I’m reading a book called ‘The mental toughness handbook’ by Damon Zahariades who writes the blog http://www.ArtOfProductivity.com

I decided to share the journey of reading this book with you. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m reflecting on a tough period of my life where I was mentally drained and couldn’t respond properly to many adversities in my way. I’m hoping this would be of value for myself and you in the future.

These 8 threats are the first part of the book that is trying to help you understand your beliefs and reflect on them

Self-Pity

This is feeling sorry for yourself. Looking at everything bad going around you and wallowing in the negativity motionlessly. This resulted in us staying in the same place where we are whether it was mentally, physically, career-wise, happiness-wise, or even relationship-wise without doing any action.

Self-Doubt

Very close to *Self-Pity* but this is where we say to ourselves that we don’t have any skills or ability to do something. It is perfectly healthy to doubt yourself, but it becomes a problem when it paralyzes you.

Your Inner Critic

This threat is the voice of all of our negative thoughts. It keeps criticizing everything we do and every thought we have in a way that undermines it. You’re not good enough, not smart enough, not attractive enough, etc. It will dwell on the negative aspects of your real and perceived performances and push you to keep performing the same way!

Fear

We’re afraid to fail ourselves or fail others in different ways, and as with all of these threats is always healthy to be afraid, but how we react to it is where it can become toxic. Fear makes us think about the negative outcomes of doing anything and adds emergency lights and noises to it.

Laziness

I can easily describe myself as lazy as I like to do less generallyand relax. You can enjoy being lazy but we need to make sure it doesn’t breed laziness until we’re unproductive in our lives in all of its aspects. You can snooze that alarm once, but when ‘*once*’ becomes 10 snoozes you’ve already lost your energy for the rest of your day.

Perfectionism

The idea of self-harassing yourself so that you only deliver perfect results. Does perfect exist? maybe, but we either use it that as an excuse to run away from doing anything or as a very high bar that ends with us burning out or failing to reach any achievable goal

Emotionalism

When your emotions control you rather than you control it. Feel sad, feel happy, feel angry, and enjoy these feelings as they will help you cope with difficulties better, yet you need to set a barometer for yourself too when you need to react to these.

Self Limiting Beliefs

These are unique to each of us, I’m too old, too creative, too dull, too shy, too ugly, etc… pick and choose your self enemies. The biggest problem with these is that you fail before you even start.

What to do about it?

The next step is to do an exercise where you write which of these mental threats are you struggling with on some index cards, place it on your desk (or somewhere visible to you daily).

I will be posting more about this book as I read through it.