How to Be Mentally Resilient

Give yourself permission to feel your emotions. After a setback it’s easy to try and sweep all our negative emotions under the rug and move on without processing our feelings. Instead, practice mental resilience in the moment and allow yourself to feel all the feelings associated with a particular situation. This will help you to find balance and feel less overwhelmed.

Set aside time to process your emotions. Sometimes we need to take time out of our busy schedules to process how we feel about a situation. This can be as simple as going for a quiet walk or taking a long bath.

Write about your experiences. It’s important to debrief yourself after a less-than-ideal outcome. Consider how you’ve dealt with similar situations in the past and recall strategies you’ve used to get through tough times. Writing about your experiences in a journal can help you process a situation, learn the lessons presented to you, and move forward.

Be a realistic optimist. People who are both optimistic and realistic tend to be successful. Recognizing the possibility of a less than ideal outcome, understanding the necessity of hard work to reach a given outcome, and maintaining a positive outlook are all key to cultivating and maintaining mental resilience.

• When confronted with an issue or problem, don’t pigeonhole yourself into thinking there is only one solution. Come up with plans A, B, and C and write down the positive things that can come out of each.
• Try saying to yourself, “I know success is possible, but it will require hard work on my part and will include obstacles.”

Let go of your entitlement. Many of us feel entitled to a life that doesn’t include setbacks and obstacles. This unrealistic attitude is antithetical to mental resilience. Recognize that life is full of unexpected twists and turns and no one is entitled to an easy life.

• Try spending time volunteering at a local homeless shelter or food bank. Seeing the struggles of others in your community may help you let go of feelings of entitlement.

Don’t expect to be happy all the time. The human experience is filled with both joy and sorrow, and it’s important to embrace emotions across that spectrum. Allowing negative and positive feelings to coexist is critical to becoming a more resilient person.

• When you are feeling sad or angry, don't try to cover it up with laughter and smiles. Instead allow yourself to feel these emotions fully.

Create and maintain strong social connections. Staying social is key to developing mental resilience. Socializing with friends, families, and colleagues is critical to both our mental and physical health. Don’t isolate when you’re feeling down, instead try sharing your feelings with a trusted friend or loved one.

Increase your physical fitness. Researchers have found that physical fitness is directly linked to mental resilience. Strengthening your body is empowering and will boost your mental health, making it easier to be mentally resilient when life throws you a monkey wrench.

• Try setting aside time each day for physical activity, even if it’s only a short walk or a game of football with your children.

Practice relaxation and stress management techniques. Mentally resilient people know how to manage their stress levels, which helps keep energy levels and optimism up. Deep breathing, a regular yoga practice, prayer, and meditation are all activities that can help you manage your stress.

• Don’t be afraid to seek help from a mental health professional. They can help you develop stress management practices that will increase your mental resilience.

Get back on track with your daily routine. Life’s setbacks can throw us for a loop, often disrupting the day-to-day routine of our lives. Focusing on familiar tasks such as going to work, cleaning the house, and taking the dog for a walk can help you get back up and being moving forward.

Learn to let go. Sometimes situations don’t work out the way we wish. It’s important to learn when to let go. If you have tried your best and done everything within your power in a given situation, it may be time to let go and move on.

• If you have tried your best to make amends with a friend but were unsuccessful, it might be time to let go of the friendship.
• If you have given your all to a writing project but feel it still falls short, let it go and move on to a new essay or poem.

Keep pursuing your goals. Everyone is going to fall down at some point in life. What matters is not how many times you fall, but how you pick yourself back up. Be persistent and continue working toward your goals despite the obstacles in your path. Your perseverance will pay off eventually.

Don’t lose hope. Remaining hopeful is one of the most important components of becoming a more mentally resilient person. Maintain a positive, yet realistic outlook on the future. Don’t let the weight of the past drag you down.

• Make a list of all the positive possibilities for your job search. Just because there were only two jobs in your field last year doesn’t mean there won’t be ten this year!
• Believe that things will get better. Think of all the times you have fallen down in the past and the great things that happened when you picked yourself back up. You’ve got this!