You know who they are, they’ll huff and puff, pretending they’re all tough on the exterior, coming across as bold, bordering on being a bully. What everyone senses instead is there’s something not quite right, something a tad disingenuous, a few screws loose.
There’s a notable gap between someone who pretends to be tough, and actually has the backbone and proof they’re mentally strong.
These individuals are rampant in our lives, such as that demanding partner, an overbearing aggressive boss, or that annoying relative who talks too much.
All they’re doing is putting up a false front, attempting to mask their lack of confidence, covering up for their deficiencies or poor mental ability, by pretending to be tough.
What this tough act does is it temporarily meets or solves their short-term needs, but will eventually expose itself.
To Be Genuinely Mentally Strong
Genuine mental strength becomes necessary, when it comes to gaining true contentment in life.
Those who become successful, those who fight beyond their means or disadvantages, became mentally tough, and not by just pretending they’re tough.
What they did was they became better, began to succeed in life by to doing the spade work, which forged them to be stronger.
Becoming a top performer in anything, whether it be in business or athletics, requires tenacity, sweat, drive, and grit.
What they have is a constant drive, to become better than yesterday.
They Believe Failure Isn’t An Option
The quest, the striving for success is and should be a healthy progression.
What the mentally strong understand, is attempting to succeed the very first time they try something, usually doesn’t work or backfires.
Those who are mentally strong know expecting and experiencing failure is an integral part of the process, when it comes to the journey towards success.
The inroads, the roadblocks, the dips, the stops and starts can prove constant, but they refuse to be defeated.
Since they view failure as an expected and temporary setback, what they’ll do is re-calibrate their plan.
Then they end up or come back even stronger, by moving forward with determination, with the mistakes learned.
Tough Self Portrayal Masks Insecurity
Attempting to act tough, by developing a fake attitude and persona which screams, “Hey, look and me and how great I am,” does is it reveals how phony they really are.
Most often, what that tough exterior does is hides their self-doubt, low self-esteem, and a lack of confidence.
What mentally tough people tend to do, is invest more of their time and energy into working on their weaknesses, rather than attempting to cover them up with a fake front.
Tough People Believe
Their belief is they can conquer anything they set their mind to, this within reason.
They know overestimating what their abilities are, will leave them ill-prepared, when it comes to the realities of tackling a challenge.
Similarly, not properly estimating the time or the energy that’s needed to reach these goals, can lead to disappointment.
What being mentally tough focuses on is recognizing one’s shortcomings, and then acknowledging the hard work that’s needed to overcome them.
Acting Tough Is All Ego Driven
Those who are wanting to be perceived as being tough, have something they want to prove to others. Their self-worth depends on appearances, strictly on how others see or think of them.
Conversely, those who are mentally tough will humbly attempt to grow stronger, based on a personal drive to become better, for themselves and not to impress others.
Strong people are also not afraid to ask others for help when needed, realizing they don’t need to be, or are completely self-reliant.
They’re not concerned about proving anything to anyone, other than themselves.
Tough People Manage Their Emotions
While concealing emotions in the short-term may be helpful to certain occupations, such as in law or the medical professions, it’s found ignoring ones emotions isn’t healthy long-term.
Eventually, what suppressed emotions does is they’ll seep out of the human mind, and will rear it’s ugly head in the most inopportune times, in the form of frustration or anger.
What those who are strong and successful has demonstrated, is an awareness and a command on how certain feelings can influence their thoughts, and how they behave.
What ongoing conscious awareness and monitoring of one’s emotional state does, is it helps those who are mentally strong, to be in control of their emotions, and not be controlled by them.
Power Thrives Tough People
Those who come across as acting tough, wants to be perceived as being in control of themselves, to boost their low self-esteem.
As a result, what they do is micromanage or boss others around, often making unreasonable demands.
Those who are mentally tough will instead focus their energy on being in control of their own behaviour.
They manage their thoughts and feelings, rather than always attempting to control all of their external circumstances.
Mentally Strong People Can Tolerate Pain
Those who are mentally tough are able to tolerate emotional pain, and at times suffering to achieve what they set out to do.
They handle this pain efficiently, while also expecting to learn, develop, and flourish from them.
What they do is focus on personal growth, getting better at all times with meaningful development, instead of treating their body and mind like an object.
Getting Mentally Tough
There’s a distinction, a divide between those who act mentally tough but aren’t, and those who genuinely have a strong mind. These differences can also be learned and applied.
Similar to someone with brute physical strength, what it requires is constant training to become mentally stronger.
What mental strength needs is regular exercise between the ears, a strong mindset, which helps in improving and growing stronger.