In order to be successful, meeting professionals must be smart, efficient, resilient and mentally tough. In her book 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do, psychotherapist Amy Morin states that genetics, personality and life experience all contribute to one’s mental strength. A posting on Business Insider details Morin’s philosophy.
Meeting professionals can grow their grit and get mentally tougher with these 10 tips:
1. Become aware of your emotions. It’s not about suppressing or controlling them—it’s about monitoring them and learning how they influence your thoughts and behaviors. Sometimes you may have to behave in a manner contrary to your feelings.
2. Don’t berate yourself for making mistakes. Stand up to your inner critic, and practice self-compassion.
3. When a mistake occurs, take responsibility and learn from it. Seek solutions so the situation does not repeat itself.
4. Practice realistic optimism. The mentally tough understand that being overly optimistic can lead to disappointment; negativity can be counterproductive. Try for somewhere in the middle.
5. Don’t give away your power. Establish physical and emotional boundaries. Don’t allow others to dictate how you should think, feel or behave.
6. Focus on problem solving and productive fixes, instead of complaining about what went wrong.
7. Keep your eye on the big picture, remembering that today’s choices influence tomorrow’s reality.
8. Recognize that there is always room for improvement. Each day presents a new opportunity to become mentally tougher.
9. Don’t take it personally. The world is not out to get you. The mentally tough separate themselves from the things that happen to them.
10. Let it go. Don’t get hung up on what is unimportant or irrelevant. Worrying or obsessing about a problem does not solve it.
