What Is Mental Health Resilience?
Resilience is defined as the capacity to recover from difficulties or be flexible even through adversities. It’s also defined as the ability of an object to return to its original shape. Mental resilience is defined as an individual’s ability or life skills to adapt to hardships, stress, emotional difficulties, and mental health adversities.
Adversity comes in many forms: family problems, heartbreaks, job loss, financial worries, health problems, catastrophes, traumatic events, stress, and the death of a loved one. Are you emotionally and mentally prepared to face any or all of these? No one wants a painful or difficult life, but life is not all rainbows and butterflies. Problems are inevitable, so you might as well face them with strength and courage.
That’s what building mental toughness is for: to be emotionally and mentally prepared for whatever rock life throws at you. Adapting to difficulties through resilience will make you a stronger and better person. As the famous saying goes, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
You need the proper education, ability, intelligence, focus, perseverance, skill, and talent to get to where you want to be in life. These are all important, but another key to success in life is resilience. It plays a big part in everyone’s life when it comes to putting things in perspective. It’s how you pick yourself up after a failure, how you can turn your life around even with the most difficult circumstances, and how you use unfathomable pain to make you stronger.
Tips to Build Mental Resilience
Being mentally tough begins with the conscious effort to start within yourself: mind, heart, and body. It may not be an easy journey, but it’s worth it if it means being able to sleep well at night, having healthy relationships, and being the best version of yourself. Find the mental strength in all aspects of your life through these strategies.
1. Have a Positive Mindset
When you’re going through a rough stage in your life, would you want to entertain negative thoughts in your mind? It would be like hiking the mountains while carrying a backpack full of rocks. The situation is already hard as it is; carrying that unwanted junk around will only weigh you down.
Sometimes, mental toughness is not about building new strength; it’s working with the negative things in your life and turning them into something positive. A positive mindset attracts positivity. This is the law of attraction. Have morning affirmations like telling yourself, “I believe, trust, accept, and have confidence in myself.”
Be optimistic that everything will be okay; practice meditation for at least 20 minutes a day, use mindfulness tools, pray, and do yoga if it helps. You’ll be amazed how developing a positive mindset can greatly impact your mental toughness.
2. Don’t Get Stuck with Self-Limiting Beliefs
Self-limiting beliefs are perceptions or assumptions about your limitations and how the world works. These self-limiting assumptions can hold you back from achieving and reaching what you desire the most. It’s saying things in the back of your mind like:
- “This won’t work out. I’ve done this before.”
- “I can’t do it because I’m not smart enough.”
- “This is so hard. I don’t have the skills to do this.”
These negative self-talks limit you from doing what you’re capable of. Do not let your past mistakes define what you can be capable of in the present and the future.
Don’t stay inside your comfort zone because it’s convenient for you. If you think this way, you won’t be able to challenge yourself to get through the hardest hurdles. Do not put limits on your abilities when you’re living in a world filled with possibilities.
3. Take Control of Your Life
Take control of your life, do not let the circumstances or someone else control you. Life is unpredictable as it is. You have no power over what might happen the next day, but you can take control of your life.
Practice mastery over your emotions, anxiety, stress, feelings, and actions. Focus on developing your self-esteem, sense of self, and life purpose. Take care of your physical health by exercising, eating well, and having a personal mental wellness day-off.
Take charge of your life. Don’t compare yourself to others. Complain less, be grateful, love yourself, be accountable for your actions, go on vacation, and take care of your mental well-being. When you practice taking control, you are on the pathway to building your resilience.
4. Make a Commitment
After making the conscious effort to build your mental strength, commit to sticking to it. If it requires journaling your short-term goals, listing down your long-term commitment, or taking note of your tasks for the day, then do it. Commit every day to achieving your goals as much as you can.
Establish a strategy, set of routines, and habits that are geared towards being a better and stronger you. Keep your mind and body resilient to have the energy to stick to your commitments. If you do this. you will find the motivation to get past anything that will come your way. You will bounce back and move forward wherever life takes you.
5. Accept Challenges to Develop Mental Toughness
To develop mental toughness, accept challenges no matter how hard it is, no matter which factors are involved. Some people run away from problems, suppressing their feelings and anxiety through drinking or substance abuse. Brushing off your problems under the carpet won’t make them go away. When you accept adversity and eat them for breakfast, you are building your inner strength to be tough.
See these adversities as opportunities to become resilient, not as a threat. Be flexible no matter how hard it is. You will achieve a sense of accomplishment every time you get through any adversity.
Are you facing the threat of losing your job, and it’s causing you stress? Take this as a challenge to do better at work, learn new skills, and prove how valuable you are in the workplace.
6. Have Confidence in Your Mental Strength
Have you ever been in a situation where you told yourself that you might get depressed or have another panic attack if you go through another problem? You undermine your actual mental resilience when you think this way. Have confidence in yourself that you will pull through no matter what.
You can achieve this with positive self-talk, practicing meditation, and morning affirmations. Teach yourself how to manage stress, and have confidence in your mental toughness to pull through.
7. Find Comfort in Your Loved Ones
Building mental toughness involves finding inner strength. But most mentally resilient people get through difficult situations with the support of their trusted friends and loved ones. No man is an island and if you feel like you can’t deal with your problems alone, reach out to a loved one for help. Sometimes, all you need is someone to talk to just to let it all out.
Many people find having healthy relationships help develop their resilience. When you maintain strong personal relationships, you will gain the support you need, especially when you feel overwhelmed going through a roller coaster of emotions. Be a part of a community that extends support.
Seek Help And Support From A Mental Health Professional
If you’re working on mental toughness and resilience, seeking help from a mental health professional can help. If things are getting hard, if you experience unexplainable feelings, trauma, or emotions you can no longer control, a therapist can help you cultivate the resilience you’ve been yearning to develop.
The licensed counselors and therapists at Kentucky Counseling Center can help you build mental and emotional resilience. Book an appointment now to get the support and professional perspective you need to overcome hurdles that keep you from succeeding in all aspects of your life.
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