13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success

In the book “13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do: Take Back Your Power, Embrace Change, Face Your Fears, and Train Your Brain for Happiness and Success,” the author Amy Morin outlines core principles of success.  I recap the book in a minute or two; read below:

  1. Don’t feel sorry for yourself.  Instead, be thankful and remember it’s impossible to feel scared and grateful at the same time
  2. Keep your power.  Here are signs of losing power—others make you angry, guilty, or judged.  Control your emotions and set boundaries if there are people in your life—say a boss or in-law—who makes you feel your power is fleeting
  3. Lean into change.   When change is needed, make a plan and have small attainable goals.  As the saying goes, “by the yard, it’s hard.  By the inch, it’s a cinch.”
  4. Let go of things outside of your control.  If within your control, focus your sphere of influence
  5. Realize you can’t please everyone.  In Adam Grant’s book, he outlines helping others, and there are Givers, Takers, and Matchers.  Avoid Takers and meet Matchers in the middle
  6. Be an intelligent risk-taker.  Know the pros and cons, mitigate risks, and know when to walk away.  In looking at solutions, look for “and” answers instead of either-or solutions
  7. Let go of the past.  Forgive yourself, focus on the future, and remember, “you never can ‘should have’; otherwise, you’ll ‘should’ all over yourself.
  8. Learn from mistakes.  What were the failure points when planning a goal or project that didn’t work in the past?  How to mitigate the losses?  To achieve the goal, ask, “In what ways can I [fill in the blank]?”
  9. Support others’ success.  Envy is never good.  Life is not a zero-sum game.  Look for opportunities to collaborate instead of competing
  10. Know there will be setbacks and don’t give up.  Be kind to yourself.  Get knocked down?  Get back up
  11. Be O.K. being alone with your thoughts—journal, meditate, exercise
  12. Remember entitlement replaces the expectation of success with the actual work to achieve success
  13. Persevere with patience.  Read any book about success and know from the lightbulb’s invention to organizations that dominate the world today, know time is on your side and persistence beats resistance
standardMarch 22Tom SalonekBook Summary