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- [00:01]
A
I just remember thinking like this isn't fair. I lost my mom, I lost my husband, and now I'm going to lose my father in law. And I wrote myself a letter of what mentally strong people don't do. I had 13 things on the list when I was done and I found that helpful. Every day I would just read that list and I would say, if I don't do these things today, somehow I'll be okay.
- [00:18]
B
Amy Morin is a psychotherapist and best selling author who gives practical advice on building mental strength. What other tips do you have for like easy things that people can implement today to increase their mental strength?
- [00:31]
A
So lots and lots of of simple exercises that work. But some of my favorite ones are the ones that you could do from anywhere and they don't cost any money and they only take a few minutes of your time.
- [00:40]
B
So one is I'm Erica Kohlberg and you're listening to the Erica Taught Me podcast. You guys know that I love investing because you know that if your money is just sitting in a bank account, you're losing out to inflation every single year. That's why you invest it, so that it grows without you having to put in any extra work. I've been using an investing app called Webull for almost four years and I had them do something really special for my listeners by using my link to sign up Today, you can get between 6 to 12 fractional shares for free. All you need to do is open an account and deposit any amount, even a dollar, to claim your free shares. So just by depositing a dollar you'll get between 6 to 12 free fractional shares. And if you're wondering what to actually invest in, we talk all about investing in episode 28, so go ahead and listen to that episode. To claim your free shares through my special link, just go to ericatatme.com invest or click the link in the show notes and it's Erica with a k. Again, that's ericata.com invest. I'm really excited to dive into how to become more mentally strong, but I think before we get there, I'd love to first understand what does it mean to be mentally strong.
- [02:03]
A
That's a great place to start. And I think the easiest way to explain it would be to say it's about living according to your values. But if we really break it down, there's three parts to it. It's about the way you think because we know a lot of our thoughts aren't true. We have something like 60,000 thoughts a day. Our brains lie to us. And just knowing that just because you think something like, ah, something bad's gonna happen, you don't have to necessarily believe it. The second part of mental strength is about our emotions and knowing that you don't have to be happy all the time, but you also don't have to stay stuck in a bad mood. If you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, you have the power to change how you feel. And then the third part is about our behavior. There's a lot of times in life where we have to do things we don't want to do, or we have to push ourselves when we don't feel motivated. And it's about having the skills to say, okay, I can do these things. And also, I know when to. When to rest, when to take a step back, but also how to balance that with knowing when to push myself. And a lot of it's about experimenting and figuring out what's going to work best for you.
- [03:03]
B
And of those, what do you think is the most important to dig into?
- [03:07]
A
Probably our thoughts. I think that so many people will say, you know, my, my feelings are out of line, or this or that. But when we really take a look at somebody's thoughts, you can really start to dissect what to do about it.
- [03:18]
B
And how do we control our thoughts? Cause I'm really bad at that. I let the negative thoughts seep in all the time.
- [03:24]
A
Well, you know, I think part of the strategy is to know that you don't have to control your thoughts. So the automatic thoughts are the things that pop into our heads that we don't really have control over. If you get an email from your boss that says, let's meet at 4pm, you're gonna have some automatic thoughts. One person's automatic thoughts might be, I'm about to get fired. Somebody else's automatic thought might be, ooh, I'm probably gonna get a raise, or I'm gonna be offered a really cool opportunity. This is gonna be fun. And that's all gonna depend on your life experiences, your current situation, how your mood is that day. There's lots of things that go into our automatic thoughts, but what we can control is how we respond to those thoughts. So if I get that email that says, let's meet at 4pm and my first thought is, I'm gonna get fired, I can then either indulge going down that rabbit hole where I start to think, I'm gonna get fired, I'm never gonna get a new job, I'm gonna be Homeless, I'm not gonna have any money and my life's about to fall apart. And then maybe I start packing my things in my office and I start really changing my behavior based on those thoughts. Or I could say, yeah, maybe that's one possibility, I'm going to get fired today. But what are five more? Maybe I'm going to be offered a new opportunity. Maybe my boss just has a question. Maybe my boss just wants to check in about a project. Maybe we're going to discuss new opportunities or something exciting in the company. I could remind myself that just because my first first thought was I'm going to get fired, it's not true, and then allow myself to think about other possibilities. And then I could just also remind myself, okay, thinking I'm going to get fired causes me to have anxiety. When I feel anxious, I start to think more anxious thoughts. So I might do something to reduce my anxious feelings by saying, I'm going to go for a little walk around the office or I'm going to engage in a conversation with a co worker about something much more pleasant, let's talk about something else to distract myself from those anxious feelings for a few minutes. And the more that we practice those skills and knowing that you don't have to indulge your automatic thoughts, you don't have to go down that rabbit hole, the better we become at knowing. You know, my brain tricks me sometimes. My brain lies to me because if we're not careful, those thoughts become a self fulfilling prophecy. If I think something bad is going to happen, sometimes I sabotage myself and make it, make it actually more likely to happen that I get rejected or that I get in trouble, or that people don't like me because I don't engage with them in a way that would be the opposite of what I'm thinking. And so then when we assume something's going to happen, it affects the way we feel, it affects our behavior, and then before you know it, you're much more likely to make some of your biggest fears actually come true.
- [05:59]
B
That is so interesting about the self fulfilling prophecy because it does feel like whenever I'm negatively talking about myself or thinking about myself, some of these things do come true. But it's probably because I've been just negatively thinking about it so much. So, for example, I don't know if people realize, but we're doing this podcast remotely and this is my second time ever doing a remote podcast interview, so I'm very nervous about it. I'm worried about all the tech and everything that could go wrong. And so I just started like, you witnessed this before we went live. But I started spiraling down and thinking of all the worst case scenarios and how it would be a waste of your time and we wouldn't get this episode out. And I just started panicking to a point where I couldn't even hear what you were saying. So what should I have done in that case?
- [06:45]
A
So in a case like that, I think before you start to allow that spiral to go down, yes, maybe things will go wrong. Then the question you can ask yourself is like, and what would be bad if that happened? So let's say we had logged in and there was a technical difficulty and we couldn't do the interview. That would be the worst case scenario is we wasted five or ten minutes of our time. Or I guess ultimate worst case scenario is we sit here and talk for an hour and then discover that the record button hadn't been pressed. So you think, all right, well then what would be so bad about that? That's one hour of my life. Those things happen. Amy's probably going to forgive me. It won't be the end of the world that she will understand. As a fellow podcaster and sometimes just reminding ourselves of that and then saying, this is stressful and here's what I'm going to do to make the very best of it. And in just noticing those moments where when our emotions get really high, our logic goes down. So as you say, because you felt anxious, your, your emotions went up and your ability to think clearly goes down. So in those moments to have some tricks in our back pocket of what can I do when my emotions start to get really high? If you're at home and there's nobody around, you have lots of options. But when you are on camera, when you're in a business meeting, when you're in front of other people, it becomes a little more difficult. So sometimes it's just about breathing. Like, I'm going to take some slow, slow, deep breaths. I'm going to center myself. And what you did earlier was perfect too. As you had said. Let's, let's pause. You explained to me what was going on and so that I knew too. Okay, you're a little bit nervous about this because it's something you haven't done before. And then we were able to have a conversation a little bit about that. And so I think just recognizing, ah, my anxiety is high, but that doesn't mean I then have to start thinking because I feel anxious. Obviously something bad's going to happen because Sometimes we do that. We think if our feelings are high about something, if it's anxiety and our anxiety is high, then we think it's intuition. Clearly something bad is going to happen. I wasn't meant to do this. Who am I to think I should be doing this right now? I need help. And the more that we start having all of those scattered thoughts, the more difficult it is to focus on the task in front of us. So if our anxiety skyrockets in those moments, sometimes just a slight slow, deep breath can help you slow your mind, slow your body down, give you a moment, and then you think, okay, this is stressful and here's what I'm going to do about it. A really good strategy for anxiety is what we call an if then plan. Okay, if my anxiety gets really high and I don't know what I'm going to say, then here's what I'll do. And sometimes people use this for a first date or if they're going to be giving a presentation in a business meeting. Like, if I forget what I was going to say then, and you have a plan going into it, then I'll take a sip of my water and I'll say, you know, I was going to say something, but I can't remember right now. Or they have a preplanned question that they're going to ask if it's a first date. Or maybe they say, tell me about where you grew up, something to that effect. And when we have an if then plan, then we know, hey, if I get really anxious and this is uncomfortable, then this is what I'm going to do. And for some reason, just having that plan usually helps us feel like, all right, I've got this. Even if the worst case scenario does happen, then I know what I'm going to do about it and it'll be okay.
- [09:52]
B
That makes sense. So if I'm understanding this correctly, for developing mental strength, it's not about changing our automatic thoughts. Our automatic thoughts are kind of out of our control, but it's about changing our reaction to those automatic thoughts. But I guess I'll press a little more on the automatic thoughts part. Is there a way you could control the automatic thoughts? Because, for instance, it seems like some people, their automatic thoughts err on the side of being more optimistic. Some people, their automatic thoughts, like for me, for myself, tend to be more negative. But when I think of automatic thoughts for other people, like, my perception is always optimistic and positive. So how do I. Can I change my automatic thoughts? Or it's truly that you can't change what your automatic thoughts are.
- [10:35]
A
Yeah, you can over time and it takes practice. So for some people, I'm a therapist. For some people who come into my therapy office, if they're battling depression and they're in the middle of a depressive episode, they're going to have incredibly negative automatic thoughts. The entire world looks like it's filled with doom and gloom and everything seems like an insurmountable obstacle. So in a case like that, we treat the depression. Once their depression gets better, like the black cloud lifts and suddenly they're like, oh, you know, now that I get this phone call, I'm not like, oh no, somebody's gonna bug me about something. When I hear the phone ring, I think, oh, I'm gonna answer the phone. Maybe it's a friend. They just have much more pleasant thoughts about everyday life. So in those cases, we have to treat the underlying mental health issue for other people where it's not necessarily they don't have an anxiety disorder or mood disorder. They just tend to be a little bit more on the pessimistic side. Or maybe they, as you say, tend to think a little more negatively about themselves. It can be like a self preservation thing where people say, you know, something bad happened to me once in my life and I wasn't ready for it. And it might not be something traumatic, maybe it was just they got blindsided at a job or a friend who ghosted them. So now as a self preservation measure, their brain's like, you know, I want to be on guard for bad things. I want to be ready for it before it happens. And then they tend to be a bit more negative because their brain's trying to protect them. So what we can do though, is to do a lot of experiments. And the more that you do experiments that don't turn out to be true, then the more that you start to train your brain to think a little bit differently. So if my brain says, hey, Amy, I bet you can't run a mile in 10 minutes, then my job is to say, but could I? Or if my brain tells me if I go to a networking meeting, my brain's like, you know, nobody's going to talk to you and nobody's going to like you. My goal might be to then say, you know, I'm going to introduce myself to five people today at this networking meeting and let's see what happens instead of allowing it to be a self fulfilling prophecy. Because if I walk into that networking meeting thinking nobody's going to like me, nobody's going to talk to me. I'm going to be incredibly awkward and I'm going to hate that I even came. I'm going to sit in the corner and not talk to anybody. And at the end of the hour, I'm going to think, see, I knew nobody was going to talk to me. I shouldn't have wasted my time. But if I then challenge myself and say, I'm going to go up to five people and introduce myself and see what happens, just as an experiment, I'll probably find that people are happy to speak to me, that we can have a conversation. I might meet some really cool people, we might exchange our numbers and keep in contact, and I might show my brain that it's not necessarily true. So the more that we can do that and the more that we can then say, all right, I'm going to change my behavior to see if I can test some of these theories that I have. If I think something bad's going to happen, I'm going to go out there and try it anyway. My brain says I can't do something. I'm going to test it and we can teach our brain, okay, you underestimate me. I'm more capable than I think that I am. And the other strategy then is to sometimes think, to argue the opposite. So if I think, oh, this is going to go horrible, well, what are the chances that maybe it will go well? And just by then reminding myself of maybe five reasons why something's going to go better than my automatic thought predicted it would, I then remind myself that just because that was my first thought, it's not necessarily true. There's other possibilities. For example, if I text a friend and they don't text back, my automatic thought after like 20 minutes might be they're probably mad at me or I annoyed them. So then I can just remind myself, or they're busy or they didn't get the text message yet, or maybe they are thinking about a reply or their phone's on silent. I could remind myself of those things every time. I then remind myself that, okay, there's five other or ten other possibilities. I'm just teaching my brain to sort of expand its horizons, be open minded. And then maybe the next time I don't get a text message immediately back, I could remind myself again. And when you do that consistently, your brain eventually starts to realize, okay, your friend always takes 25 minutes to reply. It's not a big deal. And I don't have as many automatic negative thoughts over time. If I do those two things I would say change your behavior. And then also when you have that automatic thought is to just think about the other possibilities. Because for whatever reason, our brains are often hardwired to go to the negative because it wants to keep you safe. But when you remind your brain that there are positive alternatives to over time, a lot of people will say, yeah, you know, my brain starts to become a little bit more positive and my thoughts aren't quite as pessimistic.
- [15:13]
B
Have you ever had to hire new people for your company? There are so many good candidates out there, but how do you find the one, that ideal candidate who has the right blend of skills, experience and personality to round out a team and help drive your business forward? You use Indeed and you don't search, you Match. Indeed is your matching and hiring platform with over 350 million global monthly visitors, according to Indeed Data, and a matching engine that helps you find quality candidates fast. So ditch the busywork, use Indeed for scheduling, screening and messaging and connect with candidates faster. But Indeed doesn't just help you hire faster. 93% of employers agree Indeed delivers the highest quality quality matches compared to other job sites. According to a recent Indeed survey, listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@indeed.com erica just go to indeed.com erica right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com Erica Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need Indeed. I think as you're talking about these things, I realize that I fall into these tendencies a lot. Like when you were saying the text message when someone doesn't respond in 25 minutes, I always think the worst, like, oh, they're mad at me. And even with phone calls. About 10 years ago I had a phone call where someone called me at work and it was to tell me that I lost someone in my family who was really important to me. And ever since then I've been traumatized by phone calls where, like, if you call me, I assume that it's the worst case scenario. So my family doesn't call me. We only like text and then call because of that. And I guess besides trying to train yourself to say, hey, it could be the worst case scenario, but it could also be a number of other scenarios like the person is busy or their phone is on silent. What else can I do to not be in these cycles where I'm always thinking so negatively?
- [17:25]
A
Yeah. So in some cases you could try. So like let's take the example of your family who they've made this accommodation for you where they say, you know, I'll text you first and that might be okay. You might decide, I'm 100% comfortable with this for the rest of my life. My family is happy to do this and you move forward, it doesn't create a huge problem for you. But then if you said, but I still have this cousin that calls or it drives somebody else in my family crazy because they always want to call and they don't want to make an appointment to call, what you could do then is have your family say, we're going to call you and we're all going to share really good news. Every time we do so for the next month, whenever we call you, it's going to be to tell you something amazing that's happened over time. That might train your brain to say, I'm going to associate phone calls with something positive rather than something negative and see if that works. Which it might. It might help you to say, you know, phone calls aren't always negative, sometimes they're positive too, and it might shift that for you. So there's times in life where we can say, let's shift the experience. If I can control a little bit of the environment, I will. And there's other times where we can say, you know, this is just, this is something that happened. When the phone rings, that's the first thing that pops into my head, is I'm about to get bad news. But then every time the phone rings, you take a deep breath and so maybe it's good news today and you answer the phone and just by telling yourself that, you might still feel anxious, but it might help your brain over time to recalibrate, to think a little bit differently, to say, here's my experience, but anytime we can shift the environment, I think it makes sense. And sometimes we always think, ah, I should be stronger, I should be doing this better. But for people who, somebody who's say, in a really unhealthy relationship or they work in a really toxic environment, it's tough to say, yeah, I'm going to suddenly change my thoughts sometimes shifting the environment. So if there are factors you can control in the environment, like I really like what you did to say to your family, like, text me first and then, then I won't have this huge spike in anxiety. And that might work amazing for you. And for other people who I've worked with too, they'll say, you know, I come home from work in a really bad mood. I need to be happier when I walk in the Door because I'm really, I struggle with patience with my family. So we say, well, what do you do on your commute? Let's listen to calming music or let's listen. Maybe somebody likes to listen to really loud rock music because that pumps them up and puts them in a better mood. So anything we can do in the environment sometimes too. To be able to say, how do I create the best environment for myself is huge.
- [19:51]
B
What other tips do you have for like, easy things that people can implement today to, to increase their mental strength?
- [19:58]
A
So lots and lots of simple exercises that work. But some of my favorite ones are the ones that you could do from anywhere and they don't cost any money and they only take a few minutes of your time. So one is gratitude. And people throw out gratitude all the time. Like, yeah, just be grateful for what you have. But the research on gratitude is astounding that it can help with everything from your social relationships, improve your physical health, improves. People who practice gratitude have a 20% boost in happiness in life and they actually tend to live longer. And the list goes on and on. And if you really want to pack the most power in your gratitude strategy, write in a gratitude journal before bed. Just writing three things down before you go to sleep that you're grateful for improves the quality of your sleep. And people fall asleep faster and stay asleep longer. So, and it doesn't have to be huge things. Yes, you're grateful that you have a job and you're grateful that you get to do these cool things in life. But sometimes it's about just saying, I'm grateful that I had this conversation with somebody at lunch or a stranger smiled at me and held the door for me when I was walking in the door today. So gratitude again helps our brain go towards the positive, boosts our mood, and then we tend to act kinder towards other people. So I think gratitude is a huge one. Another strategy that I like is to just find ways to challenge your brain and your thoughts every single day. Mine is, is that I run a timed mile. I don't like race for marathons or anything, but I run a mile as fast as I can and I try to beat my time from yesterday and, and I just do this over and over again. But every day when I get to about the three quarter mile mark, my brain will be like, oh, you can't do this, you're too tired, give up, slow down. And that's my opportunity to challenge those thoughts. When my brain tells me to slow down, I try to speed up just a little bit and change my behavior so that I'm acting more like the opposite of what I think I need to do. And that helps train my brain a bit to say, actually, you can do more than you think you can. Or just because you're. I think that you're tired, or just because I'm telling you that you can't do this doesn't mean it's true because I'm out there doing it. So some people like to do a cold plunge. Some people say, I find one person to talk to every day because I have a bit of social anxiety. But anything we can do to challenge our negative thoughts and to find that one thing that you try to do every day is really big on helping us to change our brains. Another strategy when it comes to the emotions is to just label our feelings. When we put a name to them, it helps our brain and our body make more sense of what's going on. So if somebody says, I feel sad right now, their sadness actually decreases in intensity just a little bit because we're like, oh, okay, that's what that is. That's sadness. Or I feel anxious right now. Putting a name to your anxiety can help you say, all right, that's okay. It's just an anxiety feeling. It's not like I'm experiencing a huge physical health problem or something like that. Cause a lot of times people end up in the ER with anxiety, especially panic attacks. Your brain tells your body, like, ah, it's time to freak out. And your heart races. And people, because they don't know what it is, tend to struggle more with. With decreasing the intensity and the duration of it. So just put a name to your feeling and then you ask yourself, is what I'm feeling right now a friend or an enemy? So many people talk about emotions and they say they're either positive or negative. I don't actually believe that emotions are positive or negative. I think any emotion has the power to be positive sometimes, but it also has the power to be negative sometimes. If I came to you and said, here's an amazing opportunity, and you get really excited about it, maybe it's a get rich quick scheme. In that moment, your excitement is your enemy. Because it would be like, yes, Amy, this is an amazing opportunity. Like, how could it go wrong? And you forget that there's a downside, but excitement's your friend, and it's a positive emotion. When you're, like, looking forward to a vacation, when you have something that you really want to do, it can be helpful. So just to remind Ourselves of that. That sadness is your friend when it helps you honor something that you lost. You lost a pet six months ago, and you're so kind of sad about it, that's okay. Embrace it. But if you're so sad you can't get out of bed days after days on end, that's when your emotions are an enemy. And you say, all right, what do I do? And. And if you want to change how you feel, there's two things you can do, which is change how you think or change how you behave. We tend to behave according to how we feel. If somebody's sad, we tend to listen to sad music, stay isolated, and not do anything active. So you say, well, what's the opposite of that? How do I feel when I'm in a good mood? Maybe I call a friend, I get some exercise, I listen to happy music. We have all of these skills and tools to shift our emotions, but sometimes you have to say, well, I don't feel like doing that, but I'm going to do it anyway. I'm going to go for a walk, even though I'd rather just sit in a dark room. And when we push ourselves to do those things, we can take some more control over how we feel. To say, all right, if my emotions aren't serving me well, how do I shift my feelings? So that was a long list of things. But again, I would say gratitude is a big one. Naming your emotions, figuring out if your feelings are a friend or an enemy, and then finding a way to challenge your unhelpful thoughts every single day. And all of those things are just some small things you can do to help you grow mentally stronger.
- [25:06]
B
I love how actually practical they are, too. I had heard the gratitude journal thing before, and I remember trying it for a few days. But like most things, I wasn't able to keep it up consistently. But those few days that I tried it, it did help. And especially doing it right before bed, you kind of go to sleep in a good mood, and it feels like it helps you to wake up in a good mood, too.
- [25:24]
A
Yeah, I think it is a powerful thing for people. It's tough to stick with, as you say, because sometimes it just feels like another chore, and the last thing you want to do is feel like gratitude forced. But for people who find it really helpful, they'll say, you know, just having that there helps me wind down at the end of the day. So I'm not thinking about that conversation that didn't go well, or I'm not rehashing something that happened last week, that didn't go as well as I had hoped, or I'm not worrying about something in the future helps me be present. Say, you know, here's some really good things that are going on in my life and then I feel a little bit happier when I go to bed and then I can fall asleep without ruminating quite so much on all the things that we often think about when we wake up at 2am what is.
- [26:06]
B
Your advice that you personally have the hardest time following?
- [26:11]
A
Oh, that's a great question. I think maybe changing my language. So I am somebody who I grew up incredibly shy, didn't speak. Like, in fact, I just found the other day my mom used to pin my name and address to me when I went to school as a little kid. Not because I didn't know my name and address, but because I wouldn't tell anybody. Like I really didn't speak. So if somebody had asked me like, oh, which bus do you go on? I wouldn't have said a word. And so the fact that I then grew up to become a podcaster and a speaker is mind blowing to me. But I still have times where I think I'm that shy kid who like, I can't do that or I'm not able to or that's just not me. And I think, no, now after all of these years, like, I'm proving to myself that I can do these things. But a lot of those habits and a lot of those automatic thoughts in my brain are still there sometimes because I've shifted who I am, I can do things I didn't think I could do. Yet it takes our brains a while to catch up to where our bodies are or where we are in life. And so my brain still sometimes has those beliefs of like, I can't do certain things. And so yes, even though I talk about how to get rid of your self limiting beliefs and how to change a lot of those labels that we grew up with and those things that we carry around with us. I still catch myself often thinking, no, I can't do that, or that would be too uncomfortable or I'm not somebody who's able to do something like that. And then I remind myself, you can if you want to.
- [27:37]
B
You can. If you're listening. Let me guess, you have a passcode on your phone. And let me take another wild guess and say that you have a password on your computer. But why are so many of us okay just being completely unprotected online? We have no idea who has all our personal information online. And whether it's the good guys or the bad guys who might be selling your information or worse, we're talking spammers, telemarketers, robocallers, people who want to know more about you and even where you live. My sister had her data leaked online and because of that, her identity was stolen and it was a nightmare to deal with. We had to lock down all her credit cards, just for starters. That's why I'm excited to tell you about Aura, a sponsor of this episode. Aura can identify data brokers exposing your info and submit opt out requests on your behalf. When I discovered it, I knew I had to try it out just to see if my information had been leaked online, which they let me see instantly after I signed up. And get this for my audience, they're offering a free 14 day trial so you can see if your personal information has been leaked online. To find out now, go to Erica taught me.com aura to claim your free 14 day trial. Erica with a K and aura is spelled A U R A. Again that's Erica taught me.com aura and I'll also leave the link in the show notes. Is that all nature versus nurture? Is that because sometimes we're, some of us are pre wired to, let's say, be shy? Or is that the way that we were raised, our environment, the things our.
- [29:22]
A
Parents said to us, it's really a combination. So our personalities play a big role and you're born with inherent characteristics and traits and things that are a little bit different than somebody else's. And then we have life experiences that play into that too. For me, every report card I ever had, my teacher said, Amy's painfully shy. And if you want somebody to not talk, all you have to do is remind them frequently that they're painfully shy and then they're less likely to talk. So that certainly factored in there. And then I had a sister, an older sister and some friends who spoke for me so I didn't have to talk. So that helped as well that I just reinforced, you know, I don't have to speak up because they'll ask if I need something. They'll recognize it and they'll ask for me. So all of those factors, and I think for some of us it was about the way that we were raised. If somebody grew up with a parent with a certain issue or we learned something from the role models in our lives or the way that we interpreted events, certain things that happened to us. Sometimes I'll see siblings who grew up in the exact Same environment, yet have completely different perspectives on things because they interpreted events differently. So there's a lot of factors going on. And then in our adult lives, what do we do? Who do we spend time with? Again, those self fulfilling prophecies. For somebody who thinks, I'm, I'm socially awkward and I don't have any friends, if they grow up believing that as a kid, and maybe they got picked on or teased as an adult, maybe they don't go out there and put themselves out there. And then that belief becomes more accurate because they think, well, nobody talks to me. But it's also that they don't talk to other people. So there's a lot of things we do when we develop a certain belief about ourselves. There's a lot of behaviors that, that we start to put out there that kind of contribute to reinforcing that belief too.
- [31:04]
B
The parents who are listening, what can they do to help their children become mentally strong adults?
- [31:10]
A
Oh, there's so many things. So one is to make sure that we're letting kids make mistakes and letting them try things on their own. It's so tempting to swoop in and save them from anything that would be painful and to teach them. We think that we're teaching them when we like, no, do it like this or don't do that. But mistakes and natural consequences can be some of life's best teachers. And to make sure that we're giving them guidance on how to deal with their emotions. When a child is frustrated, we're like, oh, I need to calm them down. Or when they're having a bad day, we want to cheer them up, but we don't want to do those things. We want to teach them how to do those things on their own. So that when they're in college or once they moved out of the house that they have some skills to say, all right, when I'm upset, here's how I can calm myself down. So instead of saying calm down or let's go out for ice cream because you've had a bad day, let's have some conversations like, what could you do right now that might make you feel a little bit better? Coloring a picture, going outside and playing for a little bit, and making sure that we're then coaching them rather than telling them what to do. And the same can be said for giving kids reassurance. When your child says, oh, I have a dance recital on Friday and I know I'm going to mess up and it's going to be embarrassing, our tendency is to be like, no, you're going to do great, it'll be fine. But then they become more reliant on us to constantly reassure them rather than learning how to reassure themselves. So a better strategy is to ask them a question back, like, what's the evidence that you might actually do really well? Or you can say to them, what would you say to your friend if your best friend said, I'm going to mess up on Fridays recital, what would you say? And your child's gonna be like, I tell them they do fine. Okay, well what if you told yourself that too? So that we're teaching them how to change their thoughts and how to deal with those negative thoughts that they have too, instead of us always being the one to reassure them. Otherwise you're gonna have a 30 year old who's still calling you to be like, mom, I'm struggling with this, what do I do about it? And you're not always gonna be available to answer the phone or to give them that reassurance right in the moment. So we wanna make sure that they have some skills so that they can do those things for themselves.
- [33:12]
B
To, for your book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do. What was your inspiration? I mean, what inspired you to dig so deep into this topic that you wrote this award winning book on it?
- [33:24]
A
So it was completely personal. I was a therapist and I thought I was going to start my career by teaching all these people, teaching people this stuff that I had learned in college. But it was shortly into my career, about a year that my mom passed away and I lost her suddenly and unexpectedly. And suddenly it was like, okay, Amy, this isn't just about teaching people what you learned in a textbook, but how do you go through tough times and come out on the other side of it? And I started digging deeper than ever into mental strength and what that meant and resilience and adversity and all sorts of things. And was glad that I did because on the three year anniversary of the day my mom died, my 26 year old husband died of a heart attack. And so now I found myself a widow. I don't have my mom and I'm supposed to be a therapist who helps other people deal with their problems. And as a therapist I was taught, like, build on people's strengths. When they come into your office and they're doing something well, point that out and really build them up and talk about the great things they're doing. But I realized too, like, if I went to see a physical trainer and they told me to run on the treadmill, that'd be great. And I'd run on the treadmill, but I'd be upset if they didn't tell me, like, hey, all that junk food you eat actually undoes the progress you're doing on the treadmill. I'd much rather somebody said, quit eating two donuts a day, and then you don't have to run on the treadmill so much. So I thought, you know, we're doing people a disservice in the mental health field if we aren't pointing out that, like, one or two bad habits that keep people stuck. So that's what I started to focus on. Because I noticed that was the same for people in my therapy office. The people who did the best, who still had the most hope, who still went through tough times and they were doing well. It was often about what they didn't do, people who didn't have certain bad habits. So I started talking about that and focusing on that in my own life. But I didn't really turn it into a list of the 13 things until I was faced with another loss. My father in law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And I just remember thinking like, this isn't fair. I lost my mom, I lost my husband, and now I'm going to lose my father in law. And I wrote myself a letter of what mentally strong people don't do. And it was. I had 13 things on the list when I was done, and I found that helpful. Every day I would just read that list and I would say, if I don't do these things today, somehow I'll be okay. And I thought, well, maybe this list would help somebody else. So I put it on the Internet, thinking, like, five people would read it. But 15 million people read the list, and one of the people who read it was a literary agent who said, you should write a book. I was a therapist in rural Maine. I had no. Never thought about writing a book, and so really wasn't on my radar. And I said, well, I'm a therapist and I listen to other people's problems. I don't really tell people about mine. So thank you, but no, thank you. Unfortunately, she followed up with me and I decided, all right, maybe, maybe I could write a book again. A lot of those thoughts of, like, no, I'm not the kind of person who could write a book. And I thought, well, if I'm going to write a book about mental strength, I should probably walk the walk too, and say, let's challenge those thoughts. Could I be somebody who writes a book? And so we kept it true to the original 13 things that were on the list that went viral, and it was all the things I had learned through my personal experiences. But also as a therapist, if we give up those certain bad habits in life, the good habits that we already have become so much more effective. And I found that to be more true than ever as the years go on, that sometimes you just got to work on focusing on, what's that one bad habit? And if I give it up, how can the good habits in my life become effective? Because we already have good habits. I guarantee that we do, but sometimes we just feel like they're not as effective as they could be.
- [36:58]
B
What do you think are the three worst habits that are impacting our mental health?
- [37:03]
A
I think feeling sorry for ourselves and to know that it's okay to be sad and it's okay to struggle with uncomfortable emotions, but when we feel sorry for ourselves is when we exaggerate how bad our life is, when we think there's nothing that we can do about it and we stay stuck. That would be one another one would be giving away our power, which is when we blame other people. Like, oh, all of these other people are holding me back, or my boss ruins my day or my cousin wastes my time. Like, nope, you're in charge of how you think, how you feel, how you behave. You're in charge of the, of your time, who you spend it with, what you're going to do today. And just taking ownership for that can go a long way toward helping us feel better. And a third one would be probably not repeating our mistakes. So often we think, oh, it's not meant to be. If we make a mistake, we think, I'm not the kind of person who could recover from that. Or we focus on hiding our mistakes rather than learning from them and knowing that mistakes aren't the end of the world. That's how we learn, that's how we grow. That's how we get better, is by putting ourselves out there and that we don't have to be perfect the first time we do something or even the fifth time, but that every mistake is an opportunity to learn and do better next time.
- [38:21]
B
I know your background isn't personal finance, but of course, every time you're saying these things, I'm thinking about my audience. My audience really cares about personal finance and getting to this financial freedom. And I found that one of the things that stops a lot of people from getting to, to a place where they're more comfortable with their money is that second thing you mentioned, where they're blaming everything else. They're blaming other people, they're blaming the world and everything for why they're in the financial situation that they're in. So for that one specifically, you mentioned some ways that you can combat it, but how else would you think that someone can combat that urge to blame everyone else and everything on their own circumstances?
- [39:05]
A
There's actually so much research about the link between financial health and mental health, and I don't know why we don't talk more about. About that. We know that debt increases the likelihood that we'll struggle with depression and anxiety. And it's difficult to be motivated when you're struggling. And a lot of it does come from blaming circumstances. And part of that is life knowing that. Yep, there's unexpected bills that come our way. Sometimes the car needs a repair or something breaks down in your house, or you get an illness, or you're not getting the raises and inflation, a lot of things we can't control. So then to ask yourself, well, what can I control? I can control my spending on certain things, I can manage my budget. How do I control my income? Maybe I have to get a second job for a while, maybe I do some freelancing, maybe I ask for a raise. But it's really important to create a list of what do I. What is within my control and then to really outline and what are the things completely out of my control. Let's take inflation, for instance. I can't control the prices in the grocery store, okay? And then to know that. But I don't have to blame the government. I don't have to blame other people. I don't have to blame the people who own the stores who are charging higher prices. Instead, just knowing that, okay, this is what it is, and I'm going to accept that. I don't have to be happy about it, but I can accept that for right now, these are the prices I'm dealing with. And then take that step back and say, what am I going to do about it? How do I control what I can control? And I think that's a. When we do that, that really helps us to say, all right, it's not that everything's out of control. I'll never get ahead. Maybe I have a small goal of how many dollars am I going to save today? Or how many am I going to save this week? What do I want my income to be this year? When we just really start to break it down into what can I control? And then what small steps am I going to take to get there. It starts to feel a lot more manageable. When people start to pay off one bill at a time. You have that snowball effect where people are like, oh, okay. Or you start to see your, your retirement and your investments start to go up. You get that little bit of boost of motivation. I think anything we can do to have visual reminders, whether you've got charts and graphs hanging on your refrigerator, you've got the apps, those sorts of things to hold yourself accountable, to take a look at what you're dealing with, and to remind yourself, maybe I can only save $5 today, but that's $5 I didn't have yesterday. And it starts to stack up. And when we see the a little bit of progress, it builds momentum. We start to feel a little more hopeful. When we're feeling more hopeful, we're likely to say, you know, actually, there's like, three other things I can cut from my budget this month that I don't really need these things, or there's. I do have an extra couple of days a week. I could do some freelancing after work or on the weekends. And here's what that would look like, and here' it would affect my budget over time. So I think anything we can do to focus on what we can control and recognize, yep, these other things are out of my control, but I don't have to waste my time complaining about them, or I don't have to waste a lot of time worrying about those things because there's nothing I can do about it anyway.
- [42:01]
B
I really like that. That makes a lot of sense and is. I've seen that happen where people. It's just like a snowball effect. Like you're saying, once they get one little win under their belt, they're motivated to go for the bigger wins, too. And that's why for all these free programs that I do, I always try to give them one tangible win at the very beginning because you'll see that the results are going to snowball from there. Because they realized if you can do this one little thing, yeah, of course I can do. If I can open my High Yield Savings account or if I can invest $10, then, yeah, maybe I can invest $100 or $1,000 or do the next thing. I've seen that a lot.
- [42:38]
A
I have, too. And some people just feel so overwhelmed, they don't know where to start and they struggle with making any changes, or they feel like this $5 is not going to make a dent in this credit card bill that I have. So they Just don't bother to do it. And then sometimes people wait until the very end, or they think, I have to pay off this $30,000 expense that I had, even though I have these little expenses. But sometimes it's just about paying off the little ones first. And when people do, they say, oh, yeah, so now I have one less bill I have to pay a month now that I've started investing a little bit, and I'm starting to see it grow. Like, it feels a little bit better. And then when we feel better, we have more motivation. And sometimes an amazing thing happens, too. When people start to get their finances in order, then they start to take more charge of their health. And then they start saying, I really value my time, so what am I going to do with it? And they start to engage in more positive activities, and it creates this snowball effect for their entire lives. And then their mental health improves because they say, I feel I'm feeling so much better. Like, I have more control over these things in my life and that I have the power to create even more change. And amazing things can happen for the.
- [43:48]
B
One of the other ones that you mentioned, which mentally strong people don't do, which is feeling sorry for themselves. How do you get yourself out of that? And specifically with your story and everything that you went through with your family, your mom and your husband? And how did you stop feeling sorry for yourself?
- [44:05]
A
Yeah, you know, there were moments, and that's why that was number one on my list when I wrote the letter to myself, because that's right where I was is I was thinking, this isn't fair. And part of it was just accepting that, yep, life isn't fair. Everybody goes through hard times, but my option is to then decide, what am I going to do about it? And I wanted to let myself feel sad and to grieve. That's part of the healing process. But I didn't want to just bury myself into a dark room and say, I can never function again or I can't have any. I don't want to let new people into my life because I'm so afraid of loss. I want it to be somebody who said, and I'm going to try to live the best life I can despite the cards that I was dealt. And I think anytime we catch ourselves feeling sorry for ourselves, sometimes it's about acting the opposite when we feel like, oh, I'm just going to sit on the couch for the next three weeks and not go anywhere or do anything, figure out what do I have to contribute. And it Might be, I have a smile I can give a stranger in the store. Or it might be just something small. Sometimes the clients I work with will say, I'm not able to work because I have a health issue. But you know what? I could knit mittens and donate those to a homeless shelter. Or I have time to give, or I have a certain skill or a hobby or something to contribute to the world. And when we have some sort of sense of purpose, even when we're going through tough times, it makes it a lot easier to get through it. And your purpose doesn't have to be huge. You don't have to build a school in a third world country. Instead, your purpose might just be, I'm going to smile at a stranger today, or I'm going to say hi to somebody, or I'm going to compliment the clerk at the store or send three nice text messages to people that I haven't talked to lately, or I'm going to go on Instagram and leave a kind comment for my favorite author or my favorite artist. There's little things we could do. And when we start to see, all right, I have the ability to make the world a little bit better, even on a bad day. And we're like, you know, I have some value. And even though life might be rough, I have choices in how I spend my time and who I spend it with. And that empowers us. I think, even to get through the roughest times is when we know. Yep. Even when life is bad, I don't just have to idly sit around and wait for something good to come around the corner. Instead, I can take action in some really small ways and try to make life a little bit better, either for myself or for somebody else.
- [46:22]
B
So if you were to prescribe three things that you want people to do today to become more mentally strong, what would those three things be?
- [46:30]
A
Good question. So if somebody is a worrier, somebody who worries a lot, I would prescribe that you schedule time to worry, which sounds ridiculous, but there's research behind it that shows it's incredibly effective. Basically, it works like this. You schedule 15 minutes a day to worry. Put it in your calendar, maybe from 7 to 7:15 in the evenings, you're gonna sit at your kitchen table and worry about anything and everything. And then when your time's up, get up and go do something else. And the trick is, whenever you catch yourself worrying outside of that time, you just remind yourself it's not time to worry yet. I'll worry about that later. And the first week it's really tough because you just keep worrying and you keep thinking, it's noon and I'm thinking about all of these things. I'm going to worry about that later. But when I do this with therapy clients, by about the second or third week, they will look like the weight of the world has literally been lifted off of their shoulders. As they'll say, I've trained my brain to know that I can worry, but I don't have to worry 24, 7. Instead, I'm just going to worry for 15 minutes a day. And then they'll say, I can concentrate now on what's going on in front of me. I don't have to spend so much time rehashing things that already happened. I'm able to focus. So for anybody who worries a lot, schedule 15 minutes a day, practice that, and you'll find that your brain gets freed up a lot during the day to think about other things. So that would be number one. Number two would be, if you are trying to change a habit in your life, whether you want to start something or you want to give up something. I would write down a list of reasons why. So I used to work with a man who said, I get out of work every day, and I either turn right to go home out of the parking lot, or I turn left to go to the gym. I really want to go to the gym. And every morning I mean to do it, but as the workday goes on, I talk myself into going home. I say, you deserve a break. You should go home. We'll do this tomorrow. And he said, and I turn right out of the parking lot. So we created a list of the top 10 reasons why he should go to the gym. And we put it on a piece of paper and we taped it to a steering wheel. And before he started the car, he would read, Here are the 10 reasons why I should go to the gym. And just reading that list would talk him into turning left, and he would go to the gym and he would work out. So anything it is that you want to do in life, just write a list. Because we know again, when our emotions go up, our logic goes down. So as he felt kind of tired and frustrated from the day, his emotions went up and his ability to talk himself into going to the gym went down. But because he had that list of reasons why he should do it, and it was written in his own words, and he could read it right in the moment when he had to make that decision, it helped. And if you want to give something up, you can do the same thing with 10 reasons why I shouldn't eat that midnight snack, or why I shouldn't answer the phone when my ex calls. Tape it to your phone. Anything like that can work in those moments where we have to make those. Those decisions, and we know that it's tough to talk ourselves into something or out of it. Have that list of reasons why ready to go. And a lot of people will say, yeah, that made it so much easier. I can talk myself into making healthier decisions. So that would be number two. And number three would be to maybe argue the opposite. Sometimes when you think, ugh, this isn't going to go well, no, here are 10 reasons why I think it will go well. Or when you start to think, I said that thing today and I shouldn't have said it. Here's 10 reasons why it was okay that I said that we're really good at reinforcing the things that we think. So those automatic thoughts of, yeah, that's going to go terrible. And here's why. Pause, take a deep breath and say, now, if I were on the other side of this debate, how would I argue the opposite? Because if somebody said, hey, Erica, there's a one in a million chance you're going to win a billion dollars tomorrow, you probably wouldn't spend all day today thinking about that, the billion dollars you're going to get tomorrow. But if somebody said, there's a one in a million chance that you're going to get some rare disease, you might be really quick to think, oh, gosh, like, maybe I do have some symptoms. Maybe I do have this. We all tend to do this when it comes to certain things on the negative side. So just argue the opposite to remind yourself, no, I don't have to believe everything that I think. So the three things would be schedule time to worry, create a list of reasons why you should or shouldn't do something, and number three, when you have an automatic thought that isn't helpful, argue the opposite for a few minutes.
- [50:46]
B
I love these. I'm actually going to do all three of these, and I will report back to you in a few months to let you know how it's going.
- [50:54]
A
Oh, good.
- [50:54]
B
I've really appreciated this. Thank you so much. So we have a closing tradition. The podcast is called Erica Taught Me, but really, today is all about Amy taught Me. So what do you want people to walk away saying, amy taught me this?
- [51:07]
A
I would say that. I would hope people would say, you know, amy taught me I'm stronger than I think I am. And the best way to figure out what I'm capable of is by testing the thoughts that I have. When I think I can't do something, I'm going to remind myself, challenge, accept it, and go out there and try to do it anyway. To train my brain to see me as more capable and competent than I think that I am sometimes.
- [51:30]
B
I love that. Thank you so much, Amy for this.
- [51:32]
A
Thanks for having me. Erica.
- [51:35]
B
If you've enjoyed the episode, please take a moment to leave a review. It really helps support what we're doing. Thanks for listening and I'll talk to you next Tuesday on a brand new episode of Erica Taught Me.