To be a successful in business and life you need to be strong-minded.
The most successful people focus on building a strong mindset to help them navigate the fears, failures, experiences and obstacles that come with growing a successful business and life.
Their strong mindset helps them transform their past experiences, be they good or bad, and their feelings about them into measurable criteria for future growth.
In this article I’m going to give a definition of being strong minded, share some strong minded quotes and outline 10 important ways that strong minded people think differently.
If you want to have a strong mind you must take seriously what went well and what didn’t go so well in any situation.
You must get clear on what you want and what you don’t want in your future, and use those choices as the measurement for your future growth.
What sets strong-minded people apart is their ability to make decisions and communications that help them stay in a growth mindset despite the challenges, fears and obstacles they face.
Strong-minded definition
In this article, the strong-minded definition I use is having the mindset and capacity to face and overcome challenges.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines being strong-minded as:
“Someone who is strong-minded is determined and unwilling to change their opinions and beliefs”
Merriam Webster defines being strong-minded as:
“having a vigorous mind, especially: marked by independence of thought and judgment”
In this article I talk about the characteristics of a strong-mind being someone who has the capabilities, the mindset, and the ability to think about their thinking in such as way that they can confront and overcome difficulties of all kinds.
When someone is strong of mind, they have the energy, focus and mental stamina to deal with challenges internally.
Having mental toughness gives us the courage to build confidence, overcome obstacles and grow from that experience.
Strong-Minded quotes
Here are a selection of quotes about being strong-minded which will be a set up to the 23 characteristics that are important to be strong-minded.
“Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love.” – Vince Lombardi
“It takes energy, mental toughness and spiritual reinforcement to successfully deal with life’s opportunities, and to reach your objectives.” – Zig Ziglar
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude.” – Thomas Jefferson
“It’s when the discomfort strikes that they realise a strong mind is the most powerful weapon of all.” – Chrissie Wellington
“Argue for your limitations and, sure enough, they’re yours.” – Richard Bach
How to be strong-minded
Being strong-minded is a mindset that has a number of characteristics, and here are 23 characteristics that you can use to be strong-minded and mentally strong:
1. Strong-Minded People know where they’re headed
Strong-minded people have a clear direction and purpose.
They know exactly what they want to achieve and have a clear game plan to get them there.
Although challenges, frustrations and failures may throw them off course for a while, their clarity of vision helps them stay strong of mind to overcome these obstacles.
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2. Strong-Minded people are committed
Combined with a strong sense of purpose is a commitment and perseverance to stay the course despite the roadblocks that may come up.
When you are committed to something important to you, no amount of failures will stop you from reaching your goals.
3. Strong-Minded people know how to overcome obstacles
We all have obstacles to overcome on our journey to reach our goals.
People with a strong mind are clear on the obstacles they face and have a built in strategy to creating a plan of action to overcome the obstacle.
Think back to a time when you overcome an obstacle. What strategy did you use?
Think of another obstacle you overcame. Did you use the same strategy?
Try to notice a common process you used to overcome obstacles, and put that process to use the next time an obstacle comes up.
4. Strong-Minded people know their capabilities
When the going gets tough, people with a strong mind have to be crystal clear on what they’re really good at, their capabilities.
When you understand what you’re really good at, and spend more time doing that activity, you have the ability to overcome many obstacles.
At any time of crises, focus on using your biggest capabilities.
5. Strong-Minded people have a gratitude mindset
People who are strong of mind always appreciate something in their day, no matter how hard it’s been.
If you have a gratitude mindset you will always be coming from a place of abundance, rather than scarcity.
When you’ve had a difficult day, write down one or two things that you’re grateful for.
Try doing this daily practice for seven days.
6. Strong-Minded people are always learning
When we experience success we feel great, positive and motivated to achieve bigger and better goals.
But when we have frustrations and failures we can look at the experience as a big setback or have a different mindset.
Rather than looking at things that go wrong as failures, strong-minded people have the mindset that it is a learning experience rather than a failure experience.
They put things in place to learn from what happened and go again, rather than staying down and defeated.
7. Strong-Minded people play a longer game
People who are clear on where they’re headed have a bigger vision of themselves in the future.
Their vision is longer, often three years, five years, or sometimes twenty-five years.
They’re playing a longer game which removes time scarcity in the present and creates a bigger framework for achieving their goals.
Rather than experiencing busyness and stress to hit shorter and shorter goal deadlines, strong-minded people give themselves the time freedom to achieve what they really want.
8. Strong-Minded people think in terms of abundance not scarcity
Having an abundance mindset makes you feel excited, motivated and energised, while a scarcity mindset can make you feel overwhelmed and stuck.
Strong-minded people are focused on creating value in the world with other like-minded people.
They think in terms of opportunity and are always looking for ways to multiply their value in the marketplace and surround themselves with a community of people who think alike.
9. Strong-Minded people are clear on their values
Setting up values in advance gives you a consistent track to follow.
This could be personally and for your business. It makes it clear what you stand for, and often, what you stand against.
This set of values will attract the right people to you, and repel the people who don’t agree with them.
Having a core set of values acts as a guiding principle to everything you do and is fully supportive of your vision and goals.
10. Strong-Minded people say no to things
When you’re crystal clear on your goals and have a game plan to achieve them you’re also clear on the activities you want to undertake.
If opportunities, projects or relationships don’t align with those goals, strong-minded people have the confidence to say no, rather than saying yes to everything.
To get 13 additional ways strong-minded people think differently read the full article here
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