How To Become Mentally Strong: 12 Tips That Actually Help

Here are 12 ways to become mentally strong (without forcing anything at all), and level up your inner strength in life.

Mental strength is one of those things we usually start thinking about when life gets hard.

When everything is going well, you don’t really wonder whether you’re mentally strong.

But then something goes wrong — a person disappoints you, you mess up something important, your plans fall apart, or you stop feeling like yourself.

And that’s when you realize how important it is to have a strong mind.

Now, before I go any further into this topic, I want to make clear that being mentally strong doesn’t mean that nothing affects you.

You can cry, have bad days, and be a sensitive person.

You can get attached to people, feel disappointed, overthink something for a while, and occasionally want to hide under your blanket and ignore the entire world.

All of that just means you’re human with a heart that feels.

But mental strength is more about what happens after all of that.

Can you bring yourself back? Can you deal with uncomfortable emotions without letting them control your entire life?

And can you trust yourself to get through a difficult phase, even when you don’t know exactly how you’re going to do it yet?

That’s the kind of mental strength I want to talk about here.

It’s not something you either have or don’t have.

It’s something you can slowly build through the way you think, the things you do, and how you treat yourself when life isn’t going according to plan.

So, if you want to become mentally stronger, here are 12 things you should start practicing.

How To Become Mentally Strong

1. Stop believing every thought you have

Your mind can be so very dramatic sometimes.

You have just one awkward interaction with someone, and you think they must hate you now. You have a bad week, and you think your life is falling apart.

You make mistakes learning something, and you just assume you are terrible at it.

I know that when you are upset, these thoughts can feel completely true.

But dear reader, you must learn to create distance between what you’re thinking and what is actually happening.

Whenever I catch myself spiraling, I try to come back to the facts.

I ask myself: What actually happened? What do I know for sure? And what part of this story did my anxious brain create on its own?

Of course, you can’t argue with every negative thought or try to replace it with something positive.

Sometimes, you just have to think like, “Okay, that’s what I’m thinking right now, but that doesn’t necessarily make it true.”

A strong mind isn’t a mind that never thinks negatively. It’s a mind that knows thoughts aren’t always facts.

2. Keep small promises to yourself

If you want to become mentally strong, start becoming someone you can rely on for yourself.

Start with the small things first.

Like, if you tell yourself you’re going for a 20-minute walk today, go.

If you decide you’re putting your phone away at 11 pm, do it.

If you say you’re going to spend ten minutes cleaning your room before bed, follow through.

Every time you keep a small promise to yourself, you’re building your self-trust.

And self-trust is such a huge part of mental strength. Because when life gets hard, you need to believe you can take care of yourself and eventually figure it out.

But that belief won’t come out of nowhere. You’ll get it by showing up for those boring (and exciting) moments that you promised yourself.

3. Learn to have a bad day without making it a bad life

This one is very important, so read closely and slowly.

When you’re having a bad day, your mind tends to forget the important and real stuff.

You start questioning your career, your friendships, your appearance, your future, your habits, and every decision you’ve made since 2017.

Please don’t trust yourself with major life conclusions when you’re exhausted, hungry, hormonal, overwhelmed, or having a horrible day.

The strongest thing you can do here is let the day be bad.

Cry if you need to, cancel something, take a shower, eat something comforting, and go to sleep early.

But don’t turn one bad day into fake proof that everything is wrong.

Your tomorrow self deserves a chance to feel completely different.

4. Do things that make you slightly uncomfortable

A lot of us treat discomfort as a dangerous situation, when that isn’t the case at all.

You don’t need to go skydiving or start doing terrifying things for character development.

I’m talking about small and everyday discomfort here.

You can:

Go somewhere alone.
Start a conversation.
Ask the question you’re scared will sound stupid.
Try something you’re not naturally good at.
Say no without giving a lengthy explanation.
Wear the outfit you’ve been saving for when you’re more confident.

Every time you willingly step into discomfort and make it through, your world gets slightly bigger.

And eventually, you stop organizing your life around avoiding embarrassment, rejection, awkwardness, or uncertainty.

That’s freedom in its most beautiful form!

5. Don’t abandon your routines every time you’re upset

I used to think that when you’re going through something, everything else needs to stop.

And sure, sometimes life genuinely requires you to slow down.

But I’ve also realized how helpful your everyday routines can be during emotionally messy periods.

So, go for your walk, make your morning drink, and clean your room.

Eat your meals, read before bed, and do the things that remind you that your life is still happening.

Your routines don’t need to be perfect during such times.

If your usual hour-long workout feels impossible, do ten minutes. If you can’t manage your entire morning routine, keep one part of it.

There is no need to force productivity when you’re struggling.

But just give yourself a few normal things to hold onto until you feel like yourself again. It really, really helps.

6. Stop needing everyone to understand you

This might be one of the hardest lessons ever.

You can explain yourself beautifully, and someone can still misunderstand you.

You can have good intentions, and someone can still think badly of you.

You can make a decision that’s completely right for your life, and someone else can think you’re making a huge mistake.

At some point, you have to stop trying to manage everybody else’s version of you.

Of course, if you’ve hurt someone or communicated badly, take responsibility. Becoming mentally strong doesn’t mean refusing to listen to anyone.

But when you know you’ve been honest and fair, let people think what they want.

Not every misunderstanding requires a paragraph, and not every opinion deserves a response.

Know your side of the story, and be okay with the fact that not everyone else will. It’s the best way to protect your peace.

7. Get good at bringing yourself back

I would love to tell you that being mentally strong will help you keep doing good in life, but that’s not true.

You are going to lose your confidence sometimes. You’re going to fall out of routines you’ve worked hard to build.

You’re going to have phases where you don’t recognize yourself very much.

This doesn’t mean you’ve lost all your progress.

I think mentally strong people aren’t necessarily better at never falling apart. They’re better at returning to themselves.

They know how to slowly bring themselves back, and so should you.

Maybe you can start walking again. Maybe you can clean your room, wash your hair, and put fresh sheets on the bed.

Or maybe you can reopen the journal you haven’t touched in three months (always works for me).

You don’t need a big comeback plan. Just learn how to return to yourself in small ways.

The more times you do it, the less scary it will become to lose your footing because you know you can always find it again.

8. Stop hanging out with your past self

I think we mostly keep ourselves stuck by always checking who we used to be.

Maybe you were more confident once, or more productive. Maybe you looked different (I did too).

Maybe you had more friends, more energy, better habits, or a very different life.

Or maybe the opposite is true.

You used to have a bad life, and things are better now. But you’re still making decisions based on old insecurities and old versions of yourself.

Either way, stop visiting the past so often.

Trust me on this, please. You don’t need to recreate an old version of yourself to have a good life now.

Ask yourself what current you needs.

What does she enjoy? What does she want to work toward? What habits would make her feel better? What kind of people does she want around her?

You are allowed to keep changing. So, change and find happiness as you are now. It can be hard sometimes, but also life-changing once you accept it.

9. Have a few things you do when your mind gets too loud

You need a mental emergency kit for days when your mind just won’t shut up.

I don’t mean it literally, though honestly, making a cute box wouldn’t hurt.

I mean, having a few things you already know help when your thoughts start running wild.

For me, walking is one of them.

I deliberately go on what I think of as a no-thought walk, where I stop trying to solve anything and just pay attention to what I’m seeing around me.

Yours could be journaling, taking a long shower, cleaning something, calling someone you trust, sitting outside, doing a guided meditation, cooking, reading, or putting your phone in another room.

Just know your reset buttons before you desperately need them.

You can’t always think your way out of overthinking. But having some rituals decided in advance will make it way easier.

10. Become less afraid of starting over

A lot of people are really afraid to start over. They associate it with failing in life.

But you’re going to start over hundreds of times in your life.

You’ll restart routines, rebuild your confidence, change careers or goals, make new friends, and move somewhere new.

You’ll fall out of good habits and pick them up again. And you’ll realize something isn’t working and choose another direction.

There is nothing embarrassing about beginning again.

In fact, I think refusing to start again because you’re embarrassed about stopping is much worse.

If it’s September and you abandoned the goal you made in January, restart in September.

If you’ve been off track for six months, start today!

You don’t need to wait until enough time has passed for your fresh start to look aesthetically pleasing.

Mentally strong people don’t waste too much time mourning the fact that they’re back at day one. They simply make day one count.

Might help: 41 Different Ways To Give Yourself A New Start In Life

11. Build a life that isn’t dependent on one thing going well

This is something I think more people should talk about, and so I am doing it.

If your entire sense of happiness depends on one person, one goal, one job, one number, one project, or one outcome, every change in that area is going to feel big.

Let’s say your happiness depends on losing weight. If you make progress, you’ll feel great. But if the scale goes up even a bit, you’ll feel awful.

I am not saying don’t be happy about succeeding at your goals. Just give yourself more places to find joy.

Have hobbies that have nothing to do with being productive. Have people you can laugh with. Have tiny rituals you look forward to.

Read books, take walks, learn things, make your home nice, plan little adventures, and care about something silly.

Your life needs multiple sources of meaning.

That way, when one part isn’t going well, you can remind yourself that it might hurt right now, but it isn’t everything.

And sometimes, that tiny bit of perspective is what keeps you standing.

12. Decide that you’re someone who gets through things

You probably already have evidence for this, and I am going to help you see it.

Just think about something that once felt impossible to deal with.

It could have been a heartbreak, a horrible phase, a failure, a friendship ending, a health scare, or a period when you had no idea what you were doing with your life.

Remember how you spent nights worrying about it? And yet, you’re here.

Maybe you didn’t handle it perfectly, and maybe it took longer than you wanted. Maybe you still don’t completely understand what happened.

But you still got through it!

Keep that evidence somewhere in your mind.

The next time life throws something at you, instead of doubting yourself, remind yourself that you’ve handled things before (both big and small).

You don’t need to know exactly how everything is going to work out before you believe you’ll be okay.

Sometimes mental strength is simply knowing that whatever happens next, you won’t leave yourself.

You Don’t Have To Be Strong All The Time

This is truly the best reminder I can leave you with.

You don’t need to turn yourself into someone who never cries, never needs help, never gets overwhelmed, and magically handles every problem with perfect emotional maturity.

That sounds exhausting, and there will still be days when something gets to you.

So, let yourself be human.

Try some of the ideas from this post in your real life, and slowly raise your mental strength.

And whenever you need some encouragement or need to remind yourself of these tips, just come back here and read it again. You’ve got this.

Pin this post before you go so you don’t lose it. Have a good day!