13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do
Define strength by subtraction — the bad habits you stop, not the good ones you add.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 95%
Amy Morin wrote this list to herself on one of the worst days of her life, shortly after her father-in-law's terminal cancer diagnosis and years after losing her mother and her 26-year-old husband. It combines what she learned as a therapist with what she learned surviving her own decade of loss. The core insight is definitional: mental strength is like physical strength — you can train it, it prevents a lot of problems, but it doesn't guarantee immunity from illness. Because the brain is hardwired toward the negative, the leverage sits in subtraction — stop doing the 13 things and you can get through almost anything. Published for $15, the article was read by 50 million people and became a book in 40+ languages.
Origin
Morin lost her mother to a brain aneurysm in her first year as a therapist. Three years to the day later, her 26-year-old husband died of a heart attack. She became a single foster parent, remarried, and then her father-in-law was diagnosed with terminal cancer. On that day she wrote herself a letter of what mentally strong people don't do, published it online for $15, and 50 million people read it — leading to a book deal and a TED talk with 23 million views.
Core principles
- 01Mental strength is not the same as mental health — strength is built by daily choices, health is a condition you can still develop despite being strong.
- 02Removing destructive habits does more than adding positive ones; the bad habits cancel out the good.
- 03Anyone can grow stronger regardless of what they are currently diagnosed with or struggling through.
- 04Strength includes asking for help, being vulnerable, and acknowledging pain — not pretending nothing bothers you.
- 05No matter how strong you think you are, life will keep showing you room for improvement.
How to run it
- 1
Write the letter to yourself first
Before it is content for anyone else, make it a private inventory. List the behaviours that are keeping you stuck, drawn from your own lived experience rather than theory.
Pro tip Morin combined three sources — her own grief journey, her clinical caseload, and her college training. The blend is what made it credible.
- 2
Frame everything as a 'don't'
Convert each item into a behaviour to stop rather than a behaviour to start. 'Don't waste time feeling sorry for yourself' is more actionable than 'practise gratitude' because it names the specific trap.
Pro tip The what-not-to-do framing is also what made the idea spread — it was a different spin on a crowded topic.
- 3
Separate strength from health
Accept that becoming mentally strong improves mental health and prevents many problems, but does not guarantee you'll never develop anxiety or depression. Developing a condition is not evidence of weakness.
Watch out Treating a diagnosis as a personal failure is the fastest way to abandon the work entirely.
- 4
Redefine what strength looks like
Recognise that pretending nothing bothers you is acting tough, not being strong. Real strength includes asking for help, being vulnerable, and admitting you struggle with something and are working on it.
Watch out Readers most commonly reported that they had it backwards for years — mistaking suppression for strength.
- 5
Run the list against real curveballs
Use the list as a checkpoint when life goes wrong, not as a one-time read. Mental strength is about the choices you make every day, and there are constant opportunities to keep growing.
Pro tip Expect the list to keep finding new gaps — that's the point, not a failure.
In the wild
Morin published the letter online for a $15 fee. The host site's servers crashed under the traffic — she assumed it was unrelated. Forbes picked it up, 10 million people read it there alone, and MTV Finland and CNN Mexico started calling. Nobody knew she had written it because she was in a dark place.
→ A literary agent who read it offered a book deal; the book came out the following year, her TED talk hit 23 million views, and her books are now in 40+ languages.
Shortly after the article went viral, Psychology Today ran a piece about everything wrong with it. Morin's first thought was that she had just ruined her therapy career, since Psychology Today was a reputable outlet publicly questioning her.
→ Psychology Today then reached out and asked her to write for them. The controversy expanded her platform rather than ending it.
Common mistakes
Confusing acting tough with being strong
People spend years pretending nothing bothers them and think they are building strength. They are actually avoiding the problem entirely, which leaves it unprocessed and untreated.
Treating a diagnosis as proof of weakness
Developing anxiety or depression while working on mental strength is treated as evidence the work failed. It is a complicating factor, not a verdict — you can keep building strength alongside a condition.
Adding good habits without removing bad ones
Gratitude journaling while still marinating in self-pity nets out to nothing. The destructive habits have to come out first for the constructive ones to compound.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone navigating grief, loss, or a run of hard years who wants a concrete behavioural checklist rather than vague positivity
Not ideal for
Someone in acute crisis who needs clinical treatment first; this is a strength-building layer, not a substitute for therapy
From the transcript
“I wrote myself a letter of what mentally strong people don't do and it was a combination of things that I had learned through my…”
“I published it online, got paid $15 for publishing it online, but 50 million people read the article”
“becoming mentally strong can improve your mental health, it can prevent a lot of problems, but if you do develop something like anxiety or depression…”
From the episode
Amy Morin: Build Mental Strength to Overcome Any Obstacle
Amy Morin