How do our bad habits cost us?
- Researchers have found that envying your friends on Facebook actually leads to depression.
- That is just one of the traps that our minds can set for us.
Destructive beliefs make us less effective and rob us of our mental strength.
Unhealthy beliefs about ourselves when we tend to feel sorry for ourselves.
- Self-pity is when you start to magnify your misfortune.
- “Why do these things always have to happen to me?”
- That way of thinking keeps you stuck and focused on the problem.
- It keeps you from finding a solution.
- Even when you can’t find a solution, you can always take steps to make your life or somebody else’s life better.
- But you can’t do that when you’re hosting your own pity party.
Unhealthy beliefs about others happens when we think that other people can control us, and we give away our power.
- As adults who live in a free country, there are very few things in life that you have to do.
- Saying, “I have to work late” gives away your power. Maybe there are consequences, but there is still a choice.
- Saying, “My mother in law makes me crazy” gives away your power.
Unhealthy beliefs about the world happens when we tend to think that the world owes us something.
- We think, “If I put in enough hard work, then I deserve success.”
- But expecting success to fall into your lap like a reward will only lead to disappointment.
It is hard to give up our bad habits and unhealthy beliefs that we have carried around with us for so long.
- But you can’t afford not to give them up, because sooner or later, you’re going to hit a time in your life, where you need all the mental strength you can muster.
When you are really going through tough times, good habits aren’t enough. It only takes one or two small bad habits to really hold you back.
- Sit down and write a list of all the things mentally strong people don’t do. It may be a reminder of all of those bad habits you have done one time or another that would keep you stuck.
The secret to being mentally strong is that you have to give up your bad mental habits. Mental strength is a lot like physical strength.
- If you wanted to be physically strong, you need to go to the gym and lift weights.
- But if you really wanted to see results, you would have to give up eating junk food.
- Mental strength is the same. If you want to be mentally strong, you need good habits like practicing gratitude.
- But you also have to give up bad habits like resenting somebody else’s success.
Re-source: Recondition
So how do you train your brain to think differently? How do you give up those bad mental habits that you have carried around with you? It starts with countering those negative beliefs with healthier ones.
Unhealthy beliefs about ourselves mostly come about because we are uncomfortable with our feelings.
- Feeling sad, hurt, angry or scared are all uncomfortable so we go through great lengths to avoid the discomfort and try to escape it.
- It is a temporary distraction that just prolongs the pain.
- The only way to deal with uncomfortable emotions is to go through them.
- Let yourself feel sad, and move on.
- Gain confidence with your ability to deal with that discomfort.
Unhealthy beliefs about others come about because we compare ourselves with other people.
- We think that they are either above us or below us.
- We think that they can control how we feel, or that we can control how they behave, or we blame them for holding us back.
- But really it is our own choices that do that.
- The only person that you should compare yourself to is the person that you were yesterday.
Unhealthy beliefs about the world come about because deep down, we want the world to be fair.
- We don’t want to think that if we put in enough good deeds, then enough good things will happen to us.
- Or if we tough it out through enough bad times, we’ll get some sort of reward.
- But ultimately, you have to accept that life isn’t fair, and that can be liberating.
- It means that no matter how much you have suffered, you are not doomed to keep suffering.
- The world doesn’t work that way. Your world is what you make it, but before you can change your world, you have to believe that you can change it.
Look at your habits and trade in your bad ones for better ones. Believe that you can change the world, because you have the mental strength to change it. It all starts with just one small step to change bad habits.
- Consider what bad mental habits are holding you back? What unhealthy beliefs are keeping you from being as mentally strong as you could be?
- And what is one small step that you can take today, right here, and right now
craving and resource from “The Secret of Becoming Mentally Strong” by Amy Morin – (TEDx Talks)