The “Snowflake” Generation: What happens when mental toughness takes a backseat

Each generation brings the advancement of technology, but apparently, that doesn’t mean we are mentally and emotionally capable of keeping up. Recent?research?on mental health suggests that the millennial and Generation Z age groups are twice as aware of mental health issues as the Baby Boomer generation was, yet they are far less resilient.

It’s a trend that turned into a stereotype: entitled to everything all at once, today’s youth are too easily offended and too emotionally charged for rational, much less intellectual discourse. The term “snowflake” comes to mind — too soft to function productively. With information and convenience easily accessed through their fingertips, it’s a generation that wasn’t primed to be patient. And it shows in the rate of delayed adulthood in the US which has peaked with nearly half of adults up to age 34 still living with their parents.

Now, there is a lot to say about the influences that shape how millennials and Gen Z view mental health and adulthood. Inflation, COVID, politics, upbringing, and education all make a contribution to what?Robin Wilson?calls the epidemic of anguish. A retreat to the comfort zone of similar opinions and social approval is a defensive move to protect the very little confidence the youth have left after chasing influencer standards for success and happiness.

While I am aware that snowflake-ism isn’t a general characteristic, it is still disturbing to hear that of all the words that can be used to describe millennials and Gen Z, the leading ones according to?surveys?are?narcissistic?and?entitled. Being a part of the millennial age group, I should probably feel offended. However, I’ve come to learn that stereotypes are a mere observation of a group’s dominant behavior (plus, my taking offense would only support the findings LOL).

It isn’t a sweeping generalization, but there’s truth at the heart of it. In a society where social media validation and safe spaces have become newly-found etchings in culture, one might wonder if mental toughness is being sacrificed in favor of feeling safe.

A selective view of mental health

I remember the day I saw the quote “It’s okay not to be okay” become a trend on social media. It was such a revolutionary validation to what most millennials were feeling: overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, and overly anxious. There were many other parallels to this comforting statement, and for what seemed like the very first time, we were given permission to feel what we were feeling. We became more aware of mental health issues and started becoming more comfortable with our vulnerabilities. More than that, we were given a platform to call out the sources of our pains. It was liberating, and so much better than denial.

But no one said there were boundaries to giving yourself permission to feel, so just like any other philosophy that trends on social media, this mantra got taken to the extreme. The sudden awareness around mental health gave way to a new sensitivity to challenge, criticism, and hardship. Every stressful stimulus seemed to be called out as toxic.?If it doesn’t feel good, it must not be good for you. Another blanket statement that isn’t always true.

The viral quote presented an incomplete solution to the pressing problem of anxiety. See, stopping at letting yourself feel means there is no attempt to find a productive solution to your pain. And that solution is to process your pain so that you can heal and become mentally superior to that pain. This step doesn’t necessarily feel good all the time, but it?is?necessary.

Allowing yourself to feel is only half the work. The other half is working towards your healed self so that you can rise above adversity. And the incredibly underrated benefit to doing all the mental work of processing, healing, and persevering is that you become?resilient.

When you are resilient, you’ll be able to stay determined through stressful situations, solve problems under pressure, and stay focused even after multiple failures. Mental health isn’t only about giving your mind lots of down time. Keep doing that and eventually your brain begins to deteriorate.

It’s okay not to be okay… but have a plan to get stronger. Optimal mental health is about training yourself to deal with difficulty, not about minimizing it.

Success isn’t about your IQ. It’s about grit.

It seems to make sense that the more intelligent and talented you are, the more successful you become. But your IQ and talent don’t play as big of a role as you might think. In fact, research shows that intelligence only accounts for 30% of your achievement.

What is it that really gets you through the finish line??Grit.

Grit is the ability to persevere in spite of difficulty. Merriam-Webster puts it beautifully:?It is the firmness of mind or spirit; an unyielding courage in the face of hardship or danger.?It means mental toughness.

In an attempt to measure the impact of grit, an observation on the US Military was made by Angela Duckworth, a researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.

Each year, around 1,300 cadets join the entering class at the United States Military Academy, West Point. During their first summer on campus, cadets are required to complete a series of brutal tests called “Beast Barracks.”

In the words of researchers who have studied West Point cadets, “Beast Barracks is deliberately engineered to test the very limits of cadets’ physical, emotional, and mental capacities.” It is an initiation so intense that not everyone who comes to West Point finishes it.

So what was measured? Duckworth tracked a total of 2,441 cadets and recorded their high school rank, SAT scores, Leadership Potential Score (which reflects participation in extracurricular activities), Physical Aptitude Exam (a standardized physical exercise evaluation), and Grit Scale (which measures perseverance and passion for long–term goals).

You might imagine that only the biggest and the strongest finish the tests, but Duckworth’s findings show something different:?it wasn’t leadership or smarts that got cadets through the tests. It was grit.

In fact, cadets who were one standard deviation higher on the Grit Scale were 57% more likely to finish Beast Barracks than their peers. Their ability to finish the series of tests wasn’t predicted by talent, intelligence, or even genetics. Only grit made the difference.

In addition to the West Point study, Duckworth also discovered the following (as summarized by the author, James Clear):

• Ivy League undergraduate students who had more grit also had higher GPAs than their peers — even though they had lower SAT scores and weren’t as “smart.”
• When comparing two people who are the same age but have different levels of education, grit (and not intelligence) more accurately predicts which one will be better educated.
• Competitors in the National Spelling Bee outperform their peers not because of IQ, but because of their grit and commitment to more consistent practice.

And it’s not just education where mental toughness and grit are useful. Duckworth and her colleagues also found the same patterns when they interviewed top performers in all fields…

Our hypothesis that grit is essential to high achievement evolved during interviews with professionals in investment banking, painting, journalism, academia, medicine, and law. Asked what quality distinguishes star performers in their respective fields, these individuals cited grit or a close synonym as often as talent. In fact, many were awed by the achievements of peers who did not at first seem as gifted as others but whose sustained commitment to their ambitions was exceptional. Likewise, many noted with surprise that prodigiously gifted peers did not end up in the upper echelons of their field.

— Angela Duckworth

Even in self-reflection, it is easy to blame your lack of talent or intelligence when facing failure. Lucky for you, it’s a lot simpler than having to be smart or talented — you just have to be positively stubborn.

An overdiagnosis of anxiety

More millennials and Gen Z now claim that they have ADHD and anxiety disorders without getting the actual clinical evaluation. They’ve taken that duty upon themselves.

With increased recognition of mental health issues comes the overdiagnosis, and often, self-diagnosis of these disorders as TikTok and Google become the de facto authority for mental health illnesses.

Social media certainly plays a big role. Parenting does, too, as the bulk of the responsibility for kids’ monitored exposure to online content falls on mom and dad. But the hope is that if you’re old enough to grasp medical information, then you’re old enough to hold individual responsibility for verification. Because is it really anxiety, or is it cognitive bias? I mean who needs mental growth when you can label yourself mentally ill as a psychological crutch?

A number of mental health providers say that they are seeing an uptick in teenagers and young adults who are diagnosing themselves with mental illnesses — including rare disorders — after learning more about the conditions online. In some cases, the awareness leads them to get the help they need, but mostly, it results in kids incorrectly labeling themselves, avoiding a professional assessment and embracing ineffective or inappropriate treatments.

Annie Barsch, a licensed therapist in Chicago has fielded multiple inquiries from teenagers and adolescents who arrive at her office with a specific diagnosis in mind. She says, “Some will say, ‘I’m so O.C.D.,’ but if you’re organized and you have structure and you like things a certain way and you’re functioning, you don’t have obsessive-compulsive disorder — you’re organized. People who have O.C.D. cannot function because of their compulsions.”

If you feel that you are really struck with an anxiety disorder, get proper help. Mental health issues need to be seriously addressed by a professional and shouldn’t be taken lightly. When you loudly self-diagnose with a mental illness, you also place an uninformed, incomplete, and worse, erroneous awareness of what life is really like for people who actually have that illness. Mental disorders aren’t a trend. And if you must pick a trend, is it really that much of a pain to choose a more productive bandwagon to jump on?

Failure to engage: A crisis of rational discourse

What bothers me the most about the snowflake stereotype is the view that millennials and Gen Z are incapable of rational debate. It bothers me because it’s an insult to our emotional intelligence. And I’d disagree with it… had I not experienced the shocking reality of it myself.

Every other topic is a hot button topic to this generation. There’s also not much you can laugh about without it being offensive. Expressing an opposing view would almost immediately subject you to a tirade of below-the-belt attacks and highly-judgmental remarks. With friendships and reputations being washed down the drain, it seems like the default reaction to the opposite view is either cancel culture or shaming.

There’s really not much you can do when a person has made up his mind. And with groupthink, it’s?conform or shut it. To the older generations, all I can say about this is give us a chance. Some of us are capable of speaking with dignity. And for the other half of us that haven’t learned yet, we’ll eventually find the balance between empathy and rational thinking. Our preference is to learn the hard way, which doesn’t make sense, but you’ve been kids once too. We still need to learn and we’ll need your help.

Ask us to provide evidence for our theories. Challenge us to support our opinions with strong arguments. Invite us to explain the technologies we love. Introduce us to a wider vocabulary, to manners, to culture, to values, to ethics.

I believe we can do better. It would be easier if you believed in us too.

The side of self-love you don’t want to see

There’s a pattern in every research paper that talks about grit, and that pattern is the presence of challenge. A certain level of discomfort is needed to be a mentally tough person.

The problem is that the modern version of self-love has morphed into a practice of blind self-acceptance. It’s easier to do the things that keep you in your comfort zone. But stay in your comfort zone long enough and it becomes self-destructive. Much like caring for a loved one, self-love comes in the form of tough love too. It takes the shape of self-discipline and delayed gratification.

If there’s one thing you can do to put yourself closer to being mentally tough, it’s this: be consistent.

Be consistent with one good habit. Remember, success doesn’t take much talent or intelligence. But it takes a lot of grit. If you’re terrible at the very thing you want to be good at, fantastic news! That also happens to be the starting point of every great name in history. And from my view, it’s a wonderful place to start.

You don’t suddenly turn into the person you dream of becoming. There will be bumps and bruises. You first have to start thinking like the person you want to become, and then you get your ass kicked for a bit. Mastery requires it.

So set a goal and keep your eye on it. Don’t miss a workout. Eat better with each meal. Build incremental profits. Save money. Talk to new prospects everyday. Learn from an opposing point of view. Practice speaking on camera. Stick to a schedule. Read. Write. Create. Begin.

In the end, mental toughness isn’t really about showing the world. It’s about showing up for yourself.