Mental Edge:
How to remain confident in face of strong pressure
Mental edge, or mental toughness is your ability to perform and stay confident in face of tremendous pressure. It is your capability to stop the time just for a moment and activate a powerful protocol which assures your bulletproof mental state. With this skill, you will find the right words in the right moment and not afterwards. You will keep your calmness to make the right decision, when everyone else throws the towel. You will endure agony and pain until it ceases. Because you know exactly, that even after the biggest monsoon rain, the sun will shine again. If it is your desire to become known as rock-solid, then listen up. Because today, we’ll enter the realm of mental edge!
The four pillars of mental edge:
Pillar 1: RESILIENCE
Let’s scale resilience from one to ten. One is, someone throws you on the ground and you break like a raw egg. Tasty! Mental toughness eliminated. Let’s scale up to 6! Someone throws you on the ground and you will not break. Instead, you caused damage through the impact, because you turned from an egg into an indestructible 90’s Nokia Phone. Incredible transformation! But this is still not where we want to be. Now you don’t break, but you’ll hurt others by the impact of your rigorous demeanor. Let’s scale to ten! Somebody throws you on the ground and you immediately bounce back to your initial position. Admirable ability!
No, you don’t want to be an egg, nor as hard as an old Nokia phone. You want to be that mystical rubber ball you annoyed your parents with, when you were a child!
What is resilience?
What is resilience? It’s your ability to bounce back from a setback and evolve to a stronger and more confident being. You bounce back with the solution to solve the challenge that made you fall in the beginning. Resilience makes you get back from whatever force that pushes you out of your trajectory. Huge headway towards mental edge!
How To Create Resilience?
Resilience is an integral part of your mental edge ability. There are lots of instructions on the internet about how to create resilience. However, for me personally, there are 4 things I maintain to keep a stable resilience:
-> Enough sleep
A vast amount of research shows, that quality sleep is a key factor for resilience. Sleep contributes tremendously to your mind body wellness, if done correctly. That means, if possible no noise in the room at night, the room completely dark, no blue light or smartphone half an hour before sleep, no coffee 12 hours before sleep, no food 3 hours before sleep, temperature not over 21 degrees and foremost, having a proper bed. You see there are many factors that influence your sleep. You won’t believe how much it influences your mood over the course of your day!
->Expecting change
Let’s not act like everything will run like we want it to be. The question is not if something will challenge you; the question is when will it happen? Put yourself frequently in situations, that set you back. Only if you are well trained in setbacks, you are able to react properly. Don’t wing it!
->Confidence and Challenge
Number 3 and 4 below are cornerstones of becoming resilient. They are intertwined like the steel bars of a building. You need all of them, otherwise you will collapse at the next hurricane!
Pillar 2: Commitment
Commitment is the north star you accepted as the guide of your desire. It is the core of the sun, that reinforces a never ending fire to keep going, no matter what. A strong commitment allows you to stick to a process until it’s executed. Having a commitment helps tremendously activating your mental edge ability. In the post 5 ways to powerful commitments, you can unpack the full scope of a powerful commitment. Be aware of its energy. It may change your life!
Quick Instruction To Form A Powerful Commitment
-> Create your commitment and put it on paper
-> Create accountability
-> Surround yourself with the right people
-> Celebrate your success
-> Stay organized
Pillar 3: Confidence
Confidence is a complex 10000 piece puzzle (kidding, actually it are merely 10). If you were fortunate enough to grow up in a healthy environment there should be a healthy portion of confidence available to you. Since seven out of ten children experienced childhood trauma, it is very unlikely, that you built a healthy form of confidence. Step one is to climb down the dark hole that caused your trauma and face your insecurities. It is highly recommended to do this in a safe, professional, therapeutic environment, because of its impact.
How To Build Confidence?
Other than that, you create confidence in many ways:
Becoming excellent in something
Whether it be a pianist, electrician or football player. As soon as we master a profession, it provides us a huge amount of confidence, we can nourish our self every day.
Detaching yourself from your emotions
This is a deep topic you may want to read into, but the simple explanation is: You are not your emotions. Your emotions are feelings that arise within you, as a respond an event. It is up to you how you respond to these feelings. If you learn to separate your behavior from your emotions, you are in a way better place to establish mental edge.
Stress management
Research shows, that most distress is caused by poor time management. Distress is the negative form of stress that rises your blood pressures, releases tons of cortisol and decimates your confidence. This form of stress is to avoid. Managing your time is a key factor for stress management and mental edge.
pillar 4: Challenge
I was skeptical, when I read it the first time, but it makes absolute sense! If you dwell in your bubble of comfort all day long, there will be no increase in confidence. Challenge enables the expansion of your comfort zone, which is necessary to grow your mental edge ability. Suddenly things, that shook and startled you before, are an easy walk now. Who would have thought that? Challenging yourself frequently is a major cornerstone to not only live a fulfilled life, but also to create mental toughness. If you’re naturally not interested in competition, I can 100% understand you. What you can do is, to create your own standard of success and compete against that. There is a reason why Apple became so successful. If Apple wouldn’t have created their own visions and challenges, they’d never have become that successful. No need to compete against your left and right. Compete against your lofty goals!
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