"Mind over matter. Weak minded people are easily influenced. Strong minded people... you can't break their will."

-Lee Boyd Malvo

In Part One of this post, we talked about what mental strength is and why it matters. Missed it? Find it here.

In Part Two, we dive into the connection between mental and physical strength, and how to develop each to Become Unstoppable.

Is Mental Strength Related to Physical Strength?

People who exercise often have a stronger sense of well-being, mentally more alert and sleep better. Your mental and physical health work together to ensure you have a happier and healthier life.

Both your mind and body play essential roles in making sure you live up to your potential. To increase the endorphins in your brain—responsible for positive feelings and thoughts—you can engage yourself in training or physical activity, such as boxing, swimming, running or walking.

Overall, when you feel strong physically, it also helps you to feel strong mentally.

5 Effective Ways to Develop Your Mental Strength while Developing Physical Strength

1. Create Goals

It’s natural for the human brain to achieve goals. Consequently, you can start by setting short-term goals. An excellent example of a possible short-term goal is working for 30 minutes without distractions.

For every goal you achieve, your confidence in your ability to succeed increases. With this method, you’ll be able to identify and avoid unrealistic and less challenging goals.

2. Position Yourself For Success

You don’t have to subject yourself to temptation every day because you want to become mentally strong. By modifying your environment, you can make your life easier.

If you want to lose some weight, remove junk from your cupboards. If you're going to buy a new house, you set out a separate savings account for the purpose.

When you position yourself to succeed, you won’t bother wasting your mental strength to fight the urge to order a burger from McDonald's or spend lavishly on frivolities.

3. Tolerate Distress For A Greater Purpose

Most people tend to opt for unhealthy shortcuts when they get discomforted. These unhealthy shortcuts create more significant problems in the long run. It’s best to remind yourself of the bigger picture.

The bigger picture helps you tolerate discomfort. When you can endure discomfort, it boosts your confidence in handling difficult things. To be mentally strong, you need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

4. Avoid Negative Thoughts

Everyone has bad days and rough patches; it’s how you handle it that makes the difference. A great way to manage bad days is to replace your negative thoughts with realistic expectations. This procedure would help you stay on course.

5. Strike A Balance Between Your Emotions And Logic

It’s almost impossible to make the best decisions when your logic and emotions are not aligned.

When your emotions come to play, you may spend all your money now on what makes you happy while forgetting to save for your retirement. If your decisions are logical with no emotions, it would be a dull experience all the way.

Consequently, the best thing is to balance both factors; enjoy the present while preparing for the future.

Things to Avoid to be Mentally Strong

1. Running Away from Change

Mentally strong people don’t run away from change. Instead, they embrace change and welcome challenges. Interestingly, a mentally strong person can thrive well in an environment of uncertainty and change. The fears of being stagnant and satisfied are the only things that disturb people with mental strength.

2. Being Bothered About Pleasing Others

It’s a bad idea to go out of your way to displease or please anyone. Mentally strong people know better. They try to be kind and fair to people when necessary, but they don’t go out of their way because they want to please others. Instead, they are willing to speak up and navigate situations appropriately.

3. Repeating The Same Mistakes

Insanity is making the same mistakes and expecting a different result. When you have mental strength, your approach should be different. If you make a blunder, take responsibility and learn from it.

4. Hate Other People’s Success

Mentally strong individuals feel genuine joy and excitement for other people’s success. They also take note of what led to a person’s success. Then, they learn from it, and work hard to achieve their goals in their own way.

5. Giving Up After Failure

The world doesn’t come to an end when you fail at something. Instead, it’s a chance to improve. One of the features of a mentally strong person is the will to fail recurrently. In the process of failing, they get closer to their ultimate goal.

6. Expecting Instant Results

Regardless of what the goal is, a mentally strong person doesn’t expect results immediately. Instead, they give their time and energy in measured doses. They also celebrate each increment of success on the way. Mentally strong people understand that real changes take time.

The Bottom Line

The exciting thing about mental strength is that nobody is born with it; it requires you to make an essential decision of applying the attributes listed in this above consistently. With this, you’ll reach levels of success that you never imagined being possible.

Your talent can take you far, but you will never reach your full potential without mental strength. Our Gloverworx coaches are available to help you unlock your mental strength when you book a training session.