The Only Way To Accomplish (And Master) Mental Toughness
Life breaks down into two categories:
Things you can control, and things you can’t.
Mental strength is the ability to master everything you can control.
For example: You want to gain 5kg of muscle over a 6 month time-span. Let’s break this goal down in terms of things you can/can’t control.
- You can control: your diet, your sleep schedule, your gym routine, how often you exercise.
- You can’t control: how fast your muscles respond to your routine, how well your body recovers (physically) after a tough workout, any injury/ailment.
Another example: You want a promotion at your workplace. Here are the things you can/can’t control:
- You can control: your punctuality, the amount of tasks you accomplish at the office, your attitude, your effort.
- You can’t control: What others think of you, others’ opinion of your work, the amount of work your boss gives you.
Seems easy enough, right?
It’s not.
The result of the things you can control comes down to your effort.
Take the examples above, for instance.
Determining what you can control from what you can’t is easy. Choosing to put your best effort into everything you can control is much, much harder.
Take the examples above, for instance:
How willing are you to stick to a grueling gym routine?
How willing are you cut out all sugar from your diet in order to facilitate muscle growth?
How willing are you to get to work an hour early and stay an hour late if that’s what it takes to accomplish your tasks for the day?
How willing are you to come to work with a positive attitude, even on days you feel like shit?
All of these questions about your will boil down to a single question:
How bad do you want it?
The sad part is that 99 percent of people aren’t willing to do what it takes to be successful.
When it comes down to factors they can control, they choose to do what’s easy as opposed to what’s beneficial.
In other words: They aren’t mentally tough.
Mental toughness isn’t about being able to handle a great deal of pain. It isn’t about overcoming adversity or ‘beating the odds’. It isn’t about forcing yourself to do ‘difficult’ things, either.
Mental strength is about making the decision to master everything in your control to the best of your ability on a consistent basis.
Maybe this sounds easy.
To some, it might be. To most, probably not.
Regardless if it sounds easy or not, try it for yourself. Think about everything you do on a daily basis and break it all down in terms of what you can control versus what you cannot. Then, take everything you can control and master it.
That is how you build mental strength.
If you can master everything in your control, there is no limit to what you can accomplish.
