Many leadership experts stress the value of resilience or fortitude in achieving goals. Some talk about it in terms of mental strength, the ability to function, to control your thoughts and emotions in the face of adversity.

People can acquire resilience through practice, some psychologists claim. They can do it by developing healthy habits and eliminating unhealthy ones.

Here is how to do it.

1. Think about your fundamental beliefs.

We all have them, whether we are aware of them or not. We develop them over the course of our life, from our experience, from what we learn, from what we see of the world.

To develop mental strength we need to take a hard look at our basic beliefs to see if any are counterproductive to our success. For example, if we believe that a lot of success is based on luck, or circumstance, this is not conducive to developing the kind of mindset we need to develop mental strength.

Any beliefs that are simplifications are unlikely to be productive because life is just too complex. What looks like black and white is always just on closer analysis varying shades of gray.

But if we are to develop mental strength, we must do the work of examining our beliefs.

2.Focus on what you can control.

We waste a lot of time and energy worrying about things, most of which never happen. We need to determine what we can control, and what is out of our control, and focus on the former, not waste our energy on the latter.

3. Banish negative thoughts.

We are all prone to let our minds drift toward negative thinking from time to time. We think about our failures, our lacks, and perhaps, in moments of weakness, allow them to define ourselves. This is something we have to guard against. Again, we have to monitor how we think and what we think, which can influence our ultimate progress.

4. Get out of your comfort zone.

Challenge yourself to do things you don’t like to do. For example, if you say to yourself, I wish I could be more assertive, make the effort to be more assertive. Practice getting used to acting in spite of the anxieties and uncertainties you may feel.

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