For some, the Shelter In Place has been in action for over two weeks now. With a month, and for some well over a month left to go, this can take a toll on our mental health.
Steve Siebold, a mental toughness coach and author of the international bestselling book '177 Mental Toughness Secrets of The World Class,' gives LATF readers 11 tips to keep your mental health in a positive light.
- Avoid becoming emotionally overwhelmed by fear, depression or hopelessness by focusing on one day at a time. Laser in on the present and move through your day one positive after another.
- Make peace with uncertainty, knowing that you will adapt and eventually thrive in any environment.
- Embrace the random nature of life, as well as the personal growth you will experience as a result of positively responding to change.
- Except the fact that your mood, attitude and overall daily disposition is a choice. You can choose misery, happiness or any place in between. Outside events only impact the quality of your emotional life if you allow them.
- Use humor to offset dramatic events.
- Use your critical thinking skills to embrace objective reality. Don’t believe everything the government tells us. Prepare yourself for the worst-case scenario.
- Calm your fears with thoughts of gratitude. Think about the people, events and memories for which you are most grateful. Remember that gratitude is the aristocrat of all the emotions.
- Stop trying to control the uncontrollable aspects of your life. Recognize your delusional thinking and let it go.
- Employ logic in your daily life while rejecting negative emotion. Negative emotion during life altering events often leads to “catastrophizing.” Logical thinking will keep you grounded and moving forward.
- When consumed with fears of job loss, going out of business, bankruptcy, or financial devastation, remind yourself that you are a comeback artist. The history of the human race is a history of setbacks and comebacks.
- Whatever they tear down, we rebuild. Whatever they take away, we take back. All attempts to break our collective spirit will always be met with equal and opposite force.
You already have all the mental toughness you need to survive this crisis. You were born with it. Your resilience is the result of millions of years of evolution built into your brain. You will survive.
