Do you constantly feel the need to be strong, never showing any weakness?

Are you always the ‘stable’ one in a crisis?

Do you sometimes come across as aloof and unemotional?

Many of us, including myself, are driven by the ‘Be Strong’ personality driver. We’ve grown up avoiding any expression of weakness that may leave us feeling vulnerable. While there are often some benefits to being seen as strong and dependable, there are also many pitfalls, especially in terms of mental health and our relationships.

Even if this doesn’t sound like you, you probably know someone who will insist that they are “fine” no matter what life is throwing at them!

The ‘Be Strong’ Driver

The ‘Be Strong’ personality driver is common, particularly among men. It is a mindset that compels individuals to constantly display strength and avoid showing any vulnerability. The underlying philosophy is that we should be able to cope with any challenge, never showing weakness or failure.

By ‘personality driver’ we mean a dominating, overriding way of thinking. It becomes the lense through which all other thoughts and actions must be filtered; everything gets tested to see if it might be a sign of weakness.

For example, if we might lose a game or look like we are incompetent at something, we will probably avoid doing it at all. We have to be good at doing something. I can never sing publicly; the thought of anyone hearing just how bad I am at it fills me with horror.

The Power of Resilience and Endurance

Resilience, calmness, and endurance are key attributes associated with the ‘be strong’ driver. These attributes can be beneficial in certain situations, such as crises or emergencies at work. Individuals driven by ‘be strong’ are often seen as the steady hand in a crisis because they rarely panic.

‘Be Strong’ people will often put up with poor working conditions long after other people will have walked away, simply to prove that they can cope. Even when there is no value in ‘coping’, they will still not want to make a fuss or be seen to need anything else.

Taken to the extreme, some of us would rather risk death than fail.

When Strength Becomes a Burden

Constantly feeling the pressure to perform at one’s best can lead to stress and burnout. People driven by the ‘be strong’ mentality may struggle to ask for help or share their feelings, fearing it will be seen as weakness.

This can lead to difficulties forming deeper relationships and may come across as aloofness. Who wants to be around someone who is always pretending not to feel anything, and who never expresses any true vulnerability?

Emotional outbursts, as we may see them, are for other people – that’s fine for them, but not for us. We feel the need to suppress those feelings or even deny that they exist in the first place. Needless to say, this is mentally unhealthy – repression of feelings doesn’t mean that they don’t exist, it just means that they remain unexpressed.

The Identity of Strength

Once individuals establish an identity as ‘strong’, they feel compelled to maintain that image at all times. Allowing others to see any weakness can feel like a form of death, as it challenges their sense of self.

The fear of being seen as anything other than strong can be overwhelming and can become absolutely defining in terms of behaviour.

The only way to challenge this identity, that I have come across, is to challenge the idea that denial of emotion is strength. Vulnerability is true strength. Understanding and processing our emotions is true strength.

Unexpressed emotions make us brittle. That veneer of strength only works for so long and isn’t representative of our internal state.

How Do We Deal With Stress?

As much as we might present the illusion of not feeling stress, of course that is untrue. When presented with emotionally difficult situations, people with a ‘Be Strong’ personality tend to withdraw. We can’t express it, so we hide it. We will engage in numbing or distracting behaviour such as watching TV, playing games or simply physically leaving the situation.

When I am emotionally uncomfortable, I resort to computer games. I can simply switch off my brain to avoid dealing with it for a few hours. In fact, this is such predictable behaviour, I can tell when I am not dealing with something well because that’s the only time I resort to gaming!

How the ‘Be Strong’ Driver Affects Relationships

Never expressing weakness can make it difficult for others to see ‘Be Strong’ individuals as real people. We are often seen as somewhat robotic, slightly distanced from the real people who have emotions.

It can lead to a lack of trust, intimacy, and authenticity in relationships. People may feel that individuals driven by ‘be strong’ are not being honest or authentic with them (because we aren’t!).

For partners and friends, it can be very frustrating to express their feelings and not have it reciprocated.

What Do We Need From Others?

Other people assume that we are OK at all times because that is the illusion that we deliberately create. People with the ‘Be Strong’ driver benefit from others who look past that illusion of strength and genuinely ask how they are doing.

We benefit from other people who will see through our nonsense of “I’m fine” and see what is really happening for us.

However, we may be very uncomfortable with someone forcing us to discuss emotional things, and a relationship discussion is potentially our worst nightmare.

What we need is for people to help us see that vulnerability is a strength and that expressing emotions is not just OK, but actually a strength.

Emotional Expression

The single biggest mental health boost for ‘Be Strong’ people is learning how to identify, understand and express their emotions.

Becoming more emotionally intelligent and vulnerable allows us to express our emotions in a healthy way, instead of suppressing them. Only when we start to see what we actually feel, and communicating that with others, can we start to form deeper relationships.