Our 2015 cohort is winding up with a common read: Amy Morin’s 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do. As always, when I discover a good book, wise thinker or super strategy, I’m going to share with you.
At the core of Morin’s book are Five Things that mentally strong people know for sure, and one of the five core truths is that people with mental strength focus their thinking on the realistic and the rational. There are no extremes of either negative or positive thinking in Morin’s definition. People who have mental strength don’t operate in extremes anyway: they stay centered in their personal truth, values and principles.
Positive psychology defends the misguided notions of either-or strategies all of the time.
Think about the best treatments for clinical depression. The most effective therapies include a range of modalities, including short-term medication protocols and cognitive behavioral therapy. The best therapists don’t practice in the extremes, treating their depressed patients with only one type of treatment. They assess the patient and match the most realistic treatment(s) for that patient to his/her needs. If a therapist advises patients to dwell constantly on their pain and anguish or to focus entirely on positive emotions and flourishing, the therapist is building a doomed practice. Therapists who treat depression from many evidence-based approaches have high success rates. Period.
Life doesn’t unfold for us in terms of “this or that” anyway. Most children approach life from simple terms, but time and experience teach us that life is seldom good or bad, right or wrong, is or isn’t. Morin asserts that the most resilient of us over age 10 or so make our choices from realistic, rational thinking and find ways to flourish in a happy medium.
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Morin, A. (2014). 13 things mentally strong people don’t do: Take back your power, embrace change, face your fears and train your brain for happiness and success. Harper-Collins.
