Psybersquare: Struggle - The Psyche's Operating System

Struggle - The Psyche's Operating System
by Mark Sichel, LCSW

If you have doubts about your abilities to struggle, dispose of them now. If you've gotten this far, you've clearly struggled with the ability to read. You certainly did not emerge from the womb with a twelfth grade reading level, but you stuck with the task and you learned to master the written word. Think back to all the successful struggles in your life:

Walking

Talking

Mastering toilet training

Separating from your parents and going off to school.

Learning arithmetic

Learning how to socialize with others

Getting an education

Getting a job

Managing your money

Managing your time

Continue this list either on a separate sheet of paper or in your head. Anyone who has struggled with as many things as YOU have, has the capacity to take on all sorts of new challenges and struggles. It is an example of proving to yourself, "I know I can, I know I can" rather than saying to yourself, "It's too hard, too difficult, too much for me." How many tasks in your life did you imagine you could not master? How often did you want to "throw in the towel" and stop fighting?

What was your greatest struggle? This is a question for which all of us have different answers. Often when individuals look back at their lives and remember what their greatest struggle was, it can give them the confidence to take on new challenges.

Was it learning to swim? Getting your high school or college diploma? Starting a business? Surviving a tremendous personal loss such as death of a parent or a sibling? Serving in the Army? Think back and recall all the struggles you've triumphed over, and the idea that you are a winner will begin taking shape for you.

Just as you would at the gym, we recommend you supplement your psychological cardiovascular training with strength training. The following exercises are equivalent to psychological "free weights" or nautilus repetitions. Keep working on them, chart them, struggle with them, and you will achieve the results you seek. This chapter is continued with an examination of specific ego functions, the nautilus stations of building psychological muscle. These include:

frustration tolerance

delay of gratification

mastery and competence

interposing thought between a feeling and an action

perseverance

Struggle, once embraced, can become a way of life that is actually quite gratifying, because the rewards of struggle are bountiful. Your capacity for perseverance, as well as frustration tolerance, delay of gratification, interposing thought between feeling and action, and mastery and competence will remain with you and become as natural as walking and talking. Ego functions are exactly like riding a bicycle. Once you know how to do it, you never forget, and you get better and better at it.

If you're ready to start powering up your psyche, head on over to the Psybersquare Gym.

RECOMMENDED READING FROM THE PSYSTORE:

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
by Stephen R. Covey
Our Price: $11.20

"Knowledge is the quickest and safest path to success in any area of life. Stephen Covey has encapsulated the strategies used by all those who are highly effective. Success can be learned and this book is a highly effective way to learn it." -- Charles Given, President, Charles J. Givens Organization, Inc.

For a selection of books on this topic, visit the Psystore.

** All prices subject to change without notice

Psybersquare's own Mark Sichel, LCSW explains how to cope with family estrangement.

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Healing From Family Rifts : Ten Steps to Finding Peace After Being Cut Off From a Family Member