​I am a firm believer that we are born with great mental strengths.

It is just that each day, we let life eat away at us; damaging our self-esteem and confidence.

I recently watched this excellent video form Amy Morin, where she discusses the importance of mental strength in helping her get through some incredibly difficult life experiences.

In this talk, Amy discusses the most important lessons she learned and, the critical steps to developing good mental strength.

Watch the video below:

​Source

​Below are my key takeaways from this talk on building mental strength.

​There are many bad habits which each of us practice each day, that will eat away at your mental strength. One of the most common is comparing your life to others.

​Amy identifies 3 types of unhealthy belief which we hold that cause us a great deal of harm:

​These types of belief include ‘Why does it always happen to me?’,’ Why can’t I have that?’ When you ask yourself these questions, you are getting lost in your own self-pity which holds you back.

​Examples here include when you say that somebody else made you angry, even though you chose your response to their behaviour. Another common example is where you tell yourself that somebody else is stopping you from getting what you want.

With this type of belief, you are abdicating responsibility for your own life. I have repeatedly stressed the importance of taking responsibility for your own life; if you want to live your best life. Nobody else is going to give you that life so, you must take responsibility and create it for yourself.

​Do you believe that if you work hard, you will get everything you want? If you do, you are setting yourself up for some disappointment. Hard work is not the antidote for everything. For example, working hard on the wrong things is just going to take you further in the wrong direction.

Another example of unhealthy beliefs about the world is the concept of fairness. It just doesn’t exist. It is a human concept so, when you believe you have been treated unfairly, you are just giving yourself a reasons / justification for your own anger and bitterness.

​It genuinely is hard, but Amy makes a very important point here; you cannot afford not to give up your unhealthy beliefs. If you keep holding on to them, you are going to keep pushing your mental strength and happiness away. And, make no mistake about it, you will be the one who is preventing your own happiness.

Good habits work wonders when everything is going good but when tough times strike, any bad habits you have, no matter how small, will kick in and cause you problems.

​The key to developing great mental strength and, increasing your happiness, is to go further than just introducing some good habits. Think about somebody who wants to lose weight. If they start exercising without improving their diet, their progress will be limited.

You need to eliminate the bad habits too and, you do that by countering them with better habits. Imagine if instead of having the chocolate bar, you have a piece of fruit or; instead of watching the tv show, you went for a walk.

It is these small habit swaps which can make a massive difference. I recently started back in the gym after my accident earlier in the year. I chose to go to the gym at a time when I previously watched the news. I am already feeling happier and more positive because I have replaced the negativity of the news with the positivity of exercise.

​When you are going through a tough time, it is very tempting to get busy and, distract yourself from thinking about it. You hope that it will just go way but it won’t. It will be waiting for you, as soon as you have a quiet moment.

Instead of trying to dodge your pain, Amy advises that you allow yourself the time to experience it.  When you experience it, you can then process it and move on. But as long as you avoid your pain, you will not be able to process it so, you can’t move on. You remain stuck in the moment.

​The following are some practical, quick tips you can take form Amy’s talk on developing your mental strength:

​So, with all that said, what is one small step you can take today to improving your mental strength?​​