2023, It's Time to Become Unconquerable.

There’s one secret behind becoming unconquerable…

Stoicism.

Stoicism is a philosophical idea originating in Ancient Greece, preaching the correct placement of our values to help us achieve emotional stability and strength.

In this article we cover 4 different topics, ideologies and practices used by the stoics to become unconquerable:

• Emotional Control

• Tyrants

• Hardships

• Practise

Have you ever been saddened by rejection or hurt by insults? Not anymore. By the time you have finished this article, you will have all 4 skills needed to become unconquerable in 2023.

Emotional Control

We all have 2 things in common:

• We experience a wide range of emotions daily, from happy emotions to sad ones.

• We all have unwanted emotions, the sad ones. And if want them, I think you need some therapy!

Just take a moment to ask yourself why your unwanted emotions are caused… Is it your boss? A stood-up date? Or even something as little as a dirty look? These events cause unwanted emotions in all of us except the stoics, according to them they are all ‘external events’. This means that they are all completely out of our control. So if they are completely out of our control then why do they still evoke unwanted feelings?

Stoicism states: The reason some external events sadden us is because we place high value on them. This creates unstable emotions because these events are all out of our control, meaning unwanted emotions come at any time they want and if given the power they can influence our actions and emotional state significantly. So how do we fix this?

It’s simple. Don’t place high value onto external conditions.

Place high value on your ‘internal conditions’. For example, instead of getting sad about being stood-up (an external event) just shrug it off because the important thing is that you chose (an internal condition) to ask them on a date, rather than just sitting there and letting your opportunity pass.

So, in short if you place your values on external conditions e.g. ‘rejection’ and you get rejected you are conquered by emotion (hurt).

But, if you place your values on internal conditions and are rejected, you remain unfazed because you only had power over asking her in the first place, which you did.

Now that we’ve covered external events, let’s cover external people.

Dealing With Tyrants

Stoics deal with tyrants in the same way that they deal with external events, and yet again it’s all about our values.

In point 1 you learnt about the power of your values and where they should be placed, the same goes for insults.

If you place value in external comments, e.g. bullies insults. It will hurt you emotionally, thus you have let yourself be conquered by the bully. Instead, place value in your internal reaction, your choice between reacting aggressively or remaining unfazed.

It’s that simple for insults, but what about a more severe situation. Blackmail.

Most blackmail revolves around the threat of your reputation being ruined. Many people place value in their reputation, so it is easy for them to be conquered. The only way to become immune to blackmail is to remove valuefrom your reputation so stop caring about the way others view you. Blackmail isn’t the only severe situation though.

In the time of the great stoics torture was a common procedure and its effectiveness was based around how much the person is attached to their body. The stoics preached that even while you’re being tortured, we still have a choice. This is one of the key ideas of stoicism, as Epictetus says:

So, to remain unconquerable let people blackmail you, torture you, chop off your leg. But these are simply outside factors, what gives us power is choice.

The choice to give in to outside factors or to remain unchanged, no one can decide these but ourselves, and these decisions are what give us power.

Now that we have covered the 2 ideas behind becoming unconquerable, lets put them into practise.

Enduring Hardships

You now how to become unconquerable but you must be willing to practise it in order for it to become a reality. One way that the stoics do this is by enduring hardships.

What are hardships?

Hardships are periods of time while undergoing severe suffering. To become truly unconquerable we must be willingly put ourselves in hardships and give up everything, reputation, food or drink and our bodies.

Hardships are extremely challenging, and you may be wondering why you would voluntarily put yourself through them. But that difficulty is why they’re so beneficial, they push our minds and willpower to the very limit.

Hardships strengthen our power of choice, which you now know is a big part of becoming unconquerable. They also help us separate ourselves from external conditions, training us to not let them influence our internal values. As the great stoic Seneca said:

So, if you want to become unconquerable this year and join the stoics, simply take on and conquer a hardship. If you want help finding your hardship we have a free list of 11 hardships to choose from.

Now that you have built your walls, let’s start strengthening them.

Strengthening Your Wall

By this point you know how to become unconquerable, and have already began. But becoming unconquerable is not easy. You must refrain from fear, lust and delight. It takes practise, pain and time.

But in some ways, its just as easy as it is difficult. All you need to do is try to change, and if you keep trying and putting yourself through hardships it will come, it may be hard at first but even the greatest stoics struggled with their emotions to begin with.

To strengthen your walls and become unconquerable all you need to remember is that even when passion strikes us, we have a choice. To give our into passion and be conquered, or to become stronger and build up our walls.

Each time you fend off emotion it strengthens your battle lines and makes you stronger. It’s like adding a few bricks to your wall or more troops to your army, and a bigger army = harder to conquer.

So, to become unconquerable just build up your wall.

Conclusion:

It does take time.

But if you just act on these 3 things:

• Power of Choice

• Placement of Values

• Voluntary Hardships

Then you will have finished your wall a lot quicker than you would’ve thought.

But it’s your choice, either stay a slave to your emotions or become UNCONQUERABLE like the great stoics before us.

To help strengthen your wall access our free stoic challenges, hardships and quotes click here.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!