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If you want to build mental toughness like a soldier there are very specific yet incredibly simple steps you can take to transform from a normal human to over achieving rock star  inside of 7 days.

When you commit to build mental toughness it may initially feel like you have to go through a series of major events.

The reality is that isn’t the case at all.

Most people who are considered to be reliable, hard working and who achieve results all have a very common theme that is an undercurrent to their life.

So often we think mental toughness is about how we respond to extreme situations.

I’ve spent 6 weeks or more at a time in a trench made of corrugated steel that smelled like urine and body odour.

It’s a challenge to stay positive.

I like challenges but  even trench life isn’t truly an extreme situation, it’s just slightly devoid of comfort.

The ability to build mental toughness doesn’t require you to navigate through a hostage crisis and maintain your cool.

The truth about situations like that, as I have mentioned before, is that you implement systems, manage risk and exploit opportunities.

They are extreme situations but simply require an implementation of a learned skill set.

What Is Mental Toughness

For most of us in regular daily life there is a backdrop against which we measure our mental toughness.

How did you perform in the championship game?

Can you keep your life together while grieving the death of a family member?

Did you bounce back after your business went bankrupt?

There’s no doubt that extreme situations test our courage, perseverance, and mental toughness… but what about everyday circumstances?

Mental toughness is like a building a skill. It needs to be practiced in order to create growth and develop it as a skill.

If you haven’t pushed yourself in thousands of small ways, of course you’ll fall short when things get really difficult.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

I will reveal the BIG SECRET in just a second but when you think about how to build mental toughness think about it in these terms.

It really is an internal dialogue that occurs during trying tasks.

Ask yourself to do the tenth rep when it would be easier to just do nine.

Choose to create when it would be easier to consume, and by this I mean social media content, scrolling mindlessly through your feed.

Choose to ask the extra question when it would be easier to just accept the basic level of knowledge.

Prove to yourself in simple small steps that you have the jam to do battle with life.

How do you do it?

What’s the secret?

Mental toughness is built through small victories in everyday situations.

It’s the individual choices that we make on a daily basis that build our “mental toughness skill.”

We all want mental strength, but you can’t think your way to it. It’s your physical actions that prove your mental fortitude.

The majority of combat soldiers are considered mentally tough.

They are faced with a choice to “find the work and do it” or choose the easy road.

I always want someone on my team who is looking for work.

Someone who isn’t afraid to do the most basic and simple things, understanding this is what builds a foundation for much larger success.

Mental toughness isn’t about overcoming life’s most massive obstacles with clarity and poise but rather it is specifically  about building the consistent daily habits that allow you to stick to a schedule and overcome challenges and distractions repeatedly.

Mentally tough people don’t have to be more courageous, more talented, or more intelligent just more consistent on a frequent basis.

Mental toughness is developed through systems that help you focus on the important stuff regardless of how many obstacles life puts in front of you.

Your habits that form the foundation of your mental beliefs will ultimately set you apart from the pack.

To put it succinctly mental toughness is persistence.

It refers to the kind of actions that you take in the face of performance plateaus, setbacks, injuries, and failures.

Persistence is a skill you develop overtime by training specific pathways in your brain. In other words, you can train yourself to be persistent because you can train your brain.

Persistence underpins resilience and optimism.

When you are persistent you believe you can alter the outcomes of your actions.

If you want to build mental toughness understand you need to be consistent in simple ways each and every day . Remain persistent in developing good habits and your belief you can achieve what you set out to do.

This is what it takes to Stand Apart.

 

Todd