How to Tell if You're Truly a Strong Person

There's a good way to quickly determine whether you're really strong.

Emotionally, mentally strong, as a person.

It depends on how much you're willing and able to face, or withstand life coming at you, *without* knowing exactly what's coming in advance.

It's whether or not you can be vulnerable.

Compare it to money.

When someone who's financially strong wants to spend money on whatever they want, that is a direct result of their sureness in their ability to afford it.

Because they know there's plenty in the bank, they act with confidence when they come across something they want to buy.

There's no internal struggle going on. There is no back & forth regarding whether to purchase or not.

Being sure you have plenty of something lets you know, even without measuring, that you can afford to spend & even give away money if you want to.

It's the same with internal fortitude.

You either have plenty in your psychological bank, or you don't.

You either are so sure about who you are, the sureness is akin to deposits into a bank account—or you're aware of all the psychological withdrawals you've made... and have to think about what you can afford to spend first.

People who have very little to nothing in the bank, have to measure before spending. They have to consider whether or not they can *afford* to spend.

A psychologically strong person, like a financially strong one, can easily afford to spend vulnerability. They can easily afford to be seen at their not-best, to be seen as silly, goofy, not-funny or just about anything else.

Vulnerability is the difference. How much of it can you afford to spend?

The more financial strength you have, the easier it is to spend both small & also large amounts of money. There's plenty more where that came from...

The more *psychological* strength you possess, the easier it is to spend your vulnerability, your How-You're-Being-Perceived sense is of no concern good or bad, & put yourself out there for the world to see. Either way, you know you'll be fine. They can like you & your ideas or not, you view yourself as worthy regardless what They think.

A person of weak character is like a poverty stricken person: they can't spend any vulnerability, there's nothing to fall back emotionally. There isn't enough strength in their character to sustain their Self.

So that means they can't afford to be made fun of, can't afford to tolerate much negativity directed at them. There's isn't a strong sense of self in the background to remind them it's gonna be okay.

Nor can they afford to take chances on experiences that could be fun.

They can have fun, they just can't afford to do things without being somewhat sure of the outcome first. This in itself is a vulnerability.

To be stronger as a person, start making daily deposits into your sense of self.

Instead of whining about the office bully at work, practice withstanding the heat a little more each day 'til it no longer jars your entire self-worth to be made fun of, gossiped about, or harassed. I'm not saying don't do something about bullying, just make sure as you do that you remember to practice knowing who you are.

Do repetitions of affirmative self-talk, the way you would affirm a friend.

Even better than affirmation is something Noah St. John invented called afFORmations. Afformations is like an affirmation, but in question form.

According to St. John, our lives are a direct result of the quality of the questions we ask ourselves, since we're technically listening to ourselves all day every day. He says our brains find it easy to resist what we know isn't true. Therefore, repeatedly saying "I am rich" to yourself isn't as effective as asking "Why am I so rich?" He continues, "Instead of saying what you want as a statement, phrase your affirmation as a question" and you'll get far better results, because your mind will be looking for ways to answer the question thru your life, bringing towards you the components necessary to make your questions supposition true.

Instead of saying, "I'm a happy person who loves life," start saying "Why am I a happy person who loves life?"

In addition, count up all the things you don't have that you don't want.

Feel glad for those things you have, that you do want. Notice how lucky you are to have them.

Practice taking a space to pause, in that moment between stimulus in your environment, and your response to it. Practice engaging your pause switch every time you put yourself out there.

See yourself stronger, moment to moment, as often as you can.

Visualize & really try to find things to feel good about over time. Practice seeing yourself acting more able to withstand not knowing how things will turn out, what people will think.

Then act as if. Over and over again. It's exercise. Exercise, when done correctly, strengthens us over time. Psychological strength is no different.

Mentally see yourself making a comment at work, & picture everyone responding well to it. Then actually make the comment in real life, not caring quite so much what they think.

At least start with not showing you care. After doing this once, notice you didn't die, whether they took you wrong or right, nor did anyone else...

Then practice putting yourself out there some more.

Being your true self out there in the world can feel risky, because it is.

Just remember it's a risk you can afford to take if you keep practicing being vulnerable sometimes.

Being open to being vulnerable may take you lots of practice before you have enough feedback to learn. It's okay if someone occasionally puts you down, puts down your ideas. You learn through the experience what others think of you doesn't have to do with what you think of you.

In time, with good practice, you soon realize that in some cases, people like what you have to say, or maybe they don't. Either way, you get to see for yourself that that's okay.

That okayness starts to add up internally. You begin feeling like opening up more, because you practiced and did all these reps of not caring about others' opinion over your own. That's when you know you're gaining stamina & strength!

How strong is this guy... really?