Mark Manson
Entrepreneur, blogger, author of the best-selling books “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck” and “Everything is Sucks. A book about hope."
A couple of weeks ago, I analyzed the market for apps that help you monitor your mental health. Most of them promised to reduce anxiety, relieve depression and relieve stress in a difficult situation. And everyone assured that their methods were based on the latest scientific data.
I messed around with them a little. Some had interesting features, many did not. Some gave good advice, but most did not. I took notes and decided I'd had enough. But I forgot that all applications have notifications enabled. So for the next week I was bombarded every morning with a stream of platitudes and sentimental nonsense:
- “You have a beautiful smile, Mark. Don’t forget to share it with the world today.”
- “Whatever you want to achieve today, Mark, you can do it. Just believe in yourself."
- “Every day is a new opportunity. Today is your time. I'm proud of you".
Such notifications immediately worsened my mood. How can a phone know what kind of smile I have? And how is it that someone is proud of me without even knowing me? And this is what people sign up for? To be doused with a bucket of narcissistic slop every morning?
I started logging into the apps and was immediately bombarded with positive affirmations about how special I was, how I should share my unique gift with the world, and remember something I was proud of right now. And please subscribe for just $9.99 a month.
If this is now considered advice for strengthening mental health, then we are simply pouring kerosene on a burning pile of garbage. Because such recommendations help to develop not emotional stability, but self-obsession.
Psychological stability cannot be developed if you feel good all the time. It develops when we learn to survive bad things.
In the constant pursuit of convenience, for the miracles of science that will fulfill our every whim, for positivity and approval of our every step, we have made ourselves weak. Every little thing seems like a disaster to us. Everything offends us. Crises await us everywhere, everyone has one of them.
Timmy got a D on his test. Catastrophe! Call your parents! Call your grandparents! He has a crisis of self-confidence. He has a crisis of self-esteem. Only the problem is not that the student is sad because of a bad grade, but that he is too busy feeling sorry for himself to learn his lessons properly.
If I made an app for mental health, you'd get notifications like this in the morning:
- “Congratulations, you have one less day to live. What will you do to make today’s day not in vain?”
- “Think about the person you love most in the world. Now imagine that he was attacked by a swarm of killer wasps. Now go and tell him that you love him.”
- “Andy Dufresne swam half a kilometer in sewer water for the opportunity to gain freedom. Are you sure you’re not wasting yours?”
Psychological resilience does not come from positive emotions, but from the effective use of negative ones.
That is, when you take anger and sadness and turn it into Psychological resilience: A review and critique of definitions, concepts, and theory. them into something useful and productive. Or use the experience of failure and self-loathing to become a better person. Today it is almost a forgotten art. But I'll tell you how to achieve this.
Start worrying about more than just yourself
When in a difficult situation we focus on ourselves, we panic and cannot move. When we are focused on others, we overcome fear and take action.
Today, many people experience anxiety precisely because of constant thinking about themselves. Let's say someone moves to a new job. And so he begins to think. Am I being judged for this? Should I worry about the judgment of others? And if I don't care, does that mean I'm insensitive? Or am I getting too caught up in whether or not I should worry about this? Or am I overthinking that I'm overthinking it? And because of all this I worry too much? So, where is the sedative?!
When we experience anxiety, we become obsessed with how to prevent pain in the future. Although instead you need to prepare yourself for pain.
Because sooner or later little Timmy will get a D. The question is, will you be willing to help him learn from his mistakes? Or will you become one of those parents who blame the teachers?
In order not to avoid difficulties, but to prepare for them, you need to have something more important in life than feelings. Find some goal or mission that will guide your actions.
Train your mind
No, we do not encourage you to play a couple of logic games on your phone. Diehard people learn throughout their lives, constantly enrich their minds, and strive to adapt to new information about the world around them.
In our experience, resilient people constantly seek opportunities to maintain and develop their mental abilities.
"Unbreakable: The Science of Confronting Life's Challenges"
By the way, in addition to perseverance, developing the mind has many more advantages.
Cathie Hammond, in her 2004 study at the University of London, concluded that lifelong learning has multiple positive effects on mental health: well-being, the ability to recover from psychological trauma, the ability to cope with stress, and a developed sense of self-esteem. and self-sufficiency and much more. Continuous learning developed these qualities through the expansion of boundaries, a process that is central to learning.
"Unbreakable: The Science of Confronting Life's Challenges"
Focus on what you can control
I have two news for you: good and bad. The bad news is that you have virtually no control over anything.
You cannot control what other people say, do or believe. You cannot control your genes and the circumstances in which you grew up. Year of birth, cultural values imbibed, natural disasters and road accidents are all beyond your control. You cannot completely control whether you will develop cancer, diabetes, or Alzheimer's disease. You cannot control the death of loved ones. How others feel and think about you, how they see you and how they touch you. That is, almost everything in this crazy world is beyond your control.
Now the good news. What you can control is more important than anything else. These are your thoughts.
As the Buddha said, when we are hit by an arrow, we receive two wounds. The first is physical, it was caused by a tip that dug into the body. The second is our thoughts about what happened. We start to think that we don't deserve this. Wishing this never happened. And we suffer from these thoughts. Although this second wound is only mental and can be avoided.
But we often don’t strive to do this; we like to do what psychologists call Psychological Resilience, Pain Catastrophizing, and Positive Emotions: Perspectives on Comprehensive Modeling of Individual Pain Adaptation. catastrophizing pain. That is, we take some little thing - for example, someone did not agree with our opinion - and inflate it to a universal scale. In the age of social media, people do this all the time.
There are several reasons for this. Firstly, we are simply so spoiled and lazy that any inconvenience seems to us a real crisis. In addition, we receive a reward for this: sympathy, attention, a sense of self-importance. It gets to the point where for some it becomes part of their identity. We say: “I’m the kind of person who always has something crazy going on.” This is how our family and colleagues know us, this is how we see ourselves. We get used to it and even begin to defend this lifestyle.
As a result, the second wound becomes much larger and more painful than the first. Catastrophizing pain, like obsessive rumination, masks self-obsession. Relies on the belief that our experience is special and no one can understand the pain and difficulties we have endured.
Remind yourself often that you are not experiencing suffering that millions or even billions of other people have not experienced before you. Yes, you can't control your pain. But you can control how you think about her. Do you consider it insurmountable or trivial? Do you believe that you will never recover from it, or do you know that you will rise again?
How psychological stability/instability works
Psychological stability: first, a task appears that generates a motive that entails the performance of certain actions aimed at its implementation. Then the difficulty that causes the negative emotional state is realized. Afterwards, a search for a way to overcome this difficulty occurs, as a result of which the level of negative emotions decreases and the mental state improves.
Psychological instability: first, a task appears that generates a motive that entails the performance of certain actions aimed at its implementation. Then the difficulty that causes the negative emotional state is realized. Then there is a chaotic search for a way to overcome this difficulty, causing it to worsen, resulting in an increase in the level of negative emotions and a deterioration in mental state.
The main reasons for exposure to stressful conditions are the lack of effective ways to overcome difficult situations and the feeling of personal threat. Mentally unstable people often have this feature: chaotic behavior causes a stressful state and intensifies it, and this state, in turn, brings even more chaos into the person’s inner world, resulting in a feeling of complete helplessness in relation to difficult situations and one’s own behavior. Thus, the conclusion suggests itself that psychological stability is, first of all, self-control.
It is also important to remember that stressful situations can never be completely eliminated from life, because... they are its full component. And the goal of any person should not be to get rid of these situations, but to educate and cultivate psychological resistance to them.
Become an optimist towards yourself and a pessimist towards the world around you
Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher, wrote about his everyday life: “When you wake up in the morning, say to yourself: the people with whom I have to deal today will be annoying, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, envious and rude.” Try writing this down in your morning gratitude journal!
Marcus Aurelius is one of the most famous Stoic philosophers. They did not focus, as we do now, on happiness and optimism, but believed that you need to imagine the worst outcome from the situation in order to mentally prepare yourself for difficulties. Because when you prepare yourself for the worst, another development of events will be a pleasant surprise.
There is some truth in this. If we are optimistic about everything that is beyond our control, we will be doomed to suffering, because everything very often does not go according to our plan. Therefore, it is worth being a pessimist in relation to the world and an optimist in relation to your own ability to overcome obstacles. That is, thinking that life is damn hard and the world is full of crap, but I can handle it and even become a better person in the process.
Set your moral compass
Southwick and Charney found that emotionally stable people have a strong sense of right and wrong. Even when in a life-threatening situation, they always thought about others, not just themselves.
During the interviews, we realized that many resilient individuals had a strong sense of right and wrong, which strengthened them during periods of great stress and as they bounced back from shock. Selflessness, caring for others, helping without expecting a return benefit for oneself - these qualities are often the core of the value system of such people.
"Unbreakable: The Science of Confronting Life's Challenges"
Find your inner masochist
As much as we want to feel good all the time, a small part of us likes pain and suffering. Because by overcoming them, we feel that our life has meaning. The most important moments in life that define us are often the most unpleasant: the proximity of death, the loss of loved ones, divorces and separations, victory in a painful battle or overcoming a difficult trial. It is through experiencing difficulties that we grow and change, and when we look back, we even feel grateful for them.
This happened to me too. I remember starting my business in 2008 and working 12, 14, 16 hours a day. I remember how I fell asleep lying with the laptop on my stomach, and in the morning I immediately went to work.
At first I worked so hard out of fear and necessity. I was broke, the economy was below par, I had nowhere to go. I lived on my friends’ couch, then my girlfriend supported me. Most months I couldn't help with rent. Sometimes I didn't have money for food. But I was determined that if I failed, it wouldn't be for lack of trying. Over time, these crazy working hours became the norm.
Then I realized that I had unintentionally developed a superpower in myself.
I remember a few years later, when my friends and I were renting a coworking house on the beach, I noticed that I was the first to get up and the last to turn off my computer at night. I worked on weekends and holidays without even knowing they were weekends and holidays. Over time it has become something that makes me proud, a part of my identity that I enjoy indulging.
Of course, workaholism has its downsides, and now I have learned to turn it on and off as needed. But I still get some kind of perverse pleasure from it and am still proud that I can work all weekend.
We all have that inner masochist. In athletes it manifests itself when they test the limits of their physical capabilities, in scientists when they obsessively analyze data, in soldiers and police officers when they risk themselves for the sake of others. When is yours? What pains do you enjoy? And how can you use this to your advantage during life’s difficulties?
Imitate strong personalities
What supports children who grow up in miserable conditions, but continue to live normal, fulfilling lives? They have role models who provide positive examples and support them.
Emmy Werner, one of the first psychologists to study resilience, observed the lives of children who grew up in poverty, in dysfunctional families with at least one parent who was an alcoholic, mentally ill, or violent.
Werner found that emotionally stable children who became productive, emotionally healthy adults had at least one person in their lives who was truly supportive and a role model.
Our research found a similar connection: Many people we interviewed said they had a role model—someone whose beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors inspired them.
"Unbreakable: The Science of Confronting Life's Challenges"
Sometimes it is difficult to find among your friends someone you would like to be like. This is fine. Southwick and Charney found that it is often enough to have a negative example in front of you - a person you never want to be like.
How can you unbalance a person?
To disrupt mental balance, it is necessary to influence a person with a force exceeding the usual threshold.
Each mentally stable person is characterized by a certain level of stability of ongoing processes. They are expressed in the mechanisms of mental defense and adaptation.
In this case, the following negative events can occur in a person’s life:
- death of a loved one;
- serious illness of a relative or your own health problems;
- layoffs at work;
- threats from someone else;
- long-term depression;
- being treated in a psychiatric department;
- women after childbirth;
- divorce;
- cheating spouse;
- difficult political situation (war, natural disasters).
All these events create an unreliable background of increased readiness of the psyche to react.
Develop Cognitive Flexibility
Each of us has a way that we usually cope with difficult situations. But what sets the most emotionally resilient people apart is that they use multiple coping mechanisms.
Resilient people tend to be flexible—they look at problems from different perspectives and respond to stress differently. They do not stick to just one method of dealing with difficulties. Instead, they switch from one survival strategy to another depending on the circumstances.
"Unbreakable: The Science of Confronting Life's Challenges"
What is the surest way to overcome difficulties that definitely works? Be tough? No. Ignore what's happening? No. Everyone mentioned humor.
There is evidence that humor helps overcome difficulties. Studies involving combat veterans, cancer patients, and surgical patients have shown that humor can reduce the intensity of a tense situation and is associated with resilience and the ability to tolerate stress.
"Unbreakable: The Science of Confronting Life's Challenges"
