15 Things Mentally Strong Men Don’t Do
You can tell if a man is mentally strong within a few minutes of meeting him. The way he speaks to you, the way he speaks about other people, and the things he says about himself will immediately let you know if this is a confident, self-assured person that you can trust, or if you're talking to an insecure and confused man who you may need to keep at an arm's distance.
Mental toughness is a phase. The goal is to keep up this phase as long as you can. But it's also not possible to keep it forever. Something will come along and knock you down, and you have to do more work to get back up again. That's the cycle, and you can't change it. So if you need to work on your mental toughness or if you want to be able to tell whether someone is mentally strong or not, this is the video to watch. Welcome to Lux.
First up. Mentally strong men don't neglect their appearance because they know the importance of first impressions. They'll make sure they're dressed for the occasion and well-groomed. They're clean, and they keep their home clean. Your appearance is the easiest and most noticeable aspect of mental toughness. It's completely in your control and easily changed. If anyone is neglecting this part of themselves, then they're for sure neglecting other aspects of their lives, too.
They're not embarrassed by their flaws or shortcomings. The most confident men out there are slightly self-deprecating. They can make fun of themselves when it's warranted. If you get defensive or embarrassed when someone points out a flaw or a mistake of yours, you're letting everyone know that you're very insecure about yourself. You're basically giving the other person total power over you and your emotions, and that puts people off.
But if you can agree with them, laugh it off, and even tell a funny story about when this flaw got you into trouble, well, you're telling people that you own your issues and you're totally okay with them. They don't blame other people for their problems. We see this far too often with men who have a lot of potential but just aren't able to reach that level of success they could be at. When things go wrong, they blame their boss, their colleagues, even their partners.
Sure, there are times when other people are to blame, but their blame isn't your problem. You're not free from blame. So you need to take some responsibility so you can use that to push yourself forward. When you don't take responsibility and accountability for your own mistakes and issues, you're also letting go of the control that you do have to change it. It simply starts with saying, "Damn, I messed up there. Let me see how I can fix this."
They don't depend on other people for financial help. When we reduce the human race down to our most basic state, to simple biology, for the longest time, men have been providers and women have been nurturers. As much as we move away from these gender roles, they're still so deeply ingrained within our DNA and survival. That's their natural for us.
When you don't follow this natural order, you can feel unsafe and inadequate as a man. You want to be the person who can provide and supply. And when you're not doing that, you're going to feel like you can't take care of yourself or your family when you're depending on your parents, friends, or partner for financial help. You're always going to feel like you are not good enough.
As crazy as it sounds, you need to cut yourself off. The more you depend on other people to provide for you, the weaker you'll end up feeling. They don't waste time feeling sorry for themselves. There's a difference between accepting what's happened and feeling sad about it and pitying yourself and wondering why the world seems to be against you.
Nobody thinks about you as much as you do. If something goes wrong, it's not because of you. It just is. Feeling sorry for yourself exaggerates your misfortune and makes you experience a sense of helplessness. Pity parties are a waste of time. They're not fun, they're not social, and they have no benefit to you at all.
Mentally strong men know that if something happens, the best thing you can do is to accept it and find a way to get through it. Give yourself time to be upset, and then move forward. They don't let one person or a situation knock their confidence. In this life, you're absolutely going to meet people who want to bring you down.
And look, there's nothing you can do about these people existing, but you can control the effect they have on you. Mentally strong men know that one person or situation doesn't have the power to take them down. They know that this is a part of life, and brushing those situations off with a laugh and a better understanding of the way things work is the best way to come out of that.
You could even feel sorry for the person trying to bring you down because they're coming from a place of incredible insecurity and low self-esteem. Nobody wants to be there. Nobody wants to be them. Mentally strong men don't underestimate the importance of their friends. They know their friends are the people who are going to be in their lives for the good times, the fun times, the bad times, and the sad times.
They know that making an effort to see and talk to their friends regularly is just as important as making time for themselves. Just because you have a family or a partner now doesn't mean that you don't need your friends. Just because you're successful or even down on your luck doesn't mean that they don't want to be there to celebrate the good and bad times.
They fulfill different roles in your life, and a well-balanced man holds a space for all of those different parts. They're not idle all day. Just as being a provider is part of an age-old societal and biological influence, so is our ability to move around. For thousands of years, humans were nomadic. We walked and ran and climbed trees and sought shelter in caves. That instinct is still inside of us.
We still get fidgety and bored so easily because we want to be running in the fresh air. Mentally strong men know the importance of balancing their downtime with fulfilling their energy and getting out there to run, to play sports, to just do anything that's physically active. They say that idle hands are the devil's workshop, and boy, can that be true. When you're idle, you get up to a lot more mischief.
Mentally strong men are not worried about pleasing everyone. You're going to ruffle a few feathers along the way in your life. And if you're worried about how much each person likes you after you've done that, or if you feel too guilty about a minor inconvenience, you're not going to get very far, my friend. It's a harsh truth, but to get your way, you have to be a little bit pushy.
People won't like that. But as long as you're not crossing any boundaries or hurting anybody, you have to keep pushing slightly. Otherwise, you're never going to move forward. Mentally strong men know when to keep pushing and when to move on. They know they can't please everyone, and they're not afraid to be disliked sometimes.
Mentally strong men do not resent other people's success. Man, is this one of the worst things you can do? It's like pointing a spotlight on yourself and saying, "Hey, I'm insecure." Success is a great thing, all right? Someone's made it. They are making it. There's more than enough space for you to be up there as well. And if they need it, well, that means that you can, too.
Bitterness toward other people comes from you not being happy with yourself. The people around you can spot this bitterness a mile away, and it makes them uncomfortable. It shows that you're not happy with yourself, and all they have to do is wonder why. What does it say about you that they don't know? Insecurity sets off our Spidey senses as humans. You know that you're mentally strong when you are genuinely happy for someone else's success.
Mentally strong men do not put women down. There are a few reasons why some men will insult and put women down, and none of them are good. For some men, they just don't know how to treat women properly, and this shows a glaring lack of intelligence and awareness about how the world works. It shows you don't have the life experience and social intelligence to understand that putting anyone down is more about you and what you believe your major flaws are than it has to do with anyone else.
Humans have a tendency to judge others by what they despise in themselves. This temporary sense of superiority and control is almost embarrassing to the rest of the world, to anyone watching. As a provider and protector, this behavior is a total rejection of how you should behave, and it's always and only going to end up making you look bad, not the other person.
Mentally strong men know the value that women bring to their lives, and they appreciate and respect that, and they have no issue showing it. They don't fear alone time. Mentally strong men are not afraid of being alone. In some cases, men can struggle to live their lives without a partner, and they jump from relationship to relationship just to avoid being alone.
And in other cases, even those with a partner must always be doing something. Anything. Nights at home are seen as wasted time. It always seems like they're leaving the home and running away from something. The only thing they're running from, though, is spending time with themselves. Are you really that bad and boring that even you can't spend time with you?
Mentally strong men know that they can have a great time on their own. They don't get bored because they've got hobbies and goals that they're working toward. They don't waste time. Wasted time can be different for everyone. So it's important to define what is a waste of time for you.
What are the things that you could spend hours on but don't actually advance you toward your overall goals? To some people, going out for a drink every Friday night might be a waste of time. But if one of your goals is to be more social and get out of the house more, well, that actually helps you with your goal. And it's not really a waste of time in your case.
They're not afraid to admit when they don't know something. You know, those people who hear a word or a name and they nod along like they know exactly what you're talking about, only for you to find out a few minutes later that they had no idea. And then there are those people who will immediately ask you, "Wait, who is that? Or I've never heard about that. Could you explain it further?"
Now, which one of these seems more confident and endearing to you? Which one is okay with showing that they don't know everything? We are drawn to people who understand and embrace their shortcomings. We feel safe with them because they're honest. It's why mentally strong men often have good relationships and many friends. They're drawn to that honesty and openness.
And finally, they don't hesitate on important decisions. Society values decisiveness. We love it when someone seems sure about what they want to do, and they communicate this clearly with authority. If they trust themselves, then we trust them. Mentally strong men know that bouncing between decisions and thinking too much about them during critical moments gives people too much ammunition to doubt them.
They know that even if some things need to be adjusted later, whatever decision they make now isn't the end of the world. It will be okay. They will make it okay. The most important thing right now is to move into action.
And there you have it. I lectured 15 things that mentally strong men don't do. It's really funny how we're drawn to these types of people pretty quickly. We feel safer, more confident being around them because our brains recognize good people. It's been trained on thousands of years of behavior to understand the reason behind people's behavior.
So when the alarm bells go off, even if you haven't gotten your finger on it just yet, you should listen. And when they're silent, you should watch and see what it is about this person that's making you feel uncomfortable. Observe and understand their behavior and then work toward that.
We'll see you back here next time I lecture. Take care.