4 Tiny Habits That Will Make You Mentally Calmer Than 98% Of People
Mental calmness is achieved by cultivating small habits.
max-kegfire | Canva One of the big lessons I learned after years and years of anxiety and personal insecurities was the power of habits.
Doing things repeatedly always leaves a groove.
Habits aren’t just for physical health and business growth.
Mental strength and the resulting experience of more calm result from healthy psychological ‘super habits.’
Here are 4 tiny habits that will make you mentally calmer than 98% of people:
1. Not buying into your thoughts.
The most uptight people I know never received the memo that we needn’t believe (buy into) our thoughts.
Thoughts are illusions at best.
They are suggestions and approximations intended to help us make sense of our world.
Too many of us see them as some kind of matter-of-fact gospel.
They never were.
Your stressful thoughts don’t need to be taken seriously.
All there is is the calming beauty of the present moment.
Photo: Clement percheron
2. Being conscious of incoming artificial dopamine spikers.
We need to be careful with things that unnaturally spike dopamine (our motivation hormone), like refined sugar and video games.
When we continually flood ourselves with cheap hits of this stuff, we lose our motivation and joy for natural inputs like walks and creativity.
It’s simply easier to feel good vibes more of the time when we’re not jacked up on artificial stimuli.
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3. Willing to have imperfect information.
One of the best sources of fear and stress comes from many of us wanting to know what the future will hold.
We get stressed because if we don’t know, we can’t possibly avoid all the mistakes we’re deathly scared to make. This comes out of insecurity. Relaxed people are tolerant of uncertainty.
They are OK with not having all the facts.
They have faith that their innate intelligence will be there for them when they need it.
It always shows up.
Photo: Spencer Selover/Pexels
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4. Nurturing a preference for lucidity.
A common trait in worriers, depressed people, scaredy cats, addicts, and Doubting Debbies is a preference for escape.
They reject the reality of the present.
They figured a suitable coping strategy for the struggles of life was to get on outta there, sharpish.
They do this by hitching a ride on the magic carpets of thought, no matter how prickly.
They may also chug back a few beers daily to numb the hurt.
But the solution isn’t to run.
It’s to look directly at the thing you fear and, in doing so, sense an immediate fading of the ‘terror’ right then and there.
This is a practice. It’s a habit.
To return to what’s there, more often, more of the time.
Let go when you want to rage.
To be there with us.
Seeing things for what they are in full technicolor lucidity is your salvation.
RELATED: 9 Easy Little Habits That Make People More Resilient
Alex Mathers is a writer and coach who helps you build a money-making personal brand with your knowledge and skills while staying mentally resilient.