In Chiangmai Old Town in 2006
1. Practice Realistic Optimism - Be True to Yourself.
Unless you live on a mountain top or alone, and report to no one, you will come across many people in your life, whom you will interact with, many on a regular basis. Hence, you will have bosses, clients, vendors, people you buy and sell things to and from, people whom are related to you by blood, school, swimming club, work, social networks, and places of worship.
You will be faced with many challenges day in and day out, week in and week out. If you tackle these challenges head on, you will realise some are too big for you to take on yourself, and you need to take stock and realise either to 1. fight 2. take flight and 3. be frightened and stay rooted like deer caught in headlights of an oncoming car in a quiet country road.
Hence, while it is so important to have an optimist mindset, that mindset MUST be tempered in realism and not your personal delusions of grandeur. Do need spend needless money to buy a fancy car, watch or house to impress meaningless people about how 'good' or 'great' your life is.
No one bothers to appreciate your 'success'. Only you will be the final arbiter of your own 'success'. It doesn't matter if you live in a small flat, take public transport or live in a huge mansion and drive a Bentley.
What matters is that you have done good, been a good provider to your family and community and hurt no one.
Be realistic in setting and chasing after your goals. That way you will not be disappointed if and when (90% of us will face this) you miss these goals. Such is life.
2. Tolerate Discomfort
This is a tough on9e, but mentally strong people can shut out all the pain, distractions, the negative and hurtful comments, the disuasions, the naysayers, the jealous bystanders, the multitude of people who would love to see you fail. That is discomfort on a daily basis.
Learn to Tolerate it, but Practice Optimistic Realism (see point 1 above)
When you do succeed, 100% of these so called naysayers will professed to have supported you.
Feel free to drop them from your friends list :)
3. Modify Unhealthy Beliefs
Weed out all thoughts of failure. When faced with defeat, the strong still die fighting. They only give up when the chance to fight another day and come back stronger is much better than depleting your resources 100% today with no chance of returning.
4. Accept Challenges
This is self explainatory. If you do not challenge yourself what are you living for ?
Rialto Bridge 10th Dec 2023
5. Practice Perseverence
Only those who persevere will win something in the end. My mates in armoured artillery are prime examples of mentally strong people who though they may not have been the most physically strong, we all were able to take mental anguish, pain and rampant bullying during those tough training days.
I am glad to say that all of us NCOs are doing pretty well now.
6. Set Healthy Boundaries
This ties in to having a good mental discipline to stop punishing our bodies and minds. Insofar as eating excessively, smoking, exercise regularly and doing good we must remind ourselves, the price we pay for overextending ourselves in any of the above will only cause our downfall at the end.
Carpe Diem my readers.
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