Mental Toughness

How do people become mentally strong?

I read stories about people that have endured unspeakable horrors and yet come out the other side as decent human beings

Life is hard I think every living person on this planet would agree with me on that, but still, there are some of us who are able to find an inner strength that drives them forward no matter what. I’d like to think of this quality as some form of mental toughness

It’s the person who develops an indomitable spirit that refuses to quit, give up or let go even when the odds are clearly stacked against them, even when their most trusted friends and family point out all the reasons why they should give up and walk away, but yet there they stand, holding on to what they believe to be true in their hearts

I don’t know how they do it

I want strength like that – I want the capacity to stand firm even when everything around me seems to be telling me to back down, to wave the white flag and surrender, I do not want to lay down my arms, I want to fight another day

I don’t have that mental toughness just yet and I don’t know how to develop it but I think I may have a clue

lifting weights – working out period

So true to my goal of working out for 30 minutes, today I exceeded my own expectation when I went to my work gym after work, with a colleague who invited me earlier on and we proceeded to have a full one hour and 40 minutes session, him taking me step by step through various chest and biceps exercises

Needless to say I was shattered

But I also noticed something about myself – I give up too easily or at least too easily for my liking. Yes I know I haven’t really lifted weights before so having good form is way more important at the moment than the amount I can lift but I’m competitive and hate feeling inadequate, which is what I felt like

I kept telling myself that I need to get stronger and I didn’t mean physically, I know that will come, no, I’d like to get stronger mentally so I can hang in there longer, push my body further, otherwise what’s the point?

same could be said about other areas of life too – push, push and then push some more

In the end though, i was proud of myself all the same – it was a painful 14 mile cycle ride home in the blistering cold with gloveless fingers that felt like they had been frost bitten….then to sit down and write what turned out to only be 3 pages as again I had a routine business call to participate in so I guess I failed on the writing front again but that’s now 6 pages that I didn’t have 2 days ago and therefore I’m 6 pages further ahead

lifting weights, working out, sticking to my goals regardless, will surely help me to develop some mental toughness, inch by inch, especially once the results start piling up

But for now, I have to rethink my writing strategy, doing it in the evening when I know I have other non negotiable things that need to be done just wont work but waking up earlier is proving difficult – I need to find a way somehow, its okay to fail forward but at some point i also need to hit my goals

marching orders for tomorrow – 30 minutes worth of exercise – 5 pages of my script written

who knows, do this long enough and I may just build some momentum

SRZ