Most jobs nowadays are fast-paced and dynamic, which can often be very stressful and cause you to do things you have never imagined yourself to do when you lose control over your actions.

This could lead to verbal fights and misunderstandings with other colleagues on your job, which is usually not a good thing to happen because it makes both you and other participants lose the right focus, which further leads to lowered productivity.

That itself is not good for the company, because lower productivity usually means there will be fewer products or services, thus leading to less income.

That is why it is very important for you to be a stable person with strong mental fortitude and be able to withstand the pressure your job is putting onto you.

That way, you will be able to overcome any obstacle you may encounter both on your job and every-day life.

Yes, that might not be easy for you to do, but it is something that you have to do in order not to get eaten by sharks in this dynamic working environment we currently reside in.

But, don’t worry! Today we are here to show you what is mental fortitude, why it is so important in today’s working conditions and give you several essential tips on how to develop a strong mental fortitude.

WHAT IS MENTAL FORTITUDE?

You have probably met someone who is almost always positive, people who can overcome any hardship and obstacles that are thrown into them.

Those very people have strong mental fortitude. Instead of freaking out when something stressful happens, they tend to stay calm and think about possible solutions to the problem at hand.

They always think positively and are capable of dealing with an emotional issue, not because they don’t have feelings, but because life was not so kind to them, so they learned how to stay calm under pressure and overcome everything bad that could happen to them.

That way they can always be focused on what is ahead of them, by letting go of the troubled and problematic past and living their life to the full extent.

They will enjoy all the good stuff and be very confident about their work, which is very important to potential employers.

Employers tend to pick more stable and self-confident people, because they are, of course, more reliable and they give the impression of a person who can handle the pressure and do the necessary job, without losing their focus.

That’s why you should try to improve your mental fortitude and be the person you want to be, so you could be successful at whatever you do.

WHY IS MENTAL FORTITUDE SO IMPORTANT?

When something bad happens to you, there are times that you wish you could’ve done some things differently, changed some decisions you had previously made, but the world simply does not work that way.

I will quote a couple of sentences from my favorite book, so you could simply feel what I mean by this, without any further thinking.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.

“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But it is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

As J.R.R. Tolkien had said, there are things in this world that we cannot change no matter what we do, things that will happen whether we want them to happen or not. So we should not burden ourselves with those things.

What we should do is try to use the time we have to do what we want, to affect things that we can change in our lives in order to make the most out of the best opportunities that present to ourselves and change our lives for the better.

According to Inc, the most important things that come out of being mentally strong are:

  • Greater satisfaction in life
  • Improved performance
  • Improved resilience

Greater Satisfaction in Life

Here it is really important not to expect too much from life and from other people. It is crucial to accept failures and faults and to be satisfied with smaller things in life.

Be grateful for what you have, especially for everything you earned by yourself, no matter how small it might seem.

This doesn’t mean you should give up on your dreams and future plans, but what it does mean, is that you need to know your limits because only then, you can truly be happy with what you have and you will appreciate and enjoy life much more.

Improved Performance

No one is born perfect. We all have to learn during the entirety of our lives.

So, do not be afraid to make mistakes, because the only way to learn is to make mistakes and learn from them.

And do not be afraid to ask questions.

When we learn, our capabilities increase and thus, our performance also increases too.

We become more effective and that is very important for the company since its efficiency also increases.

And when efficiency increases that means the revenue and profit will rise as well.

Improved Resilience

Like we have said before, there are things in your life that you just cannot control.

But, what you can control is how you respond to those things.

When things are not going well, it’s important to stay cool, be mindful and do not let your emotions take control over you.

When you are in control of your emotions, you alone can pick what is best for yourself and for the people around you.

That type of people is what companies want to have; they want a confident and resilient person who can deal with anything that comes in a way.

1. WINNING CONDITIONS

The very first essential thing you want to get clear is to set the ultimate goal you want to achieve and find the suitable conditions under which you are ready to achieve that specific goal.

Of course, there are two types of people when it comes to this.

There are those who would do almost anything to get what they want, and those who are more honorable and who choose their path very carefully and think about how their actions could affect other people around them.

This first type of people usually completes their goals easier, by choosing the more direct and easier path to complete it, but they are often very bad kind of people, who are selfish and think only about themselves.

This may be useful in some companies, but it is generally not the case, because working in a company usually means working in a team.

And working in a team means you have to be prepared to make compromises and listen to what other people have to say.

You have to protect your teammates, not just yourself

This second type of people is more opened to teamwork and that’s what companies are looking for nowadays.

That’s why you shouldn’t always pick the easiest way to reach your goal.

In a long term, it is always better to have more allies than enemies, and by successfully working in a team, you can get allies much faster than while stabbing other people in the back to achieve your personal ambitions.

2. EFFICIENCY

Being efficient is not only important for the company as a whole, but it is also an important feature of each individual person inside that very company because when individuals are efficient, the company will be efficient as well.

Now, we have already said that there is no learning without failures.

So, the point is, do not be afraid to fail, because when we fail, we learn from our mistakes and when we learn more and more things each time we make a mistake, those mistakes become rare and insignificant, but our knowledge stays.

When we learn more and more new and useful things our productivity increases.

And that means that our efficiency increases as well in the same process.

That is why it is important to boost your confidence because a confident person will not shatter on the first sight of hardship and will try to overcome any obstacle that follows.

A confident person will find a way to learn from its mistake and to become more efficient, which would eventually help the company as well.

When you have a problem at work, try to find the simplest solution, because the simplest solution is usually the most efficient one.

Do not try to overcomplicate things just to prove that you know something, because the most complicated solution is usually the wrong one.

And when you prove that you can be that efficient in resolving any issues you might have at work, the people in your company and your employers would respect you much more.

3. A CLEAR SET OF PRIORITIES

One of the most common characteristics of possessing mental fortitude is being very well organized.

What that means is that you shouldn’t strive to get everything, because it is simply not possible.

You have to pick the most prominent options that are available to you and abandon those which do not seem worthy or interesting enough.

It’s just like with everything in life, there is always a choice.

Should I go to that school or this one?

Should I go to university or abandon my studies and find a full-time job? Should I marry this girl or not?

Possibilities are endless. Like the quote above says, we cannot choose what will happen, but we can choose what to do with our decisions, and that is what we have to do during our whole lives.

It is the same in any company you might work in.

There will be dozens of possible projects, dozens of routes to take. But you will not be able to pick all of them, you will have to choose wisely and pick only those that will benefit the company the most.

Don’t get me wrong here, good organization is good, but there are times when a total organization can be very bad.

Because when something bad happens and a problem occurs, that problem could cause some chaos.

And if you are the person who is used to perfect organization, you will lose your way in that chaos.

Yes, of course, it is good to be organized, but what is also important is that you know how to function in chaos.

4. EVALUATE YOURSELF

Now, we had already mentioned something about the importance of mistakes and learning from those mistakes.

But, before you learn from a mistake, you need to accept that you were wrong.

Successful leaders know how to make decisions, but they also know when to listen to their people and when to admit that they were wrong.

It’s not about ego, it’s just about that you have to be realistic and know your boundaries.

It would be the same as if you put Shaquille O’Neal as on play position.

He knows how the game of basketball works and everything about it, but he himself is not trained to play.

So, naturally, he would make some mistakes.

And admitting to those mistakes would lead to him becoming a better player since he would learn and gain new skills he didn’t have before.

That’s why it is important that you understand your values and that you are ready to admit if you do something wrong.

There is no shame in it; people make mistakes, that is how we learn.

In everything you do, you should try to evaluate yourself every time you do something, no matter if you do something new or old.

Because, even if we do things we have already done before and constantly evaluate ourselves, we may find new, better ways of doing those things.

And that is very important to do.

Finding new and better ways of doing business is called innovation, and it is one of the crucial ways of taking control over the market.

5. CONTROL YOURSELF

One of the most important elements of building mental fortitude is most certainly maintaining the complete control of yourself and your actions.

In today’s dynamic work environment, it is very important to know how to maintain a cool head because most jobs are very stressful and there are often times when it is very easy to lose control and freak out, which is never a good idea.

Yes, there will be a lot of stressful situations that may seem hopeless, but you will have to work around it and find the best possible solution.

That means you will have to fight your fears and take control of your emotions.

Because if you do not do it, who else will?

It is very important to be that person, who is able to control your emotions and fears, to master them before they master you.

Because if you can handle that correctly, fear can be a powerful motivator and you may find the right solution.

Employers like confident people, they like people who can make tough decisions and people who are ready to commit themselves to find the best ways to help the company.

People who can control their actions are much more stable and reliable.

They tend to keep their heads cool whenever they are faced with a difficult problem and choices which may often change the future of the entire company.

That decision may be stressful, but it is also very important to have such people in the company in order to inspire confidence among workers.

6. LEARN TO NEGOTIATE

Another very important thing to know is to be a very successful negotiator. In big companies, you will often have to meet people from other companies, negotiate about certain things and end up closing very important deals.

Now, in order to do be successful in negotiating, you have to learn and prepare yourself.

It’s the same as with doing simple job interviews.

It is better to go prepared, to learn as much as you can about the company and about the interviewer, as well as trying to imagine how the interview would go, what questions you might be asked etc.

When talking to the representatives of other companies, try to learn as much as you can about both their company and about them.

Check what restaurants they fancy, things they like.

You can use all of that to your advantage, to try to woo them and get them to sign that deal you so desperately want them to sign.

When they notice that you have really taken interest in both their company and their personalities, they will be more likely to work with you and agree to the proposals you might have installed for them.

And when they do accept your terms and you manage to close that deal, you will gain your company’s trust even more.

7. TRAIN YOUR MIND

Now, not all of the features of the mental fortitude are attitude-wise. Apart from that, it is also very important to train your mind to be strong in order for you to achieve better mental fortitude and basically, to do everything we have previously talked about here.

Now there are a couple of ways to do mental training, but the most common one is meditation.

One research shows that if you meditate for around 10 minutes, you can decrease the stress level in your body, which is a very useful feature.

The low-stress level is very important to all of the previous things we have mentioned because most of them require you to be calm and in control of your emotions, which is not entirely possible if your stress level is incredibly high.

Apart from meditation, one very important thing for mind training is also a regular workout. People often think that if they workout, they only train their body; they lose weight and become more agile.

While all of that is, of course, true, it is not the only benefit of the regular workout. It is very important for your brain as well, because it forces you to use a large part of your body, and we all know that the entire body is linked to the brain.

Every activity we take, every move we make is linked to our brain, which is responsible for all of our actions and that why it is very important to keep your brain in shape and healthy.

8. BE OPTIMISTIC

And lastly, one of the main features of a mentally strong person is, of course, optimism.

It is very important not to be negative about anything you do, because if you think like that, there is a higher chance that others will see it as a bad choice and, eventually, it could lead to failure.

Especially if you are a leader, you have to be optimistic, not just for yourself and your company’s success, but also for your teammates.

You need to be able to inspire confidence and positive attitude in other people, to always show them the positive side of things.

If you do that, people will respect you more, and be willing to work with you and accept your proposals more often.

If you show your employer that you are a very optimistic person that would show him or her, that you can be trusted with a difficult work, because, even if not everything is going in the right direction, you would always think positive and try to find the right solution, no matter how dark things might seem.

FINAL WORD

There you go, folks! We have gone over the most important characteristics and benefits being mentally strong.

So, right now, what you need to do is train yourself to become that kind of person in case you haven’t been like that so far.

By showing others how mentally strong you are you can get much more respect from them and you will feel much better, knowing that you have the mental strength to overcome any obstacle you might meet on your way.

8 Essentials for Developing Mental Fortitude

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