5 Things I Stopped Doing That Made Me Mentally Strong

And what I started doing instead

1 AM glared back at the phone screen, screaming at me to sleep, as I was getting high with my thought, “Why is everything with me so fucked up? Why am I so stressed every time, why am I not able to focus on anything properly?”

A deep sound from the inner me rumbles in my ear, “You need to get rid of some things.” “What are they?” I asked. And as the conversation between me and myself continued, I realized these things were eating me alive.

After a long conversation, we concluded to stop doing the following 5 things and replace them with new thoughts and practices.

Thinking about someone I hate a lot

Something I would say I was fond of, but in a negative sense. I would just sit in a place and think of all the people who have done me bad. People who have betrayed me, who have teased me, etc, etc.

And that day I realized how harsh I was being on me just by thinking consistently about those people who might not even remember doing shit to me. I was giving them the power to use my brain.

Don’t give away your powers, you have the right about what to think, and who to think about. Don’t let someone else control your thoughts.

When we hate our enemies, we are giving them power over us: power over our sleep, our appetites, our blood pressure, our health, and our happiness. — Dale Carnegie

Don’t try to avoid thinking about them

I did exactly what I do in meditation. Don’t try to stop the thoughts. Just focus on the breath, and whenever found thinking of something else, bring the focus back to where it should be.

Whenever the thought of that person comes to your mind just realize that you have a lot of work pending, and if not, then my friend, you are doing a big disservice to yourself, please find one.

Make sure you focus on your work at hand, and the thoughts about that hateful person will itself fade away.

Being shy of change

Lying down in my bed with no work in hand was the only thing I used to do once I cleared the JEE and took the same habit to the college. I didn’t want to do anything except binge-watching movies and web series.

But I forgot one thing. Change is inevitable.

You can’t reverse all the changes, but you can definitely change yourself to adapt to the fresh change.

Everything that was happening was for my good, but I avoided them because I didn’t want to get out of my comfort zone and do any competitive programming or any development which was, opposite to what I was doing, good for me.

Evaluate

Sooner than later, I realized that whatever I was doing wasn’t good for me.

One thing I am doing since then is to evaluate whatever I do. Pros on the left and cons on the right, this made me realize what to do and most importantly, when to do it. And now, when I feel pretty comfortable analyzing this way, I do it in my mind.

Evaluation helps you depict a clear picture of the future of what you’re doing. If you find that the left side is not even halfway close to the right side, how will that thing be beneficial to you?

Focusing on things I can’t control

“What would they be thinking about what I just said right now?”, “What would they be thinking about what I just did?”, “Am I looking good to them or not?” were some of the things I used to think of a lot.

In the due course, I didn’t see what wrong those thoughts were doing to me. They were hindering my actions; they were holding me back. I wasn’t able to focus on my work at hand, which led to mistakes, ending up thinking of things I can’t control.

This was a never-ending cycle.

Behavior and Attitude

One can think of many things, but only two things that one can act upon, i.e., behavior and attitude.

Your behavior and attitude towards anything define your resonance with that thing. Once I stopped thinking about what others might think, though it took a significantly long time, and started getting confident about doing the things I liked, everything got better.

People pleasing

I used to be a guy who had a sheer inability to say no. I couldn’t resist anyone’s request for help. Maybe because I didn’t want to affect our friendship, or maybe I was afraid about what he/she would think. I used to think that saying no for help is a terrible deed one can do to another.

But now I can say that trying to help everyone every time isn’t a good thing. At least for my own self. That day I realized how much time I used to waste on helping others?

Wait, what did I say? Wasting time? How can helping others be a waste of time?

Yes, sometimes it is.

I am not against helping anyone, I just want to say that you too have a life, work on your life too, don’t you have your own work at hand? How long are you going to sacrifice your time, work, happiness, and sleep, helping anyone whom you don’t even know quite well?

I am not at all against helping others. I truly believe in helping people. If you can afford to help, help, even if the seeker can’t repay. But feeding others when you can’t afford to feed yourself isn’t a wise choice.

Prioritize

Not everything and everyone in your life are equally important.

Just think this way, why do you think a person whom you are seeking help says you no? The answer is quite simple, priority.

Prioritize your tasks and the people will automatically get prioritized. If you are in a position to help that person seeking help, help, otherwise, say no or ask to wait. If they are fine waiting, they will, otherwise they will find someone else who can help them. You are not the only one, right?

If the one seeking help understands you, they will definitely understand what you are going through and understand their priority in your life.

Dwelling on the past

“Had I done that thing this way, I wouldn’t have ended up in this situation.”

I just can’t stress how hard I used to go on myself just thinking about all the things that went wrong in my life. I used to go digging deep into my thoughts of the past that weren’t in my control.

So, is the past of no use? No.

Learn from the past

Past is not just for mourning or rejoicing upon what happened before.

You have got a lot of things out there in your past to learn from. What didn’t go as expected is not just for mourning. Figure out the mistakes, what were the steps you took that led to failure. Learn from them and make sure you don’t make those mistakes in the future.

Not just that, your achievements in the past too can help you conquer your current struggle.

Do you know the reason how commandoes have the power to survive the immense torture when caught by an enemy?

Captain Raghu Raman, in a podcast, said that the commandoes are always advised to think of the 36 days of sheer torture they go through during the training. If they have survived that, they can survive this torture too.

Whenever in a difficult situation, rewind your mind, talk to yourself about your achievements, lessons learned from your mistakes, and you’ll eventually find a way out.

The Takeaway

• Thinking about someone you hate a lot is utter nonsense. It won’t lead you anywhere. Instead, think about your work at hand.
• Change is inevitable, don’t be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. Check if what you are doing has more pros than cons, otherwise find something.
• You can’t control anyone else’s thoughts. But you can definitely control your behavior and attitude towards anything you do.
• You can’t keep everyone, including you, happy every time. Prioritize your tasks at hand, and then if you think you are in a position to help, surely help, otherwise tell them you can’t. They’ll definitely find someone else. You are not the only one.
• Focus on the present to improve your future. The past is history, learn from it, i.e., your mistakes, your achievements, what all things led to your success or failure.

So, those were the 5 things I stopped doing in my life and what I replaced them with. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new.

Thanks for reading!

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