Amy Morin

I am.

Amy Morin

I was writing on the side. That was my side hustle was being a freelance writer. I’d written articles for years, and then it even went viral, and I never intended for this one to go viral.

Amy Morin

Here’s a little bit of the backstory. When I was 23, I had just started my career as a therapist when my mother passed away very suddenly from a brain aneurysm. And then, on the three-year anniversary of her death, my 26-year-old husband died of a heart attack.

It was throughout that grief that my journey to become mentally strong became personal. It was something I was always interested in as a therapist, but it was at that point I had to figure out what does becoming mentally strong mean. How do I apply these things to my life?

I became more invested than ever. I saw a lot of people that had gone through tough things, and some of them were able to come out mentally stronger, and other people weren’t. I wanted to know what made some people mentally stronger than others.

Two years down the road, I had gotten remarried, and life was starting to look good again, and my father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Found myself in rough spot thinking “It’s unfair,” and “How come every time something good happens, something bad happens? Why do these things have to happen to me?”

Amy Morin

Just as quickly as I started to throw a pity party for myself, I said “No. Mentally strong people don’t do that.” I sat down, and I wrote the list of all the things mentally strong people don’t do. It was a letter to me, but I thought, “Well, I’ll publish it online and see if it might help somebody else.”

I put the letter out there to the world, and then a couple of days, millions of people had read it, and then Forbs picked it up, and ten million more people read it on their website. It’s gone on to be read 50 million times online that I know of. And that led to the book.

I was an accidental author. I never even intended to write a book in the first place.

When people started showing so much interest in becoming mentally strong, and all the things mentally strong people don’t do, I was thrilled to be able to turn it into a book.

Amy Morin

There are three parts of mental strength.

1. Figuring out how you regulate your thoughts.

Because you don’t want to think overly negative, but you’ll also don’t want to be too positive.

When people walk into a situation being overly confident, that holds them back too.

It’s about figuring out how do you think realistically and how do you not give those negative or overly positive thoughts too much power in your life.

2. Regulating your emotions, so your emotions don’t control you.

So that when you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, you can still power to turn your day around and say “What can I do to make it a better day?” So you don’t get stuck in negative emotions.

Then, you’re also just aware of how are you feeling. When you’re anxious, you know that might affect your decision. When you’re sad, how that might affect your relationships. It is being more aware of how you feel.

3. Figuring out how to behave productively no matter what kind of circumstances you find yourself in.

So even if you don’t feel like going to the gym, you say “Okay. But that’s best for me, so I’m going to do it anyway.”

Those are the three things that make a person mentally strong.

Amy Morin

The first one is to be aware.

We talk so about good habits but when it comes to our bad habits, we just have to be aware of them and when you’re doing them so you don’t get stuck in them.

Amy Morin

Then, you can be able to say, “Okay. What advice would I give to a friend who had this problem?” We’re usually much kinder to other people, whereas you might beat yourself up about something. You probably be kind to somebody else. But at the same time, if it’s a trusted friend, hopefully, you’d be honest.

Ask yourself “What advice would I give somebody else?” Take some of that emotion out of it, and you can make better decisions when you do that.

Amy Morin

Another thing you can do is just write things down. When we’re stuck in our head and can’t figure something out, writing things down on paper forces you to look at it.

You can see things differently when you just put it out there and examine it on a piece of paper.

I think if we spend more time writing things down, and

I’m a fan of using a notebook and a pen. You can use the computer if you want.

Just physically writing something down makes you look at things just a little bit differently.

Amy Morin

Yeah. The first one on my list is that mainly, strong people don’t waste time feeling sorry for them.

Amy Morin

I told you in my story. There’s a reason that was number on the list because that was right there with what I was going through. I think all of us do that sometimes.

It’s a matter of figuring out that it’s okay to be sad and by all means, you should grieve when you lose somebody, or when you’re going through tough times, to be angry. All of those things are okay.

Self-pity goes beyond that. It’s when you start to exaggerate what’s going on in your life thinking that there’s no hope, that there aren’t any possible solutions and you just dwell on the problem. When you catch yourself doing that, it’s about saying “Okay. Pity parties aren’t helpful. What can I do instead?”

Sometimes, it’s forcing yourself to get off of the couch and go do something even when you don’t feel like it. Or it’s a matter of just changing your thinking and saying “Okay. I’ve been through tough stuff before. I can get through this too.”

Amy Morin

Yeah.

Amy Morin

It’s interesting to me as a therapist as people come in my office. Sometimes, I hear these outrageous stories of all these things people have been through. They’ll say “But it’s not that bad” or they don’t by any means feel sorry for themselves. It was one of the things I noticed over the years.

People that had gone through tough times who didn’t throw themselves a pity party got better much faster.

I had just learned that over the years that when somebody came into my office and just wanted to keep telling me all the bad things in life, they often got stuck in that. When I would offer ideas and we start looking at solutions, they’d have 101 reasons why those things wouldn’t work.

When somebody didn’t feel sorry for themselves, they would come in and they were ready, and say “Okay. Let’s go. Those are bad things that happened to me but let’s move forward, and how do we do that?”

Amy Morin

That’s right.

I think everybody that I talked to who come into my therapy office. Sometimes, they’ll have some hope of “What can I do to train their brain?” But also, they have to do the work.

Amy Morin

I don’t have any magic wands that will fix your brain but it’s only about going through the emotions every day. You can exercise your brain just like you can train your biceps to become bigger.

You can train your brain to think differently and it takes work and concerted effort. You have to reflect on your progress, check in with yourself, and pay attention to those exaggeratedly negative thoughts that you have.

Figure out how do you conquer that self-doubt? How do you think more realistically? How do you talk to yourself in a kind and compassionate manner?

After a while, those things become second nature. But, it’s a lot of work to get there.

Amy Morin

One big one is just gratitude and it’s a simple thing. It could be as easy as saying “Okay. Over dinner every day as a family, let’s go around the table and find one thing that we’re grateful for.”

If you keep a gratitude journal, the research is incredible. The benefits are everything from “you’ll sleep better” to probably “Live longer, and you have better relationships.”

The list goes on and on about the physical and psychological benefits that happen when you say “Okay. I’m going to make this one daily habit.” It takes two or three minutes out of your day at most but it helps to make your brain to start to look for the good in the world and changes your entire outlook on health.

Amy Morin

Yeah. I think that’s amazing.

Amy Morin

For people to know, it only takes a couple of seconds, and you can do a lot of these things anywhere.

Just pull up the pictures of people when you’re having a bad day. Look at it at work. Take it even at your lunch break, and just think about the things you’re grateful for.

Doing little teeny tiny habits only takes a few minutes but it can change the course of your entire life.

Amy Morin

Another big one people talk about is that mentally strong people don’t worry about pleasing everyone. I run into tons of people who say “It’s hard in saying “No. I don’t want somebody to be mad at me,” or I don’t want other people to think that I’m selfish.”

But after a while, they lose sight of their values and they end up going with the flow, or trying to do whatever they think will get them the most appreciation from other people. After a while, it becomes selfish because it’s saying “I need to have grace and acceptance from everyone else around me,” rather than living the kind of life they want to live.

Amy Morin

It’s about figuring out what is it that I want? What are my values? And how do I stick to those?

Know that sometimes, people are going to be mad at you and aren’t going to like what you do but that’s okay. It’s about self-acceptance. Once you’re okay with who you are and what you do, then it feels fine to know not everybody else has to be.

Amy Morin

Yes, and it’s definitely women that I get the biggest reactions from when they read that chapter in the book. For many of them, it’s terrifying. How do you start saying “No” to somebody?

A lot of people will say, “I don’t even know what I want anymore.” Even little decisions like when somebody says “Where do you want to eat dinner?” And they say “Oh, I don’t care,” because it’s just been ingrained in them that you just go with the flow no matter what even if it’s not what you want to do.

For a lot of people, it’s just about raising that awareness. “What is it that I want?” You just practice speaking up for yourself in little situations, and then when the sky doesn’t fall, after a while, people get a little more courage to do it and to figure out “How do I live my best life?”

Amy Morin

In the book, I have some examples of figuring out what your values are and then, to look at how are you living according to your values. What kinds of areas or things out of proportion you’re spending too much time and effort on? Then, make those things line up and often, that’s scary and hard for you.

You know that other people might think, “What are you doing?” when you change the way that you behave and the choices you make. But overtime, it’s the key to becoming mentally strong.

Amy Morin

It’s huge and I blame our technology on making us more impatient than ever.

We think, “If I can order something and it’s on my doorstep in 24 hours, I’ll be able to start a business and make it successful in one week.” Or people will tend to say, “I’ve been working on this one project for two months. I’m not seeing results so I’m just going to give up.”

I see people who want to lose weight, and they’ll say, “I’ll pound a two or week, then, I’ll never get there.” They don’t even bother trying.

Amy Morin

It’s about how do you set realistic goals for yourself, and how do you look at “What is it I’m going to do today?” You’re not going lose 100 lbs. overnight or you’re not going to save $100,000 in your 401k this week.

What are the little steps you can take today? Then, how do you keep yourself accountable?

Sometimes, it’s just a matter of having a calendar on the wall where you can check off that you went to the gym or you say, “Okay. I saved $10 today.” And, looking at it, and facing it. You tend to have a lot of anxiety about goals and our inability to get there fast, so a lot of people just give up. It’s about facing your progress and saying “I’m going to take a look at how I’m doing.”

Amy Morin

Once you know, “I’m taking small baby steps. Even though they’re small, at least they’re the steps in the right direction,” it can help you stay the course and to be able to look at it as more of a marathon rather than a sprint.

Amy Morin

You’re stronger than you think.

We tend to have so many thoughts that bombard us with things, “You can’t do that,” “You’ll fail,” “Nobody’s going to like that.” Or whatever it is that goes through your head.

You know that just because you think it, doesn’t mean it’s true, and you can talk back to that self-doubt and critique your mind, and know you can be stronger than that.

You can go ahead and do those things anyway even if you have that voice that bombards you with all the reasons you shouldn’t do it.