7 Signs of Mental Strength That Often Go Unnoticed

You’ve probably got all you need to get through the tough times.

How do you perform under pressure?

This is one of my favourite questions to ask people I work with. While you won’t find it on any clinical assessment forms, it offers valuable information about a person’s mental strength.

The typical answers — “pretty good”, “get anxious”, “not great with any kind of stress.” — don’t tell you much.

But the events that led to it do — and the ways in which a person talks about them. You learn a lot about someone’s mental strength when they talk about what adversity has meant to them — and how they’ve handled it.

It also gives you a place to start when helping them to build mental strength and belief in their ability to cope with the Big Stuff.

Mental Strength — Do I Have It?

“It is what it is. But it will be what you make it.” — Pat Summitt

Mental strength refers to how a person responds and performs under significant stress, pressure or adversity, how they deal with life’s challenges and how they recover from them.

But mental strength is hard to measure: how do you rate how you’re responding to stress when you’re in the middle of it? How do you pinpoint when you’ve recovered from major stress? And do you ever fully recover from traumatic events — or do you just learn to live alongside them?

To my mind, the most important thing is to tap into what you already have and then do what you can to fill in the gaps.

So here’s what to look for.

7 Signs of Mental Strength That Often Go Unnoticed

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” — Marcus Aurelius

1. You are good at what you do.

It doesn’t matter what this is — whether you’re a builder or a pilot or a teacher or a dog-breeder or a stay-at-home dad. Being good at what you do doesn’t mean you’re well equipped to cope across all situations BUT it does mean you have faith in yourself in at least one area of your life. That’s a great start. Even people who don’t feel great about themselves can find one area in which they shine. So find your gold nugget of competency and hang onto it.

2. You have acted coolly in the past.

Think back through your life and identify ONE time when you were cool and felt in control of the situation. You only have to find one and EVERYONE can do that, even if you have to go back a long way.

If you truly find this exercise tough, get a parent or sibling or close friend to help — but don’t choose someone who has told you that you don’t cope well with stress! Identifying one event provides you with evidence of your ability to cope and that means you can do it again.

3. You believe you can handle the “big stuff”.

Half the battle in doing anything in life is believing that we can. The mind and the body are supposed to work in unison but the head is the natural leader. If you believe in your ability to react appropriately when the stakes are high, you probably will.

If you’ve repeatedly told yourself you’re hopeless under stress, stop doing it. It’s unhelpful. Everyone can learn to be better but we need to train ourselves to notice the evidence. So every time you do something well, take note of it and bank it.

4. You have shown empathy to a stranger.

It’s easy to be nice to people you care about. But think about the times you have shown empathy for others beyond your close circle. The ability to think, and express empathy, beyond yourself is a sign of mental strength (as well as human decency) because it means you can truly stand in another person’s shoes and you can act to support them.

5. You can self soothe.

The capacity to tolerate distress (and not react impulsively to what you’re thinking and/or feeling) is hugely important because, in life, the tests will keep coming. It goes without saying that it’s important to acknowledge your feelings and to ask for support when you need it. But mentally strong people also have strategies for calming down and getting into a better head space without having to rely on someone else. Don’t feel bad if you’re not brilliant at this: it’s a work-on for everyone.

6. You don’t need to know the ending.

You don’t need certainty in order to be calm and function well. For example, when people lose their jobs I wish they could be given a slip that tells them the exact date on which they’ll get another. Then they could relax and enjoy the time off. But it’s the gap — the Not Knowing — that screws everyone over. It’s an essential life skill to be able to manage uncertainty. If you can do it, you’re winning.

7. You stay present for whatever you’re doing.

One of the key fallouts of being under stress is distraction: your thoughts scatter and it’s hard to think straight. But if you can bring your focus to whatever you’re doing — whether it’s cooking a meal, playing with the kids, attending (another) Zoom meeting, supporting a friend, enjoying a walk in nature, then you are ahead of the pack. Staying fully present will not only help your productivity, work and relationships, it will improve your quality of life ten-fold. If you’re there, well done.

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