What makes the difference between someone able to accomplish the long-term goals they set for themselves and someone who can’t? Does it boil down to something predetermined like intelligence, luck, physical capabilities, or is it something else? It turns out that your ability to persist through challenges and stay focused on achieving your goals is something that you have more hand in creating for yourself, and it is known as mental toughness.
What is Mental Toughness?
Having mental toughness is important because it is what allows you to persevere through adversity to reach your goals. Mental toughness is defined as the capacity of an individual to deal with stressors, pressures, and challenges and perform at the best of their ability, regardless of difficult circumstances. Possessing mental toughness comes with a strong ability to effectively manage your thoughts and emotions to act in alignment towards achieving your goals.
3 Aspects of Mental Toughness in Recovery
Cultivating mental toughness will help you through any challenge you encounter in life, but it can be an especially helpful trait to have if you are in recovery. Aspects of mental toughness that help someone achieve a goal like sobriety are seen below:
- Commitment – When someone is mentally strong, they can commit themselves to a goal and follow-through, effectively tackling the challenges they face along the way until they reach it. Having a strong commitment to staying sober will keep them accountable for keeping up with what they need to to feel secure in not relapsing, like attending meetings, therapy, or having a regular self-care routine.
- Productive action – Productive actions are an important element of mental toughness. Due to someone’s mentally tough mindset, they can healthily deal with their emotions and keep their composure to focus on what actions they can do to help themselves in reaching their goal. Seeking the right help from a sponsor, therapy, or treatment if someone is struggling with thoughts of relapse are actionable steps that demonstrate the mental strength to get them back on track.
- Resilience – Those possessing mental toughness exhibit resilience during the tribulations of life and its many challenging moments. In recovery, finding resilience in the face of triggers, moments of doubt, or relapse is important, so you can recognize these as temporary setbacks and learn to be better from them and remain steady on the path to recovery from substance abuse.
Cultivating more mental toughness in your life will help you through any of life’s challenges, but if you are in recovery, it is especially helpful to focus on growing a mindset of mental toughness. It helps you stay resilient and committed to a goal while maintaining productive behavior as you effectively control your emotions in the face of challenges. If you or a loved one is struggling to get or remain sober, call Avalon Malibu. Avalon Malibu is a California state-licensed mental health and substance abuse treatment center that can help you in your recovery and mental health struggles. Our supportive staff of professionals will create a treatment program tailored to all of your individual needs through our effective combination of clinical and holistic therapies. Contact us at (844) 857-5992.
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