When you are working hard to motivate your children and to inspire them, you might very well feel your resources being drained. As a parent, we find that our patience and mental strength depletes. And this could very well be due to a wide variety of influences. But you have to ask yourself if you are resilient. Some people can bounce back after setbacks. But others do not find it so easy. As a parent, if we feel there are so many things threatening to derail us, our resilience is what will keep us on track, and this requires developing mental strength. How can you do this?
The Ability to Regulate Your Emotions
Everybody has their crosses to bear. And when we have emotional stress, it feels like we are not able to recover easily. When we are feeling anxious, this tends to override our abilities to solve problems. And this can be doubly so if you’ve experienced issues in the past, like addictions. Addiction is something that many people battle on a daily basis, and it’s the resources like American Addiction Centers that can prove invaluable in this respect. Learning to calm your emotions by understanding your feelings, or reaffirming your abilities to overcome issues can give you mental strength. While we cannot deny that our emotions are crucial in every area of our lives, learning to regulate our feelings can be just as invaluable to get us out of a tight spot.
Developing New Skills
Improving our mental strength is not just about relying on the resources we have, but it’s about strengthening ourselves in other ways. If we can develop new skills, it gives us the ability to develop competency and mastery during tough times. If you find yourself struggling to problem-solve, it’s about learning a variety of skills that will benefit you in your everyday challenges.
For example, if your child is continually arguing with you, learning to develop your skillset in terms of communication and mediation will be invaluable. If you struggle with an addiction problem, seek out help and develop coping skills at a New Jersey drug rehab facility.
Additional resources on these types of issues are widespread. In addition, you may find that you would benefit from improving your brain skills, like your working memory. When you start to acquire more skills, you’ve got a wide variety of resources to draw from.
Being Aware of the Key Themes in Mental Toughness
Many people want to be mentally strong, but do not know how to. And the book Developing Mental Toughness: Coaching Strategies to Improve Performance, Resilience and Wellbeing by Doug Strycharczyk and Peter Clough identifies developing mental toughness around five key themes:
- Positive thinking
- Anxiety control
- Goal setting
- Visualization
- Attentional control
If we start to make progress in one of those areas, we are heading in the right direction. Of course, this is all relative. Many people have their own opinions of mental toughness. But if you can learn to develop your skills in these five areas, you will benefit in life.
Developing mental toughness is something that we all think equates with being like a Navy SEAL. But being mentally tough is not about being tough. We have to remember that if we are seen to develop ourselves, this sends the right message to our children. Improving your mental strength, especially when you are trying to keep a lid on everything as a busy parent, is vital. But it’s not just vital for you, it’s vital for the entire family.
Category: Mental HealthTags:
