13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do

• It’s a waste of time. Feeling sorry for yourself requires a lot of mental energy and does nothing to change the situation. Even when you can’t fix the problem, you can make choices to cope with life’s obstacles in a positive way. Feeling sorry for yourself won’t move you any closer to a solution.

• It leads to more negative emotions. Once you allow it to take hold, self-pity will ignite a flurry of other negative emotions. It can lead to anger, resentment, loneliness, and other feelings that fuel more negative thoughts.

• It can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Feelings of self-pity can lead to living a pitiful life. When you feel sorry for yourself, it’s unlikely you’ll perform at your best. As a result, you may experience more problems and increased failures, which will breed more feelings of self-pity.

• It prevents you from dealing with other emotions. Self-pity gets in the way of dealing with grief, sadness, anger, and other emotions. It can stall your progress from healing and moving forward because self-pity keeps the focus on why things should be different rather than accepting the situation for what it is.

• It causes you to overlook the good in your life. If five good things and one bad thing happen in a day, self-pity will cause you to focus only on the negative. When you feel sorry for yourself, you’ll miss out on the positive aspects of life.

• It interferes with relationships. A victim mentality is not an attractive characteristic. Complaining about how bad your life is will likely wear on people rather quickly. No one ever says, “What I really like about her is the fact that she always feels sorry for herself.”

Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself

Remember the three-pronged approach to achieving mental strength? To alleviate feelings of self-pity, you need to change your pitiful behavior and forbid yourself from indulging in pitiful thoughts. For Jack, this meant that he couldn’t spend all his time at home playing video games and watching TV. He needed to be around other kids his age and return to some of his previous activities that he was still able to do, like go to school. His parents also changed their thinking and began to view Jack as a survivor rather than a victim. Once they changed their thoughts about their son and the accident, they were able to exchange self-pity with gratitude.

Behave in a Manner that Makes it Hard to Feel Sorry for Yourself

Four months after Lincoln died, his family and I were facing what should have been his twenty-seventh birthday. I had been dreading that day for weeks because I had no idea how we’d pass the time. My cartoon bubble pictured us sitting around in a circle sharing a box of Kleenex and talking about how unfair it was that he never reached his twenty-seventh birthday.

When I finally worked up the courage to ask my mother-in-law how she planned to spend the day, without missing a beat she said, “What do you think about skydiving?” The best part was, she was serious. And, I had to admit, jumping out of a perfectly good airplane did seem like a much better idea than the pity party I’d imagined. It felt like the perfect way to honor Lincoln’s adventurous spirit. He’d always enjoyed meeting new people, going new places, and experiencing new things. It wasn’t unusual for him to head off on a spontaneous weekend trip, even if it meant he’d be flying the red-eye home and would have to go to work as soon as he stepped off the overnight flight. He’d say that one day of feeling tired at work was well worth the memories we’d created. Skydiving was something Lincoln would have loved to do so it seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate his life.

It’s impossible to feel sorry for yourself when you’re jumping out of an airplane—unless of course, you don’t have a parachute. Not only did we have a great time, but our skydiving experience led to an annual tradition. Every year on Lincoln’s birthday, we choose to celebrate his love of life and adventure. It’s led to some interesting experiences—from swimming with sharks to riding mules into the Grand Canyon. We’ve even taken flying trapeze lessons.

Each year, the whole family becomes involved in Lincoln’s birthday adventure. Some years, Lincoln’s grandmother watches from the sidelines with her camera, but two years ago, at the age of eighty-eight, she was first in line to go ziplining high above the trees. Even though I’m remarried, it’s a tradition we’ve continued, and my husband, Steve, even participates with us. It’s become a day we actually look forward to each year.

Our choice to spend the day doing something enjoyable isn’t about ignoring our grief or masking our sadness. It’s about making a conscious choice to celebrate life’s gifts and refusing to behave in a pitiful manner. Instead of pitying ourselves for what we lost, we choose to feel grateful for what we had.

When you notice self-pity creeping into your life, make a conscious effort to do something contrary to how you feel. You don’t have to jump out of a plane to ward off feelings of self-pity. Sometimes, small behavioral changes can make a big difference. Here are some examples:

• Volunteer to help a worthy cause. It will take your mind off your problems and you can feel good that you’ve helped support someone else. It’s hard to feel sorry for yourself when you’re serving hungry people in a soup kitchen or spending time with elderly residents in a nursing home.

• Perform a random act of kindness. Whether you mow the neighbor’s lawn or donate pet food to a local animal shelter, doing a good deed can help bring more meaning to your day.

• Do something active. Physical or mental activity will help you focus on something other than your misfortune. Exercise, sign up for a class, read a book, or learn a new hobby, and your behavior change can help shift your attitude.

The key to changing your feelings is finding which behaviors will extinguish your feelings of self-pity. Sometimes it’s a process of trial and error because the same behavioral change won’t work for everyone. If what you’re doing now isn’t working, try something new. If you never take a step in the right direction, you’ll stay right where you are.

Replace thoughts that Encourage Self-Pity

I once witnessed a fender bender in a grocery store parking lot. Two cars were backing up at the same time and their rear bumpers collided. The collision appeared to cause only minor damage to each vehicle.

I watched as one driver jumped out of his vehicle and said, “Just what I needed. Why do these things always happen to me? As if I didn’t already have enough to deal with today!”

Meanwhile, the other driver stepped out of his vehicle shaking his head. In a very calm voice he said, “Wow, we’re so lucky that no one got hurt. What a great day it is when you can get into an accident and walk away from it without a single injury.”

Both men experienced the exact same event. However, their perception of the event was completely different. One man viewed himself as a victim of horrible circumstance while the other man viewed the event as good fortune. Their reaction was all about their differences in perception.

You can view the events that happen in your life in many different ways. If you choose to view circumstances in a way that says, “I deserve better,” you’ll feel self-pity often. If you choose to look for the silver lining, even in a bad situation, you’ll experience joy and happiness much more often.

Almost every situation has a silver lining. Ask any kid what the best part about having divorced parents is and most of them will say, “I get more presents at Christmas!” Obviously, there isn’t much good that arises from divorce, but getting twice as many presents is one small aspect of divorce that some kids rather enjoy.

Reframing the way you look at a situation isn’t always easy, especially when you’re feeling like the host of your own pity party. Asking yourself the following questions can help change your negative thoughts into more realistic thoughts:

• What’s another way I could view my situation? This is where the “glass half empty or glass half full” thinking comes in. If you’re looking at it from the glass-half-empty angle, take a moment to think about how someone looking from a glass-half-full perspective might view the same situation.

• What advice would I give to a loved one who had this problem? Often, we’re better at handing out words of encouragement to other people rather than to ourselves. It’s unlikely you’d say to someone else, “You’ve got the worst life ever. Nothing ever goes right.” Instead, you’d hopefully offer some kind words of assistance such as, “You’ll figure out what to do, and you’ll make it through this. I know you will.” Take your own words of wisdom and apply them to your situation.

• What evidence do I have that I can get through this? Feeling sorry for ourselves often stems from a lack of confidence in our ability to handle problems. We tend to think that we’ll never get through something. Remind yourself of times when you’ve solved problems and coped with tragedy in the past. Reviewing your skills, support systems, and past experiences can give you an extra boost of confidence that will help you stop feeling sorry for yourself.

The more you indulge in thoughts that willfully delude yourself about your situation, the worse you’ll feel.

Common thoughts that lead to feelings of self-pity include things such as:

• I can’t handle one more problem.

• Good things always happen to everyone else.

• Bad things always happen to me.

• My life just gets worse all the time.

• No one else has to deal with this stuff.

• I just can’t catch a break.

You can choose to catch your negative thoughts before they spiral out of control. Though replacing overly negative thoughts with more realistic ones takes practice and hard work, it’s very effective in decreasing feelings of self-pity.

If you think, Bad things always happen to me, create a list of good things that have happened to you as well. Then, replace your original thought with something more realistic like, Some bad things happen to me, but plenty of good things happen to me as well. This doesn’t mean you should turn something negative into an unrealistically positive affirmation. Instead, strive to find a realistic way to look at your situation.

Exchange Self-Pity for Gratitude

Marla Runyan is a very accomplished woman. She has a master’s degree, she’s written a book, and she’s competed in the Olympics. She even became the first American woman to finish the 2002 New York Marathon with an astounding time of 2 hours, 27 minutes. What makes Marla particularly extraordinary is that she’s accomplished all these feats despite the fact that she’s legally blind.

At age nine, Marla was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, a form of macular degeneration that affects children. As her vision deteriorated, Marla discovered her love for running. Over the years, Marla has proved herself to be one of the fastest runners in the world, even though she’s never actually been able to see the finish line.

Initially, Marla became an accomplished athlete in the Paralympics. She competed in 1992 and then again in 1996. Not only did she earn a total of five gold medals and one silver medal, she also set several world records. But Marla didn’t stop there.

In 1999, she entered the Pan American Games and she won the 1,500-meter race. In 2000, she became the first legally blind athlete to ever compete in the Olympics. She was the first American to cross the finish line in the 1,500-meter race and she placed eighth overall.

Marla doesn’t see her blindness as a disability. In fact, she chooses to view it as a gift that allows her to become successful in both long- and short-distance races. In discussing her blindness in her book, No Finish Line: My Life as I See It, Marla writes, “It not only has forced me to prove my competence but also pushed me to achieve. It has given me gifts, such as will and commitment that I use every day.” Marla doesn’t focus on what her vision loss took from her. Instead, she chooses to feel grateful for what her vision impairment actually gave her.

While feeling sorry for yourself is about thinking I deserve better, gratitude is about thinking I have more than I deserve. Experiencing gratitude requires some extra effort, but it isn’t hard. Anyone can learn to become more grateful by developing new habits.

Start to acknowledge other people’s kindness and generosity. Affirm the good in the world and you will begin to appreciate what you have.

You don’t have to be rich, wildly successful, or have the perfect life to feel grateful. A person who earns $34,000 a year may think he doesn’t have much money but he is actually among the richest 1 percent of people in the world. If you’re reading this book, it means you’re more fortunate than the nearly one billion people in the world who can’t read, many of whom will be stuck in a life of poverty.

Look for those little things in life that you can so easily take for granted and work toward increasing your feelings of gratitude. Here are a few simple habits that can help you focus on what you have to be grateful for: