Bulletproof Your Mind From Adversity by Quitting These 4 Bad Habits
How to handle life’s challenges like a boss.
If there’s anything I—and everyone else on Earth—have learned over the past two years, it’s that life can change fast.
Seemingly overnight, your world can transform and all the most basic, ridiculously simple things you do every day can turn into a frustrating, head-wracking nightmare.
But when those moments happen, how do you handle your emotions so you can do what you need and still thrive?
Learning how to successfully handle adversity means the difference between a life of joy and a life of misery. When you’re mentally tough, you can handle whatever comes your way—you might feel upset, angry, or sad, but those emotions don’t control you. When you aren’t mentally tough, however, you’ll always be a slave to what happens and might end up causing more problems.
“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records.”
— William Arthur Ward
To make yourself mentally bulletproof and withstand life’s challenges, avoid these 4 bad habits and learn better ones. It’ll be one of the best life skills you can possibly gain.
1. Constantly Seeking Comfort
Seems counterintuitive, no? Wouldn’t the best way to protect your mind be to avoid unnecessary difficulties?
Well, ask yourself: What’s the best way to get into great physical condition? Is it to avoid any situations that will fatigue, stress, or exhaust your body?
Of course not. Those physical challenges give your muscles the stimulus to become stronger and withstand more effort.
The same goes for your mind. Dealing with adversity is like weightlifting for your character, emotions, and peace of mind. Putting yourself in difficult, challenging, and uncomfortable will force you to adapt, grow, and eventually become resistant to those challenges.
“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.”
— Hellen Keller
When you’re in a rut, it’s the perfect time to shake things up and challenge yourself. When you try something new and challenging, you will feel uncomfortable and uncertain. Yet going through this makes you bulletproof because you’ll learn how to thrive in new, difficult situations.
You’ll gain more confidence and experience, which you can use to create a bigger future and handle problems more effectively.
Strangely enough, if you aren’t failing enough in your life, it means you’re not pushing yourself enough. If your success rate is super high, it might not actually mean you’re “super successful”—it might just mean you’re not taking big enough swings and you’re just staying in your comfort zone.
The more you fail, the more comfortable you’ll be with failure and the negative emotions that come with it. You’ll learn how to face your fears, take action, and deal with setbacks.
“There is no better than adversity. Every defeat, every heartbreak, every loss, contains its own seed, its own lesson on how to improve your performance the next time.”
— Malcolm X
Don’t coddle yourself or live life like you’re wrapped in bubble wrap. Learn to handle negative emotions so you don’t get thrown off by every little thing that happens in life.
2. Needing to Being Right
“Tomayto, tomahto.”
It’s fine to have your own educated opinions. It’s fine to have an occasional debate. But if someone has a near-compulsive desire to win every argument, always have the last word, or correct everyone else’s mistakes, there is no way they’ll ever be mentally tough and bulletproof.
It shows that they’re easily bothered by other people’s opinions. Everyone who disagrees with them upsets them. Everyone who lives a different lifestyle pisses them off. Everyone’s minuscule errors rub them the wrong way.
And because there will always be a ton of those situations in life (it’s practically guaranteed), they will always be bothered by them.
If you struggle with not being “correct,” being wrong, or even just having people think you’re wrong, your ego will get hurt a lot. You’ll feel emotional and upset by every differing opinion—no matter how benign—and you’ll lose your peace of mind and calm as a result. (I am, of course, speaking from experience.)
To become more mentally strong, learn to be okay being wrong. Don’t be so attached to your opinions. Don’t take arguments personally. Stop trying to “win” every debate and get in the last word (or parting shot). That way, you’ll be able to mentally and emotionally handle the inevitable disagreements in life with ease (while everyone else gets triggered).
“Confidence comes not from always being right, but from not fearing to be wrong.”
— Peter McIntyre
3. Proving Yourself
Seeking approval, self-worth, or validation means you need people to clap their hands, tell you you’re doing a “good job,” and more. Life becomes a quest to prove yourself—but if you don’t get that praise you crave, you’ll become insecure, jealous, or sad.
All of this makes your life erratic and makes it much harder to be mentally bulletproof. You’ll hang onto what everyone else thinks and says and your emotions and self-esteem will be pulled around like puppet strings.
“He who seeks only for applause from without has all his happiness in another’s keeping.”
— Oliver Goldsmith
Stop feeling the need to promote everything you do in a vain attempt to get attention, jealousy, desire, likes, shares, comments, claps, etc. Start doing things for yourself, not for other people.
By doing that, you’ll be far more able to withstand the everchanging, finicky opinions of other people—and maintain your self-esteem and peace of mind as a result.
“Don’t seek approval. This may be the toughest suggestion for you to follow — and the most important. Whether you’re a teenager seeking approval from your peers, a middle-aged parent seeking the approval of your kids, or a man or woman seeking the approval of a partner, it all amounts to the same thing. You’re giving your personal power away every time you seek validation from someone else for who you are.”
— Trish MacGregor
4. Spending Too Much Time In Your Head
The average person has roughly 6,200 thoughts per day.
That’s a lot of time spent in our own heads. But much of it isn’t even positive: We’re stressing, worrying, or getting angry about things, and many of which aren’t even real or didn’t even happen yet.
We get so caught up in the stories we tell ourselves — stories based on programming and beliefs, not the truth. Yet the more we listen to those stories, the more our emotions become erratic, not due to reality, but because of our opinion of reality.
And when we do that, it’s damn near impossible to be mentally bulletproof.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
— C.G. Jung
To overcome this, spend more time in the present moment. After all, the present moment is all we have. It’s the only time where we’re truly living. It’s the only opportunity we have to do something and take action.
Start focusing your mind on what’s around you and becoming fully immersed in the moment. Notice when you’ve drifted off or are having an internal dialogue, quiet your mind, and return to the present.
“If, then, I were asked for the most important advice I could give, that which I considered to be the most useful to the men of our century, I should simply say: in the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you.”
― Leo Tolstoy
You’ll be able to handle much more of life’s challenges because you’re not adding to them. (You might even realize how much of life’s challenges are self-inflicted.)
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