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 pdfdrive com

Psychology, researchers compared fifth-grade children who were praised for
their intelligence and children who were praised for their efforts. All the children
were given a very difficult test. After they were shown their scores, they were
given two options—they could look at the tests of children who scored lower or
the tests of children who scored higher. The children who were praised for their
intelligence were most likely to look at the scores of the children who scored
lower so they could bolster their self-esteem. Children who had been praised for
their efforts were more eager to look at the tests of children who scored better so
they could learn from their mistakes. If you’re afraid of failure, you’ll be less
likely to learn from mistakes and, therefore, less likely to try again.
DON’T GIVE UP
As soon as Susan realized that just because she failed once didn’t necessarily
mean she’d fail again, she was more open to looking at her options for an
education. Once she started behaving like someone who could recover from

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failure—by researching colleges—she began to feel more hopeful that she could
fulfill her dream of becoming a teacher.
IDENTIFY BELIEFS ABOUT FAILURE THAT PREVENT YOU
FROM TRYING AGAIN
Thomas Edison was one of the most prolific inventors of all time. He held 1,093
patents for his products and the systems to support those products. Some of his
most famous inventions included the electric lightbulb, motion pictures, and the
phonograph. But not all his inventions became wildly successful. You’ve
probably never heard of his electric pen or the ghost machine. Those are just a
couple of his many failed inventions.
Edison knew that a certain number of his inventions were bound to fail and
when he created a product that either didn’t work or didn’t seem to be a hit with
the market, he didn’t view himself as a failure. In fact, he considered each failure
to be an important learning opportunity. According to a biography written about
Thomas Edison in 1915, a young assistant once commented that it was a shame
that they had been working for weeks without seeing any results, and Edison
replied by saying, “Results! No results? Why, man, I have gotten a lot of results!
I know several thousand things that won’t work.”
If you refuse to try again after you fail once, it’s likely you have developed
some inaccurate or unproductive beliefs about failure. Those beliefs influence
the way you think, feel, and behave toward failure. Here’s what the research says
about perseverance and failure:
• Deliberate practice is more important than natural talent. Although we’re
often led to believe that we’re either gifted with natural-born talent or we
aren’t, most talents can be cultivated through hard work. Research studies
have found that after ten years of daily practice, people can surpass others
with natural talent in chess, sports, music, and the visual arts. After twenty
years of dedicated practice, many people who lack natural talent can gain
world-class achievement. But often we believe if we weren’t born with a
specific gift, we won’t ever be able to develop enough talent to become
successful. This belief can cause you to give up before you’ve had a chance

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to cultivate the skills necessary to succeed.
• Grit is a better predictor of success than IQ. Clearly, not everyone with a
high IQ reaches a high level of achievement. In fact, a person’s IQ isn’t a
very good predictor of whether he or she will become successful. Grit,
defined as perseverance and passion for long-term goals, has been shown to
be a much more accurate predictor of achievement than IQ.
• Attributing failure to a lack of ability leads to learned helplessness. If you
think that your failure is caused by a lack of ability—and you think you can’t
improve upon that ability—you’re likely to develop a sense of learned
helplessness. Instead of trying again after you fail, you’ll either give up or
wait for someone else to do it for you. If you think you can’t improve, you
likely won’t try to get better.
Don’t allow inaccurate beliefs about your abilities to hold you back from
becoming successful. Spend some time thinking about your beliefs surrounding
failure. Look at your path to success as a marathon and not a sprint. Accept that
failure is part of the process that helps you learn and grow.
CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK ABOUT FAILURE
If you think failure is terrible, you’ll struggle to try a task over again if you’ve
already failed at it once. Here are some thoughts about failure that will likely
discourage you from trying again:
• Failure is unacceptable.
• I’m either a complete success or a complete failure.
• Failure is always all my fault.
• I failed because I’m bad.
• People won’t like me if I fail.

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• If I couldn’t do something right the first time, I won’t be able to do it right the
second time.
• I’m not good enough to succeed.
Irrational thoughts about failure may cause you to quit after your first failed
attempt. Work on replacing them with more realistic thoughts. Failure isn’t likely
as bad as you make it out to be in your mind. Focus on your efforts instead of the
outcome. When you’re trying to complete a difficult task, focus on what you
could gain from the challenge. Can you learn something new? Can you improve
your skills even if you aren’t initially successful? By thinking about what you
can learn from the experience, you’ll be more likely to accept that failure is part
of the process.
Self-compassion, and not necessarily high self-esteem, may be the key to
reaching your full potential. While being too hard on yourself can lead to the
resignation that you’re just not good enough, and being too easy on yourself may
lead to excuses for your behavior, self-compassion strikes just the right balance.
Self-compassion means viewing your failures kindly yet realistically. It means
understanding that everyone has shortcomings, including you, and that failure
doesn’t decrease your worth as a person. When you take a compassionate
approach to your own weaknesses, you’ll be more likely to recognize there is
room to grow and improve.
In a 2012 study titled “Self-Compassion Increased Self-Improvement
Motivation,” students were given a chance to improve failed test scores. One
group of students took a self-compassionate view of their failure while the other
group focused on bolstering their self-esteem. The results found that the students
who practiced self-compassion studied 25 percent longer and scored higher on
the second test compared with the students who focused on increasing their self-
esteem.
Avoid making your entire self-worth contingent upon high achievement or
you’ll be less likely to risk doing things where you may fail. Replace the
irrational thoughts with these realistic reminders:
• Failure is often part of the journey to success.

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• I can handle failure.
• I can learn from my failures.
• Failure is a sign that I’m challenging myself and I can choose to try again.
• I have the power to overcome failure if I choose.