“I found that to build mental toughness, you need to inconvenience yourself. The early morning runs, if you hate early mornings. The late night runs, if you hate late nights. The snowy cold, the worst conditions you can get, put yourself in those and really make it inconvenient and you start to get a genuine expectation of winning for the price you have to pay.”
~ Chael Sonnen
I don’t have a problem with mental toughness. I do have a problem with mental stupidity:
- It’s good to do it because it’s hard!
- No pain, no gain!
- Mentally strong people never say “I can’t”
You see this kind of “toughness” too often in sport. My athletes loved Dr. Eric Thomas’ viral youtube video “How bad do you want it?” Have you seen it? It took me a year to undo the damage they experienced from it and convince them that yes, they did indeed need to sleep in order to recover and train the way they needed to for success. You see, no matter how hard you want it, no matter how much effort you’re putting in to it, if you don’t have a clear and rational understanding of the world around you and an accurate assessment of where you currently stand, you have no control over where your journey leads. It’s like trying to find your way through Chicago with a map of Detroit. No matter how hard you try, or how great your attitude, you’re still lost. This is notmental toughness.
Like the quote at the beginning of this post, people believe that if they seek misery, they will find success. But the objective is not to find misery. The objective is to overcome. The objective is – through integrity and discipline – to minimize the influence of distractions and rise above your present circumstances. It’s not about choosing the hard way over the easy way; it’s about choosing the right way over the easy way. And then executing it.
Maybe you want to go across town. Perhaps, after reading Sonnen’s quote, you consider running there, because that would really make it inconvenient. After pausing to reflect, and acknowledging the absurdity of such an idea, you decide instead of running across town (the hard way), you might catch the train (the right way). After mapping out your plan, you need to be at the right station, and the right time, with the right fare. Make intelligent choices, and have the discipline to follow through. That’s mental toughness.
We know great athletes are intentional about their nutrition. Mental toughness is saying to yourself “in order to be a champion I need to eat right.” Then you need a correct map of nutrition (…and that’s no easy task…). Then you need the discipline to follow through. That’s mental toughness.
Mental toughness is about resilience. Like this video of Arthur, who one day decides to organize his life around a quest to walk again. Yes, he falls down, but he gets back up, and says “Just because I can’t do it today doesn’t mean I can’t do it someday.” That’s mental toughness.
Everything is trainable. So how do you strengthen your mental muscle? Start by evaluating your core beliefs – making sure the map you’re using matches the world that’s important to you. Otherwise, you might climb the ladder of success only to find it was leaning against the wrong wall. Replace excuses with solutions. Once you identify what needs to be done, have the courage to do it. As you practice tolerating purposeful discomfort, you will find that the courage you once needed to do the right thing is replaced by the daily discipline of being on time, approaching every drill with purpose and intensity, and working hard (even when no one is looking). And when you fail, and fail you will (failure is not the opposite of success, failure is an ingredient of success), when you find the courage to get back up and start again – core beliefs, solution finding, daily discipline – then that’s mental toughness.
-Eric Dudley
