The Mind Force

This is how I think:

?????"Mental strength is the ability to control your mind instead of being controlled by it" ?? –Rberny

Version en Espa?ol:

It is very true that it is very easy to get caught up in spirals of self-criticism and shame, this is very bad for the spirit and reduces your mental strength, remember that it is what allows you to redirect attention and think about something less destructive, like that pending conversation with your child or the report you are supposed to write.

Like everyone, I am sure that obviously there are aspects of your mind that you cannot control, what we have in mind is definitely very big and very diverse, therefore it makes it impossible to control everything; however, you can learn to manage the facets that we all have, such as anger, apathy, anger, pride and a good deal of cuteness that we have as humans, however, if you reflect on it, if we have pleasant and very satisfying moments that we can place forward and calm down, I know it is not easy, however, think, do you want to lose? Well, get angry, do you want your team to get away from you? Well, be irrational, throughout my life I have met people who They do not require a memory, but rather, they take a deep breath, quickly analyse and reflect, to act with equanimity and tranquillity, even their answer is short and concise.

What I'm trying to explain is that then, you have to become mentally strong, without this meaning that you can exercise complete control over everything that happens between your ears, let's say in your little head, you just have to know how to recognize those situations that change our state of spirit in the place that we are.

I mention it again, your mental toughness means understanding which parts of your mind you can control and being able to do it well when it matters.

For example:

You may not be able to control if a random worry pops into your mind, and you know it doesn't need to be dealt with right away, but you can control if you keep worrying about it.

You can't control if someone says something insensitive to you, however, you can control what you say in response, here you have to be smarter, because the reaction can be very against yourself and cause more damage than you think.

In my experience I see one of the many benefits of becoming mentally stronger is that it is one of the best ways to improve how you feel emotionally, your security will provide the peace of mind you need and patience and wisdom will tell you how to act.

The only way we have to reduce anxiety in the long term is to learn to control your mental patterns of worry. It is very wise that anxiety often wins over us. What to do? Well, go back a little and think about what caused you to become anxious. You saw something or something they told you, find the cause and take away its importance, because if you see it, it only made you anxious.

You will only be able to manage your anger problems when you learn to control your rumination mental patterns, it is quite difficult to break the cycle of low self-esteem without learning to manage your self-critical mental pattern.

In other words…

If you want to be emotionally resilient, you must train yourself to be mentally strong, if you remember in another article we talked about emotional intelligence, this is not too far from this concept, like any type of training, developing mental strength requires a commitment to good habits and practices through the long of the time.

Habits that little by little will improve your mental strength and your emotional resilience

First, you must be honest about how you feel emotionally, do not lie to yourself, even when we say no, this habit is so simple that it is incredibly easy to overlook it, if you do not believe in yourself, it will be difficult to get out of any situation that affects you badly emotionally speaking.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself:

I think I'm pretty honest about how I feel, really? Well, I'm telling you that maybe, remotely so, I would however be willing to challenge that you're not as honest about your emotions as you say, especially the really difficult ones, how would you like to believe in yourself?

For example:

Let's go into the assumption that you had a huge argument with your spouse last night and when you arrive at work this morning, one of your coworkers asks how you're doing, and without a second thought you immediately say I'm fine. How are you?

This is a case for writing a textbook how to be emotionally dishonest?

Now, you are probably thinking to yourself:

I wanted to say, I know I'm not feeling very well this morning because of that discussion, I just didn't want to say anything about it because it's not very appropriate to talk about personal problems at work, well done, but you didn't, mental toughness takes us not to show our emotions like in a carnival, no, in this case what you thought is correct and wise, also at work you are not going to solve any of this matter, so learn to separate yourself and perform your best.

I'm a little pushy, do you really know how you feel?

I mean, on a vague, superficial level, I'm sure you know you're feeling upset, but what emotions specifically are you feeling?

For example: do you feel angry? If so, what kind of anger: frustration, anger, irritation? Or maybe you feel hurt... But what kind of pain, disappointment, betrayal? Or do you feel sad or disappointed? Regretful or embarrassed? Or perhaps, and much more likely, you are feeling a combination of emotions, mostly disappointed, but also a little angry and anxious.

Unless you've had a rush therapy session before work this morning, or written a serious self-reflective journal before bed, I doubt you'd really understand how you feel about any kind of granularity.

Continuing with the example: My second point is that even if it's inappropriate to go into detail about your marital problems at work, however, that doesn't mean you can't talk about how you feel.

For example: in response to your coworker's question, you could have said:

I'm fine, but I had a bit of a stressful day yesterday, this would help a lot because a lot of us in this case would still be trying to make sense of it all.

Here's why this is important and the reason for my insistence.

Even though you know intellectually that you don't feel good, by avoiding them, you are teaching your brain that those feelings are bad or dangerous, because when we run away from something, our brain understands and intuits that it could be dangerous.

It's symptomatic, Everyone!, so if you're in the habit of avoiding talking about how you feel, you're actually sending a strong message to your brain that painful feelings are things to be avoided and feared.

Just keep one thing in mind, when you train your brain to fear your own feelings, you are erroneously setting yourself up for emotional fragility and pain.

Fortunately, you can teach your brain the opposite message that as painful and difficult as emotions are, they are not dangerous simply by being willing to talk about them honestly, both with yourself and with others.

Very personal comment, there are many types of people in this world, I will say it as I think, make no mistake, it is not about going down the street meeting people and telling them your whole life, your problems and asking for help to solve it, it is not about entering the mediocrity of tying ourselves to having our lives resolved, it is not that, it is becoming strong, unique, with a lot of self-control, safe and wise to take advantage of all situations.

Specifically to the example, it does not mean that you have to open your heart to every co-worker you meet throughout the day, however take 3 seconds, take a deep breath, too honestly acknowledge your emotions, instead of avoiding them, this is one way powerful way to build your mental strength and emotional resilience over time.

Resist unnecessary mental time travel

Most emotional suffering is the direct result of too much mental time travel, we have a great capacity to retain things, not all of them good, so let's handle them better.

They will say or think, he is crazy, "Mental travel in time", do not go too far, what is that?

Mental time travel is the amazing ability we humans have to think about the future with our imagination or relive events of the past in our memory and there is everything from building bridges and rockets to getting everything you need at the supermarket, depends in large part on your ability to mentally travel in time, imagining possibilities in the future and with memories of the past.

However, there is always abut, in this case I tell you, but like any tool, mental time travel can be used well or badly.

Think about it, reflect on it for a few moments:

Let's imagine, a welding torch is an excellent tool for heating things up, but you probably don't want to use one to make hot chocolate, let's think about another example: knives to split a lemon, but you probably want to use one to split firewood.

Whether you're trying to make hot chocolate, crack a lemon, or reduce your anxiety, it all depends on using the right tool for the job.

No matter how awesome you can be at using Excel to create everything from financial models to recipe catalogues, if you were to attempt to write a novel in Excel, you would be exposing yourself to a great deal of unnecessary stress and frustration.

Similarly, no matter how good you are at imagining possible future problems in your job as a risk assessor for your company and going to bed at 2:00 a.m., this is important because, imagining all the possible downsides of not sleeping well at night, I tell you, it is not a good idea, we must know how to calm down to reduce anxiety and fall asleep, the tired and sleepless body does not give up, it does not think, it reacts, be careful with it.

So for all your success in using Mental Time Travel well in certain aspects of your life, you cannot assume that it will help you in all areas of your life.

Some examples:

Anxiety.

The vast majority of anxiety comes from unhelpful thoughts about the future, and just because imagining negative possibilities in the future is helpful at times, doesn't mean it can't be completely useless in other ways, which means the key to reducing your Anxiety is being smarter about when you choose to use your tool of imagining problems in the future.

Pity.

Many cases of depression and low self-esteem are driven by powerful mental habits of very aggressive self-criticism towards oneself, in some situations, and to some extent, reflecting on past mistakes, for example, can be very helpful and productive, if a bit painful, yet that same habit of mind can be terribly destructive if you let it run free.

Aggression and resentment.

Just as reflecting on your own mistakes can easily turn into destructive self-criticism, reflecting on other people's mistakes and shortcomings can quickly lead to excessive levels of anger, resentment, aggression, and conflict.

As an antidote to destructive mental time travel, cultivate the ability to keep your attention in the present moment:

When you go for a run, practice keeping your attention on what it's like to run and be outside, instead of worrying about how badly your work presentation might go tomorrow.

Remember:

?????"The ability to mentally travel in time is a tool, use it carefully, not without thinking"

Distinguish desires vs. values

A large part of mental toughness is the ability to resist unhelpful impulses, for example:

1. You made a commitment to exercise five days a week, but tonight you feel lazy and just want to relax on the couch and watch TV.
2. A coworker says something rude, and you feel the urge to respond with something sarcastic and mean.
3. He has an awkward conversation that he needs to have with his spouse, but he is afraid of how he will take it and feels like putting it off.

At this time, we may realize that all too often our best intentions are sabotaged by our own minds in the form of impulsive reactions, cravings, fears, and the like.

The trick, though, is that it's hard to just resist a useless impulse.

For example:

If you feel the urge to have a second helping of dessert, simply repeating to yourself don't have dessert, don't have dessert, don't have dessert probably won't be all, let me tell you, that's helpful, in large part because your focus is still on the craving and dessert!

The best way to resist unhealthy urges and cravings is to shift your focus to your values, instead of trying to force yourself not to eat that second helping, what if you focus on why you want to resist that urge in the first place?

In other words, why do you value not having a second helping of dessert? In another way.

Surely not for your own good, instead you probably want to resist that craving because you value losing weight and improving your health, or looking good at the beach this summer, or supporting your spouse who is trying to lose weight.

Then, once you've discovered at least one good value behind your desire to resist dessert, get clear: what are the benefits of losing weight and getting healthy? What will you be able to do when you are thinner and at a healthy weight? Imagine how it would feel to be able to play basketball with the boys again?

And please, it has been ordered and very disciplined, even when it is ignored by many it is ignored to have these two qualities, they always help to manage your things, you have to have them very well understood, Discipline and order.

Here's the thing:

Instead of trying to resist your unhealthy impulses, overcome them with your values, this will make your willpower more dynamic.

We know that unhealthy impulses have some kind of motivational pull, whether it's the craving for chocolate or the ego boost that comes from criticizing someone, there's always some reason why they pull us in unhealthy directions, and we fall too easily.

In my experience, I can tell you, you can overcome the motivational pull of momentary impulses by identifying and clarifying your values, what you really want, your ideals, your goals.

After all, true values and ideals contain much more motivating force than whims or momentary impulses, so the problem is that we rarely take the time to remember our values and make them specific enough to feel compelling.

A surprising amount of mental strength comes from getting into the habit of distinguishing momentary desires from genuine values, and the more you practice it, the easier it becomes to resist the things you don't want and act on the things you do.

All you need to know

Mental strength is the ability to control your mind instead of being controlled by it, and it is a skill that anyone can improve with practice. To conclude, here are three small habits that will help you build mental toughness:

1. Being honest about how you feel emotionally
2. Resist unnecessary mental time travel
3. Distinguish desires vs. values

If you got to this point, it means that you liked what you read, now, practice it, be strong in many aspects so that you are mentally balanced and wise, much of the peace of mind that will come to you will be transmitted to your team, your children or your wife, so they can handle things better.

Make no mistake again, leave pride and self-centredness that only leads you to hurt people, build, be proactive, humble in knowledge, and you will have patience that will give you peace.

I invite you to leave me your comments on the platform and in the Feed, I really appreciate the time.

His friend,