Be Better

Some useful suggestions in order to be better: 

• Monitor your emotions

Contrary to popular belief, mental toughness isn't about suppressing your emotions, it's about monitoring them. The truly mentally tough "monitor their emotions throughout the day and recognize how their feelings influence their thoughts and behaviors. They know sometimes reaching their greatest potential requires them to behave contrary to how they feel.

• Practice self-compassion

Nor is mental toughness about being your own harshest critic and strictest taskmaster. Instead, those with exceptional resilience speak to themselves with kindness and compassion, not hectoring and insults. "They respond to their inner critic as if they were standing up to the schoolyard bully. They forgive themselves for mistakes and cheer themselves on as they work toward their goals.

• Be realistically optimistic

When it comes to the right outlook for optimum resilience, it's all about balance. Pie-in-the-sky optimism will only lead to disappointment, but knee-jerk negativity will ensure you never even try to reach your full potential. To maintain just the right amount of optimism the mentally tough "strive to re-frame their negativity," replacing "exaggeratedly negative thoughts with a more realistic inner monologue."

• Set healthy boundaries

You can't be mentally tough if you don't take responsibility for your own situation. That means being firm about what is and is not acceptable to you instead of letting others influence your behavior and mood in ways that you don't agree with. The mentally tough, in other words, "refuse to let other people dictate whether they're going to have a good day or a bad day." 

• Accept responsibility

You can't get better if you don't admit your weaknesses and you can you learn from mistakes if you refuse to accept responsibility for them. "Rather than make excuses for their mistakes or failures, [the mentally tough] seek explanations that will help them perform better moving forward,"