Mental strength is the ability to productively regulate your emotions, thoughts and behaviors, even in challenging circumstances. It’s how you manage internally, so you can operate better externally.
Most of us intuitively understand that to be successful at work and in life, you need to self-regulate. But it’s hard to do in practice.
I’ve spent 30 years studying what makes people, and especially leaders, mentally strong. As part of my research, I’ve developed a Mental Strength Self-Assessment that helps you gauge where you are, and what you can do to level up.
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Here’s a mini-assessment: If you answer “always” to these eight questions, you’re mentally stronger than most.
1. Are you resilient in the face of setbacks?
When you’re navigating obstacles and facing challenges, there are bound to be moments of defeat. But what determines your mental strength is how — and whether — you pick yourself up and press on.
Mentally strong people find and focus on the opportunity in adversity, rather than the threat. Instead of getting stuck in unproductive emotional reactions and the sense that “it’s not fair,” they accept where they are and ask: “How do we move forward now?”
2. Do you perform well under pressure?
Your ability to thrive under pressure is based in large part on your mindset and initial response to stressors. Being mentally strong means thinking “challenge” rather than “threat.”
If you see something as a threat, your body responds as it might to a predator in the wild: with a fast-beating heart, sweaty palms, tense muscles and an upset stomach. Feeling anxious and imagining everything that could go wrong undermines your ability to perform.
Mentally strong people think: “I’m prepared for this challenge.”
This approach helps them handle stress, increase their focus and control their emotions and thoughts, enhancing their ability to perform. They ignore “What if …?” and think “What will,” as in “What will now happen is that I’m going to ….”
3. Do you avoid approval-seeking behavior?
Mentally strong people chase authenticity, not approval. They know approval is elusive, and pursuing it with people-pleasing behaviors can erode their confidence, advertise their insecurity and create a false and temporary sense of comfort.
They understand how their need for approval holds them back, and act like they already have approval.
4. Do you avoid comparing yourself to others?
Comparing yourself to others most often makes you feel small and inadequate.
It’s an exercise that typically involves comparing your own weaknesses to other people’s strengths. You attribute their success to some kind of inherent superiority, rather than considering the context and factors that may have worked in their favor.
People with the most mental strength only make comparisons to who they were yesterday. Instead of concentrating on whether they measure up to someone else in one way or another, they ask themselves if they’re becoming better versions of themselves.
5. How often do you challenge the status quo?
Mentally strong people know that boldness leads to growth. Boldness means thinking big, taking risks, pushing past discomfort, trying new things and embracing change in pursuit of something worthwhile.
It requires uncovering the beliefs holding you back, exposing the unhelpful assumptions and stagnant stories you tell yourself and tearing off the self-applied labels weighing you down.
Boldness means replacing limiting beliefs, like “I’m not good enough,” with empowering beliefs, like “I have all the ability I need to succeed.”
6. Are you able to manage your negative emotions in the moment they arise?
Mentally strong people don’t let negative emotions take over.
When they feel their temperature rising, they breathe, take a moment and, if needed, create some distance between themselves and the intensity of their emotion.
People with the most mental strength only make comparisons to who they were yesterday.
They don’t let the emotion pull them somewhere they don’t want to be.
Instead, they name what they’re feeling, so it loses its hold over them. Then they logically reassess the situation and reframe it in a way that allows them to take actions that lead to beneficial outcomes.
7. How often would you (or others) say you’re decisive?
Indecision is a lack of self-regulation, discipline, courage and conviction in an especially damaging form. It’s particularly harmful for people in leadership positions.
At work, indecision can bring an organization to a standstill, drain a team’s energy and damage employees’ sense of certainty. When leaders don’t make decisions, they leave multiple options open for too long, costing the organization money and delaying timelines.
In life, hesitation allows someone else to jump on that thing you didn’t. It causes you to burn time second-guessing yourself that you could have spent being the first mover.
Mentally strong leaders are decisive, evaluating the cost of a wrong decision versus indecision, setting deadlines for deciding, accepting inevitable choices sooner and willingly making tough, unpopular calls when they need to.
8. How often do you hold yourself accountable?
Mentally strong people aren’t afraid to look in the mirror and ask themselves:
- “Where am I making excuses instead of progress?”
- “Where am I avoiding the issue instead of owning it?”
- “Where am I blaming instead of being brave?”
Holding yourself accountable isn’t always easy, but doing the right thing rarely is.
Even if you can’t answer “always” to all of the questions above right now, that doesn’t mean you never will. With the right intention and tools, you can get — and stay — mentally stronger.
Scott Mautz is a popular speaker, trainer, and LinkedIn Learning instructor. He’s a former senior executive of Procter & Gamble, where he ran several of the company’s largest multi-billion-dollar businesses. He is the author of “The Mentally Strong Leader: Build the Habits to Productively Regulate Your Emotions, Thoughts, and Behaviors.” Follow him on LinkedIn.
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