. It raises people’s defenses and pushes a resolution farther away. If nobody else can manage it, be the person in the room who can keep their composure and speak clearly and calmly.

1. Getting upset
2. Anger and Disagreements

Stop Complaining

See Complaining and Venting in soft-skills

Have Principles

Principles are the rules and guidelines you use to govern and manage your life. If you value relationships, prioritize them by principle. If you want to improve your self-care, do it regularly by principle. No, you will not always want to wash your face, put on moisturizer, or drink another glass of water when you need to. But if you succumb to your impulses all the time, you’ll end up a shell of the person you’re meant to be’all because you don’t have principles.

Receive Help When You Need Help

Behaving as though you can do absolutely everything yourself limits you. When you need help, you need help. Ask for it, receive it, and understand that it does not make you less dignified.

But Remember You’re Responsible for You

You are ultimately responsible for whatever experience of life you want to have. You are responsible for your electric bill, for how well you keep up with current events, for how you interact with others, for how well you do at work, and for how much you sleep. You have to take an active role in your life, not a passive one. Don’t think and act like life is just happening to you and you have to accept it. Start taking creative control.

Compliment Others

Your willingness to uplift others is a sign of real confidence. People who are not happy with themselves cannot be happy with others. And there’s even more benefit to you because the more you are willing to affirm and love others, the more you are going to see yourself with more love and appreciation. Remember, your relationships with others are reflections of your greatest relationship’which is the one you have with yourself.

Organize Your Paperwork, Clean Your Linens, and Know How to Cook At Least One Meal

Absolutely no adult is beyond this.

Be Aware of Your Finances

If you don’t want to be the person who questions whether their card will be declined somewhere, make sure you’re checking on your accounts before you actually go out and spend money. You should know your debts, your incomes, and your goals. You shouldn’t be in the dark about your financial health.

Know Your Limits

Feed yourself when you’re hungry; rest when you’re tired; know how to gracefully bow out of a social situation, relationship, house party or job when you need to. If you wait until you’ve passed your limits, you’re going to burn out and burn bridges at the same time.

Stop Thinking Everyone’s Thinking About You. They’re Not

In the age of social media, so it’s easy to become victim to the spotlight complex, which is the idea that everyone is thinking about you and evaluating your life decisions frequently. They aren’t. Everyone is thinking about themselves all the time, in the same way that you are thinking about yourself all the time. Those coincidences you’re so sure mean everyone deeply cares about the intricacies of your life? It’s probably confirmation bias, your brain’s way of filtering information to affirm what it already believes. The first step to being self-aware is recognizing that other people’s thoughts do not revolve around you.

Keep It Simple

People who are able to simplify their lives come across as sophisticated. People who complicate their lives do not. People who have their shit together are able to live simply, to enjoy simple things, to show up as they are, and to sort through issues with clarity. Most importantly, remember that the point of getting your shit together is to make your life easier and more enjoyable’not to impress anyone else. But like most anything else, getting your shit together is a matter of faking it until you make it, and this is the best place to start.

Understand that providing negative feedback is an act of caring

If you always use these 6 phrases, you’re mentally stronger than most

Story by Scott Mautz

Scott Mautz is a popular speaker, trainer, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He’s a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he ran several of the company’s largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He is the author of “The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors.” Follow him on LinkedIn.

I’ve spent 30 years researching what makes people, and especially leaders, mentally strong. Along the way, I’ve discovered that you become mentally stronger by exercising six core mental muscles:

Confidence Fortitude Boldness Decision-making Goal-focus Messaging (which is about showing up positive-minded and engaged)

You can get in easy “reps” to build these muscles by being intentional about what you say to others — and to yourself.

If you say these six phrases to yourself or others on a regular basis, you’re mentally stronger than most:

1. ‘I’m enough’

   It’s all too easy to feel the opposite. It’s natural to get caught up in comparisons to others that make you feel like you’re not enough.

   We often believe our differences are an impediment to our success when, in truth, they can help propel us there.

   The only comparison you can make that’s actually relevant is between who you are today and who you were yesterday. The only question that’s truly important is whether or not you’re growing.

   Mentally strong people remind themselves of this to bolster their confidence muscle.

2. ‘What possibilities does this setback present?’

   You exercise your fortitude muscle when you help yourself and others focus on the opportunities that arise in adversity, rather than the limitations. It’s a cornerstone of being mentally strong.

   We tend to focus on what we’ve lost due to adversity — like time, money, progress, self-belief, our identity or even our job.

   Mentally strong people focus on what they still have in the face of adversity, and what possibilities now present themselves.

3. ‘Am I letting myself dream big?’

   The mentally strongest people have a habit of thinking big. They’ve given themselves permission to do so, and encourage others to do the same.

   It’s not as easy as it sounds. Most of us are overloaded with our daily tasks, priorities and distractions. Who has time to dream big? And we often convince ourselves, “Big things happen to other people, not people like me.”

   If you want to develop a strong, toned boldness muscle, you have to let yourself go there. You need to believe you’re allowed to dream big, that big things can happen to people like you — and that thinking big and being bold will help forge a better, more accomplished version of you.

4. ‘What’s the cost of indecision?’

   Decisiveness is a hallmark of the mentally strong. They don’t get hung up over what happens if they make the wrong decision, or paralyzed by their fear of making the wrong call. They remind themselves and others to be cognizant of what happens the longer a decision is delayed.

   A famous rock singer once lamented, “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.”

   It’s often a costly choice. Your indecision could mean that timelines and costs skyrocket, depleting resources as you chase parallel paths.

5. ‘Am I controlling the controllables?’

   Mental strength is strongly correlated with achievement. In order to achieve your goals, you need your goal-focus muscle.

   You’re thrown off your path to your goal when you pay undue attention to things you can’t control along the way. Doing a “Control Check” helps.

   Create a simple, two-column table. Label the left column “Setbacks” and the right column “Systems.” Under “Setbacks,” list all the obstacles you’re worried about that could keep you from accomplishing your goal.

   Then, circle only the potential setbacks you can control.

   In the “Systems” column, list all the processes, procedures and structures you can put in place that will help you overcome the challenges you circled that you can do something about.

6. ‘I don’t have to do this; I get to do this’

   This one-word reframe unlocks gratitude, making you feel re-energized when the duties of your job are wearing you down.

   For example, on days when I have to travel for my job (the travel itself being something I no longer enjoy), I keep myself from thinking “I have to do this,” by instead saying to myself, “I get to do this.” As in: “I soon get to be on stage, giving a keynote address and sharing insights and inspiration that will help people.”

   It’s how I exercise my messaging muscle, another key element of mental strength. I remind myself of all the good parts of being a speaker and writer, and carry that positivity, energy and joy with me throughout my day.

If you always do these 8 things, you’re mentally stronger than most

Fri, Jul 12 20247:45 AM EDT

Scott Mautz

These days, we could do with all the mental strength we can muster.

Mental strength is the ability to productively regulate your emotions, thoughts, and behaviors, even in the face of adversity. And adversity is in no short supply. If you want to overcome more challenges, achieve more success, experience more happiness and less stress — it takes mental strength.

After spending decades studying mental strength and interviewing and surveying thousands of people for my recent book, “The Mentally Strong Leader,″ I have good news. The mentally strongest people tend to share certain habits we can learn from. There are patterns I’ve noticed when it comes to what they say (and don’t say) and what they do.

If you always do these eight things, you’re already mentally stronger than most. If you don’t — yet! — you can look to this list as a mini-playbook that will help you level up your mental strength.

1. Manage emotions without minimizing them

   That adage about how you should “leave your emotions at the door” just doesn’t work. If you’ve tried it, you know it’s not that simple.

   That said, while mentally strong people are aware of emotions triggered inside, they don’t let those emotions instantly flow through into words or actions.

   They catch their emotions, consider if they’re helpful to express, then decide how to respond. In other words, regarding unhelpful emotions, they catch it, check it, and change it (using the the 3 Cs of cognitive behavioral therapy).

2. Remember confidence isn’t the absence of doubt

   We all contend with doubt. Even the most confident people I’ve interviewed experience doubt.

   Confidence, then, is your ability to manage your relationship with the doubt you’ll inevitably experience.

   The mentally strong have found the right middle ground between overconfident and paralyzed by fear of failure. They acknowledge doubt, but let it sit quietly in the background so they can focus on how they will accomplish something, not if they can accomplish it in the first place.

3. Talk to yourself like a friend in need

   Imagine a friend, clearly upset and in need of empathy, was telling you about a relationship they just ended. After listening, would you say:

   “How could you let this relationship fail? It’s all your fault, you jerk!”

   I doubt it. Instead, you might say:

   “I appreciate what you’re going through and how much it must hurt. Try not to be so hard on yourself.”

   You should take this more compassionate tone with yourself, too.

4. Know your resilience needs and draw on resources accordingly

   When we face setbacks, we often try to go it alone, forgetting that one of the most important things mentally strong people do is to seek perspective and support.

   Know what your “resilience needs” are, and then draw on them. For example, when I experience setbacks, I call a sibling to laugh about it. My resilience need is to tackle challenges with humor, and I know my brothers or sister will recognize the comedy in the situation and make me feel better.

   Others might need someone who will just listen, be a shoulder to cry on, or become an advisor.

   Whatever your resilience needs are, identify who in your network can help you in that way, and then call on them at the right moments. Resilience is a team sport.

5. Don’t let the daily grind get you down

   Mentally strong people don’t get worn down as much by the daily grind.

   Whether or not they realize it, they engage in a combination of gratitude and mindfulness — a practice I call grindfulness. It means being present and mindful enough in daily life to notice the details and show gratitude for the positive aspects of whatever grind you find yourself in.

   For example, say you’re having a tough morning at work. You’re answering a string of emails that came in overnight, and you’re frustrated. But you stop to marvel at the fact that you can type a few words, hit a button, and within seconds, your thoughts are transmitted to someone halfway across the world. Amazing.

   Your appreciation for this mundane detail lifts your spirits just a little, helping your mood. That’s grindfulness.

6. Unlearn as needed

   Mentally strong people recognize when to let go of preconceived notions. They know when to drop points of view and ideas that are no longer relevant or useful to them. They identify and ditch bad habits that prevent them from moving forward productively. They regularly challenge their assumptions.

   In short, they know they sometimes need to unlearn in order to learn.

   Start by identifying and exchanging your limiting beliefs. What unhelpful stories do you tell yourself that have become ingrained? What unwarranted labels are you applying?

   For instance, you might label yourself as less talented than your peers and tell yourself: “I’m not good enough to get promoted.” Replace those limiting beliefs with empowering beliefs like, “I have all the skills needed to get promoted.”

7. Act like an epicenter of encouragement

   It takes mental strength to consistently be supportive of others, especially in the face of negativity, when others are doing the easy thing and jumping on the “Complain Train.”

   Even better than generic encouragement or positivity is informed encouragement, which is when you give praise or positive reinforcement that is specific in nature. Doing so shows you took the time and care to indicate exactly what deserves praise and why, making your words feel more authentic and meaningful.

   1. Act like change is happening for you, not to you

   In times of change, you can act like change is something bad that causes pain and requires unwanted effort — like it’s something happening to you.

   Mentally strong people, on the other hand, see change as something positive, a jumping off point that can improve personal and professional fortunes — like it’s something that happens for you.

   You can choose to see change as a personal software upgrade, a catalyst for growth, and another opportunity to exercise your mental strength muscles.

Here are 7 things mentally strong people never do

Many experts consider emotional intelligence a predictor of success and satisfaction. I see it as just one important component of something more substantial and even more empowering: mental strength.

Mental strength is the ability to productively regulate your emotions as well as your thoughts and behaviors, especially in the face of adversity. I believe it is the success and leadership superpower of our times — the next EQ, only bigger.

I’ve studied and trained mentally strong leaders for decades and written my recent book on the subject. From my research and experience, I can tell you that mental strength is about what you must have the discipline to say and do, and to not say and do.

Mentally strong people never do these seven things:

1. They don’t wilt in the face of setbacks

   Mentally strong people understand that we’re defined not by what knocks us down, but by how we get back up.

   They treat mistakes as missteps, not “mis-leaps” — meaning they’re careful not to exaggerate the negative impact of a setback.

   Instead, they look for opportunities to learn and grow when facing adversity, and stay focused on the best way forward.

2. They don’t get caught in the ‘Static Trap’

   The Static Trap is:

   Failing to admit a problem exists, i.e., being static about it, ignoring signs of trouble, and doing nothing Making excuses and pointing fingers to blame others when the issue is eventually acknowledged, like by creating static, or distortion, around what’s really happening Continuing to be complacent or moving too slowly to address the real issue, remaining static even once it’s obvious something’s gone wrong Tackling real problems is hard work. But mentally strong people aren’t daunted. They recognize the consequences of letting an issue fester. They don’t deny problems exist or bury their heads in the sand; they move quickly into problem-solving mode.

3. They avoid mistakes of motive

   Being mentally strong doesn’t mean never making mistakes. It means acknowledging your mistakes, learning and growing from them, and not repeating them.

   However, mentally strong people never make a mistake of motive. That means they don’t take ill-intentioned actions, like claiming credit for someone else’s work.

   To avoid this, when you feel motivated to act from an unhelpful place or solely out of self-interest, pause and ask yourself, “Does my intent have integrity?” If not, change course.

4. They never get too wrapped up in getting respect — they just earn it

   Focusing too much on whether you’re getting the respect you believe you deserve can lead you down an unproductive path. You can spend too much time trying to right how you were wronged, for example, or stewing about how much credit you get.

   Instead, mentally strong people use the Give-Resist-Exude framework to focus on the actions that will ultimately earn them respect. Periodically ask yourself:

   What can I give? It’s wise to focus on giving more than you get. Share praise, credit, and knowledge freely. Always put in that extra 10% effort. Give your word and keep it. And don’t expect respect if you don’t give it to others. What should I resist? For example, credit-grabbing, gossip, negativity, and blaming. What should I exude? Try professionalism, accountability, mastery, transparency, and authenticity.

   Make your own list of what you want to give, resist, and exude, and the respect will roll in.

5. They don’t over- or underestimate their skills

   Being mentally strong doesn’t mean you believe you’re great at everything you know a little bit about. Or, inversely, that you tamp down your belief in yourself in areas where you actually excel.

   Inaccurate self-assessments in either direction can cause real problems. Overestimating your skills might mean going into an event underprepared and overconfident, while underestimating your ability to succeed might mean shying away from career-enhancing projects and risks.

   Mentally strong people are thoughtful and honest about assessing how good or bad they are at something before they do it, so they can seek out and get the support or confidence boost they need.

6. They’re not wildly inconsistent

   When your behavior and decisions fluctuate without any rhyme or reason, it creates uncertainty. People become confused about what to expect from you and they might start to see you as unfair. Inconsistency can erode trust in relationships and create a “learned inertia” where people avoid interactions with you altogether.

   Mentally strong people don’t act on unhelpful impulses. They manage their emotions so that their feelings don’t translate immediately into words and actions.

   They’re clear about their priorities and what they expect from others, and have a high say/do ratio — as in, they always (or almost always) follow through on doing the things they said they were going to do.

7. They don’t try to please everyone all the time

   Constantly trying to please everyone around you can cause you to put up false fronts, hold back, and bury the authentic you. All of that can quickly lead to burnout.

   Instead, do like mentally strong people do and don’t try to be everything to everyone in your world.

   Start with you. Ensure you’ve set healthy boundaries that allow you to take care of your needs. You’ll find better balance, feel more confident, and be able to help others in a more authentic way.

Tags

1. Emotional Intelligence
2. Switch-cost effect and Attention Residue
3. Building Inner Stability