9 Ways to Become Mentally Stronger and Fearless in Life This Year

How to Become Mentally Stronger and Fearless in Life This Year

Here are 9 Ways to Become Mentally Stronger and Fearless in Life This Year

Fear will steal your dreams! Being a mentally strong minded and demonstrating fortitude are 2 key behaviours you must develop over time to achieve your goals.

The definition of 'mentally strong' is someone who is in tune with his/her own body and emotional thoughts and is able to have a positive outlook on most things in life.

Mentally strong people can unlock the door of courage to bounce back stronger when life storms hit them to avoid depression and anxiety. The key question is, can you develop a stronger mind-set? Absolutely, it's a behaviour trait we can all develop and improve!

At some point in our life, we all experience some form of pain. For example, this can be from losing a loved one, getting sick or lacking motivation to achieve our day to day aspirations. All those examples can be terrifying and hard to manage if we fail to understand how to control emotional triggers and thoughts successfully.

Amazingly, 75% of our fear never comes true! Why waste too much time thinking about them? Often our biggest fear can be failure, yes feeling fear shows you care but fearing too much can spread like wild fire and destroy your entire path.

Remember the movie scene in Rocky 5? Fear is like fire!

Fear is a fighter's best friend you know, it ain't nothing to be ashamed of, you see fear keeps you sharp, it keeps you awake you know what I mean it makes you want to survive.

But the thing is you gotta learn how to control it alright, cause fear is like this fire alright, and it's burning deep inside,

now if you control it Tommy, it's gonna make you hot!

Or, if fear controls you… it's going to burn you and everything around you up. That's right.

Becoming in tune with your mind and being emotionally stable is not achieved overnight, however it can be improved vastly over time.

The same way you exercise to build your physical strength links perfectly well to how you become mentally stronger.

It's a step by step process that requires exercising your mind. Check our below tips to become mentally strong.

Here are 9 ways you can start doing you to make yourself mentally stronger and become strong minded to navigate through complex and tough situations.

1. Master your emotions

Your dominant thought often dictates the end result!

Meaning, if you think you're going to fail, you have already convinced yourself you will.

Avoid this mind-set and replace this thought with, I will do this! It's the power of positive thinking that will give you the best chance to succeed in your life. Don't worry, re-framing your mind with this technique takes time but through repetition you will change your outlook from negative to positive.

Our emotions play a big role in how we act or react to negative situations. It's therefore important internally to understand and acknowledge your feelings, and how they affect our decisions.

Why is it important to internalise thoughts? Emotional awareness helps you avoid making irrational choices driven by emotions.

2. Set New Goals

New goals allow for new accomplishments.

People have different ways of coping with negative emotions such as anger, outbursts, anxiety or sadness, but these common coping methods will only make them feel better for a short time. Often with long term regrets.

Start with evaluating your skills and develop a long-term strategy that helps you avoid or regulate these feelings without damaging your health or relationships How?

Diverting your mind from the issue at hand through physical movement including exercising, dancing, nature walk, drawing, or any other interesting activity may work best. How can exercise help you to become mentally stronger?

Regular exercise each week has been proven to:

  • Reduce stress
  • Boost your self-esteem
  • Improve sleep patterns
  • Ward off anxiety and feelings of depression

Weekly exercise produces endorphins that interact with the receptors in our brain that reduce the perception and feeling of pain.

In short, neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin trigger a positive feeling and reaction in the body that creates a powerful change in our mind-set. Train moderately for a month and you will see the evidence!

3. Making and reviewing a list means accountability

Try more action and less theory. Time to get the wheels moving!

For most of us, old habits do not die hard, however if your intent to change is strong, you will make it happen.

Reading blogs like this on 9 Ways to Become Mentally Stronger and Fearless is great for guidance and tips, however until you take responsibility and action, nothing will help you move forward.

A good starting point to becoming mentally stronger is write down your short-term goals. Why? It makes it real and you are accountable. No longer is it a false promise to yourself.

Being committed to your goal will not only improve your mental strength over time, it will also help you;

  • develop new relationships
  • drop old habits
  • develop better methods of doing things.

4. Focus on making yourself happy first

You feel mentally stronger if you are happy. It's Time to take back the power of your happiness.

Avoid making compromises to please others at the expense of following your dream.

The fear of disappointing others may hold you back, so you need to focus on your own personal goals and develop the courage to make decisions that work for you without fearing upsetting some people.

5. No risk equals no reward

You can only develop yourself if you have the courage to take risk.

Whether your challenge is about leaving your current job to start your own business or breaking unhealthy relationships, it's all about taking risks to move to the next level in your life and seizing the opportunity.

Breaking new ground and achieving new goals means taking risks you once thought was impossible. The word itself gives you the best clue, I'm possible.

Related: How to Become More Resilient

6. We all make mistakes

Making a mistake is not failure. Failing to learn from that mistake is failure.

How can any of us grow without failure? Failing and succeeding is all a part of life. It is possible to shy away from trying something because of your past mistake but trying and failing is healthy for your growth.

Do not fear making a mistake, instead learn something new from your experiences and use the knowledge to make better decisions in the current situation.

7. Small wins make for big gains

Simple wins in life makes us feel good, through feeling better we become mentally stronger.

For example, if you decided one morning to start running, don't start with 5 miles per day, instead start with 5 miles per week and give yourself a target you know you can achieve.

Set yourself small targets that you can tick off, the goal is to set yourself up for success not failure.

Simple wins make us feel good, through feeling better we feel mentally stronger.

8. Forget about your past

Energy is powerful, so focus your outlook on what makes you productive.

Dwelling on your past failure or success may deter you from achieving your goals. Whether you have had a good or bad past, you need to put it behind and focus your time and energy on your new target.

9. Celebrate or Contemplate?

We can choose to celebrate our success or contemplate why we are failing. Perhaps a healthy balance is key.

Frustration and negative thoughts can get the best of us at times, however a common factor in fearless people is they change from contemplating defeat to celebrating their wins.

Why is celebrating wins important? Too much negative thinking can sap our energy and weaken our state of mind. By reminding ourselves of the great work we have done in the past we allow ourselves to move forward with confidence.

A Positive Person vs A Negative Person;

Anegative person attempts 10 new things, he or she fails at one, they will always focus on why that one was a failure.

A positive person will try 10 new things, again fail in one, however they will celebrate their 9 new successes.

Re-framing your mind takes time but being aware of negative thinking allows you now to consider an alternative thought pattern and create more positive habits in your daily life. You can make yourself feel worse or better, try the latter more often.

In closing, becoming mentally strong doesn't happen overnight, it's the result of good habits practiced daily. Strong minded people simply set boundaries, have respect for themselves, and don't expect others to take the reigns in their life.

Related: 1 Day Resilience Training for Teams at Work

Quick Recap of What Mentally Strong People Do

  • 75% of our fear never actually comes to light.
  • Over thinking and less action means no progress.
  • Becoming mentally stronger is a step by step process, not overnight success.
  • Emotional awareness helps you make fewer irrational choices.
  • Channel your focus and thoughts by setting new goals.
  • Make a quick list of why you want to become stronger. Place it where you can see it to remind you!
  • Take a risk you have never taken before.
  • Remember, failure is not failure if you learn from it.
  • Small wins will help you make big gains moving forward!

Try the above tips to become mentally strong, what have you got to lose? You can view all our all our resilience tips blogs to boost your mental strength.

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