Stressed out? Depressed? Barely surviving? These habits are undermining your mental health and learn how to break them and build resilience.
My mind is racing; it’s 3:00 am I just finished a whole bottle of wine by myself and I feel miserable. This has been my pattern for the past three weeks.
It’s 2015, I have spent the past eight months in Asia following around a guy I liked, now he had also left to begin a life somewhere new.
I am unemployed, worse being in a foreign country, I cannot afford a flight ticket home.
Although I barely have enough money to buy nutritious food, I can surprisingly, afford wine. Perhaps because it could help me forget.
Run from my pain, avoid reality, numb my loneliness, and forget just for tonight.
I should have been finding solutions, and I hated myself for making my situation worse than it needed to be.
And yet, I kept undermining my resilience by holding on to habits that were not only unhelpful but were preventing me from thinking clearly and getting out of the rut.
All of us are born resilient, as toddlers when we felt disappointed; we cry and quickly move on and if we failed, we just got up and tried again.
But somewhere along the way, we forget how resilient we can be.
Life is hard, and things go wrong all the time, but we need to be able to wither the storms quickly and effectively.
In this article, I will discuss with you the top 11 habits that undermine your ability to wither the storms of life and what you can do to build resilience.
What does it mean to be resilient, and Why is it Important?
According to positive psychology, to be resilient means to be able to cope well and bounce back quickly in times of stress or in the face of challenges.
These challenges may show up as relationship problems, serious health problems, issues in the workplace, or financial problems.
Developing resilience can help you cope well with these challenges and bounce back quickly from setbacks, disappointments, or even failures.
Main Factors/Aspects Of a Resilient Mindset
Building resilience eventually comes down to mindset. Thrive Global simplifies a resilient mindset into four aspects.
- Wellness
- Awareness
- Vision
- Energy & Motivation.
Although it is difficult to be perfect in all four aspects, resilient people tend to do well in most of them.
If you want to build resilience, begin by eliminating these 11 habits and replace them with habits that support your goal.
Neglecting Self Care
We often mistake resilience to mean an aggressive, “tough” approach to every life challenge, but research shows this is a false assumption.
Science shows that you can be more resilient if you alternate charging hard at challenges and finding solutions with rest and recovery.
For example, your business is going through a tough cycle, go hard at it during the day, rest for recovery, and repeat tomorrow.
Therefore, do not neglect self-care, get enough rest 7-8 hours a night (I know easier said and done), but you will find better solutions when you are well-rested.
Eat nutritious food, spend time in nature, or solitude, and I promise you will come up with better solutions to your problems.
Overwhelm and Overload
An overwhelmed and stressed out brain can not solve problems effectively.
Wherever you feel overwhelmed, stop, and try this 4-7-8 Breathing technique, it takes only two minutes.
You can use the technique to fall asleep if you are struggling with late-night anxiety and worry.
Additionally, consider breaking all your tasks in small manageable batches and give each task the attention it needs.
Intolerance To Reality
We don’t always have to like reality, but we can learn to tolerate unpleasant life circumstances.
If you can learn to look at reality for what it is, you will move on quicker than if you avoid it.
- You must first say to yourself I am fat and feel unhealthy. I need to adjust my diet and take better care of myself.
- I don’t have the skills it takes to succeed in this business, but I can learn.
Of course, all this is easier said than done because we feel that we are all doing our best.
But the first step in building resilience is trusting yourself to handle reality and the truth even when it is unpleasant.
Avoiding Negative Emotions
We are naturally built to avoid negative emotions and strive to feel good, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
However, avoiding negative emotions undermines mental strength and resilience.
According to recent psychological research by David Barlow, one of the leading causes of many psychological problems is the habit of emotional avoidance.
Want to build resilience? Purposefully feel your negative emotions, and you will feel better quicker.
Toxic people, Ambivalent relationships and Frenemies
Toxic people suck your energy while frenemies add drama and confusion to your life.
Frenemies are people you consider friends, but either dislike you, gossip about you, are jealous of you, or undermine you.
According to the science of people, frenemies are more toxic than toxic people.
Furthermore, Psychologist Bert Uchino also found that the more ambivalent relationships you have (frenemies), the more likely you are to have higher rates of depression, stress, and dissatisfaction in your life.
In short, toxic people drain your energy, you already should cut them off while frenemies do the same thing subliminally through competitiveness, envy, and jealousy.
Which, to me, is worse. Anyway, let them all go and surround yourself with people who you can count on.
Unresolved conflict
A characteristic that repeatedly comes up within resilient people is that they have healthy and secure relationships.
Poor relationships and unresolved conflict in relationships can be painful and stressful.
According to this study, prolonged conflict can also take a toll on your health. You become susceptible to chronic headaches and illnesses like cold and flu, as well as body aches (neck and back pain).
All this undermines your ability to build resilience.
Good relations are so important that children who have a healthy attachment to their parents grow up to be resilient.
So, communicate effectively with your loved ones and co-workers to resolve any existing conflict to the best of your abilities.
People Pleasing
If you are always bending over backward to please other people at the expense of your wellbeing, STOP!
Seriously, people-pleasing turns you into a liar (doing things you do not want to do to please others), weakens self-trust, kills dreams, and causes unnecessary stress.
Let it go!
Self-Criticism and Other Unhelpful Thoughts
- “I never do anything right.”
- “I always mess up.”
- “I am not good enough.”
- “I can’t do this.”
- “I am a failure.”
- “Life is out to get me.”
- “Why me?”
We all have that niggling voice that can make us question ourselves. But if you look back at the things you’ve overcome, you will never listen to that voice.
According to Harvard University social psychologist Daniel Gilbert, we all have a psychological immune system, which helps us cope with challenges.
Just like we have an immune system that helps us fight disease, we also have a psychological immune system.
In fact, “We don’t realize we have this ally,” says Gilbert, “and as a result, we don’t put it to particularly good use.”
My point is, ignore the critical voice in your head often and trust your psychological immune system to kick in when you need it.
Misusing Good Times
Life happens in cycles. Naturally, there will be times when life is in order, and there will be times when everything sucks.
How quickly you recover from the challenging times depends on what you do in the good times.
When life is good, pay attention to your relationships, pay your bills on time, build an emergency fund, get some sleep, and build skills.
Consequently, when life sucks, meditate, plan, study, self reflect and learn from challenging times.
As the Japanese say, “Farm when it’s sunny, read when it rains.”
Last Thoughts
I am glad I got over using wine to avoid my pain and figured out a way to buy that flight ticket home.
If you want to build resilience and need help breaking these habits, comment below and I will help you out. Remember you got this!
With Love,
Sania
Dailyzens.
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