Mentally Tough Quotes

A best friend is the only one that walks into your life when the world has walked out.

Self-pity is spiritual suicide. It is an indefensible self-mutilation of the soul.

Forgiveness takes intelligence, discipline, imagination, and persistence, as well as a special psychological strength, something athletes call mental toughness and warriors call courage.

You survived by seizing every tiny drop of love you could find anywhere, and milking it, relishing it, for all it was worth. And as you grew up, you sought love, anywhere you could find it, whether it was a teacher or a coach or a friend or a friend's parents. You sought those tiny droplets of love, basking in them when you found them. They sustained you. For all these years, you've lived under the illusion that somehow, you made it because you were tough enough to overpower the abuse, the hatred, the hard knocks of life. But really you made it because love is so powerful that tiny little doses of it are enough to overcome the pain of the worst things life can dish out. Toughness was a faulty coping mechanism you devised to get by. But, in reality, it has been your ability to never give up, to keep seeking love, and your resourcefulness to make that love last long enough to sustain you. That is what has gotten you by.

One belief that I’ve developed to carry me through extremely tough times is simply this: God’s delays are not God’s denials.

Cultivating holistic wealth helps us to be mentally tough and to have grit to weather the inevitable storms and setbacks that life brings.

What was the secret, they wanted to know; in a thousand different ways they wanted to know The Secret. And not one of them was prepared, truly prepared to believe that it had not so much to do with chemicals and zippy mental tricks as with that most unprofound and sometimes heart-rending process of removing, molecule by molecule, the very tough rubber that comprised the bottoms of his training shoes. The Trial of Miles; Miles of Trials.

Building our resilience muscles starts with the way we process the negative events in our lives. Mental toughness is a prerequisite for personal growth and success.

Being physically tough is measured by how many fights you win, but mental toughness is measured by how you react when all the chips are stacked against you, how fast you get back on track when life kicks you in the nuts. Any fool can win a fight, but it takes a person with true grit to never give up when all seems lost.

Always meet your commitments. Do more than is expected of you. Do things faster than expected. Achieve better results than expected. Do all of the above with integrity and with little fanfare.

Anyone with any degree of mental toughness ought to be able to exist without the things they like most for a few months at least.

to live an uncommon life, one needs learn uncommon disciplines.

Mental toughness and resilience fade if they aren’t used consistently. I say it all the time: you are either getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.

When a man is beaten, tormented and defeated…He is ready to learn something. —Emerson

I learned that by constantly doing things that are hard and making myself uncomfortable, I improve my ability to handle obstacles. I get comfortable being uncomfortable—and that’s real mental toughness.

Ruthlessness, charm, focus, mental toughness, fearlessness, mindfulness (living in the moment), and action. Who wouldn't, at certain points in their lives, benefit from kicking one or two of them up a notch? What was important was being able to turn them back down.

Slow Is Smooth, Smooth Is Fast

Time to improve is limited. The clock is always on and doesn't care if you don't feel like it. Someone else does and they're passing you by.

Talent can be a nice thing to have sometimes. You look good, attract attention, and if you’re lucky, you make some money. Women flock to you. In that sense, having talent’s preferable to having none. But talent only functions when it’s supported by a tough, unyielding physical and mental focus. All it takes is one screw in your brain to come loose and fall off, or some connection in your body to break down, and your concentration vanishes, like the dew at dawn. […] If talent’s the foundation you rely on, and yet it’s so unreliable that you have no idea what’s going to happen to it the next minute, what meaning does it have?

sometimes deeper mental clarity is preceded by great internal storms healing yourself can be messy seeing yourself through honesty can be jarring and tough; it can even temporarily cause imbalance in your life it is hard work to open yourself up to release your burdens like removing thorns from your body, it may hurt at first, but it is ultimately for your highest good the dark clouds of rainfall are necessary for new growth.

We encourage you: Take off the training wheels. Focus on true mental toughness. Focus on commitments and controllables, you can’t control the results anyway. Love people. Serve people. Provide value. Burn your goals. Fall in love with the process of becoming great.

The ability to continue moving when you are feeling scared, fearful or lazy is the sign of true mental strength.

LIFE IS LIKE RIDING A BICYCLE … It’s hard and sweaty and surprisingly tough on your genitals. Also, you’re going to fall a lot.

You will realize, time and again, that life always brings thorns, problems, and pain. But remember this very important point: the well-lived life is never a destination, but a process. The joy of this adventure is not in finishing it, but in undertaking the journey itself. The joy is in learning how to call forth your courage and your wisdom in times of need. It is in teaching yourself how to grow mentally and spiritually, not in spite of life's tough times, but because of them. It is finding your essence out of the hurt and betrayal you have endured.

Who else, when we stepped to the line in Torino, was going to be so mentally tough? Who else would have proven to himself that he could do anything he set out to do? In a sport that was always one tick away from being entirely out of control, who else would have done everything he could to take charge of the things he could-and should- control to put himself in position to excel?

Just as mental toughness and physical energy are the primary traits of an army, they also mark God's beautiful woman.

Mia, what is the most important thing for a soccer player to have?” With no hesitation, she answered, “Mental toughness.

A champion always prepares to win.

That’s the life. That’s why talent alone doesn’t cut it. If you want to be a successful actor, mental toughness is essential. Lay your whole self-worth on getting the role, on the illusion of validation, before long you’re left angry, resentful, and jealous. You’re doomed.

Developing mental toughness isn’t just about being resilient – it’s about accessing your reserve tank when you think you just can’t go any further.

Breathing is free medicine, and the daily practice of breath control leads to optimal health and

truth is, the most important tasks in each of our days are also typically the same tasks we fear and avoid the most.

Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win. —Sun Tzu

Don’t worry about what you’ve lost. Focus on what you still have. Your inner strength. Your mental toughness. No one can take these away.

Mentally tough people achieve it by purposefully investigating their psyches and developing compensatory strategies that help them deal with adversity.

Being a warrior is not about the act of fighting. It’s about being so prepared to face a challenge and believing so strongly in the cause you are fighting for that you refuse to quit.

the noise of urgency creates the illusion of importance.

You're either growing or dying. Stagnation does not exist in the universe.

We are not only working on our game, we are working on ourselves.

The best team does not always win, it's the team that plays the best.

What would you do differently if you knew you had one year to live?

Progression and regression go hand in hand with mental health. It is a tough illness. You often take one step forward and ten steps back.

I am tough.

Repetition is the mother of learning, the father of action, which makes it the architect of accomplishment.” ~ Zig Ziglar

Rather than perceiving the former as “bad” and the latter as “good,” we should recognize both as feedback.

Never underestimate the capacity of people to choose the easy way.

Success is a combination of Effort, Talent and Hard Work .there’s got to be hard work and mental toughness. It’s not just one thing that gets you there, it’s an accumulation of things.

An embrace of simplicity offers another potent and liberating opportunity. It allows you to reduce the number of commitments, material possessions, and unsupportive relationships we burden ourselves with. These tend to clutter the mind and weigh you down.

I wish I could discover why people quit. I’ve often wondered if it’s because of how they were raised. Among the college athletes I’ve worked with, I’ve seen too many who simply weren’t mentally tough. They had all the natural gifts in the world, but they were lazy.

Frankly, my height or lack thereof never bothered me much. Although there is no doubt that it has contributed to a certain mental toughness. I've made the most of the head start one gains from being underestimated.

The goal is to be physically loose and mentally tight.

If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise, don’t even start.”   And

there are two routes to improvement: You can either do more good or do less bad. You can do something better or you can make less mistakes.   For

The future is not something we enter. The future is something we create

Every failure from his life cascades into his mind.

You are the only person capable of changing your life—no one can do that for you. The easiest way to change yourself is to change the things you do each day.

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.

Getting through BUD/S and being a SEAL is more about mental toughness than anything else. Being stubborn and refusing to give in is the key to success.

Her scar tissue, which she seems to amass both physically and mentally, may not be pretty, but they have become tougher than if she had never been wounded at all.

The real key is to develop two or three process goals for each of your product goals.

GET TOUGH. Mental and spiritual toughness go together. Deepen your commitment to your most essential values and mentally rehearse the specific ways you can take positive action.

We are only as sick as our secrets.

Desire plus sacrifice plus discipline equals preparation. Preparation plus success equals confidence. Mental toughness plus pride equals perseverance. If you have confidence and persevere, you will always have the edge. If you have the edge, you will succeed. Eventually.

While play-acting grim scenarios day in and day out may sound like a good recipe for clinical depression, it’s actually weirdly uplifting. Rehearsing for catastrophe has made me positive that I have the problem-solving skills to deal with tough situations and come out the other side smiling. For me, this has greatly reduced the mental and emotional clutter that unchecked worrying produces, those random thoughts that hijack your brain at three o’clock in the morning. While I very much hoped not to die in space, I didn’t live in fear of it, largely because I’d been made to think through the practicalities: how I’d want my family to get the news, for instance, and which astronaut I should recruit to help my wife cut through the red tape at NASA and the CSA. Before my last space flight (as with each of the earlier ones) I reviewed my will, made sure my financial affairs and taxes were in order, and did all the other things you’d do if you knew you were going to die. But that didn’t make me feel like I had one foot in the grave. It actually put my mind at ease and reduced my anxiety about what my family’s future would look like if something happened to me. Which meant that when the engines lit up at launch, I was able to focus entirely on the task at hand: arriving alive.

What are three tests or practices from the military that civilians could use to help develop mental toughness?”: STAN: “The first is to push yourself harder than you believe you’re capable of. You’ll find new depth inside yourself. The second is to put yourself in groups who share difficulties, discomfort. We used to call it ‘shared privation.’ You’ll find that when you have been through that kind of difficult environment, that you feel more strongly about that which you’re committed to. And finally, create some fear and make individuals overcome it.

Our whole culture is based on the appetite for buying, on the idea of a mutually favorable exchange. Modern man's happiness consists in the thrill of looking at the shop windows, and in buying all that he can afford to buy, either for cash or on installments. He (or she) looks at people in a similar way. For the man an attractive girl—and for the woman an attractive man—are the prizes they are after. 'Attractive' usually means a nice package of qualities which are popular and sought after on the personality market. What specifically makes a person attractive depends on the fashion of the time, physically as well as mentally. During the twenties, a drinking and smoking girl, tough and sexy, was attractive; today the fashion demands more domesticity and coyness. At the end of the nineteenth and the beginning of this century, a man had to be aggressive and ambitious—today he has to be social and tolerant—in order to be an attractive 'package'. At any rate, the sense of falling in love develops usually only with regard to such human commodities as are within reach of one's own possibilities for exchange. I am out for a bargain; the object should be desirable from the standpoint of its social value, and at the same time should want me, considering my overt and hidden assets and potentialities. Two persons thus fall in love when they feel they have found the best object available on the market, considering the limitations of their own exchange values. Often, as in buying real estate, the hidden potentialities which can be developed play a considerable role in this bargain. In a culture in which the marketing orientation prevails, and in which material success is the outstanding value, there is little reason to be surprised that human love relations follow the same pattern of exchange which governs the commodity and the labor market.

Their incredible determination creates the need for nonlinear thinking, combined with boundless energy. Champions also earn money in nonlinear ways. While the masses essentially trade their time for money, the great ones realize this is probably the worst way to acquire wealth. Using

David Kohl, professor emeritus at Virginia Tech University, has found that individuals who write down their goals will have nine times the success of those who don’t put their goals on paper.

Focus is one of the main pillars of self-discipline; a person who lacks the ability to focus is almost certainly one who will also lack discipline. Focus itself is dependent on something that neuroscientists call executive functions. The three executive functions that we are most concerned with when it comes to being disciplined are working memory, impulse control, and cognitive flexibility and adaptability. You can see why they are aptly named the executive functions. Your brain has to be able to set and pursue goals, prioritize activities, filter distractions, and control unhelpful inhibitions.

Rudyard Kipling, in his famous poetic description of what makes for mature and effective adulthood, wrote in part: If you can keep your head When all about you Are losing theirs And blaming it on you... If you can trust yourself When all men doubt you... This famous 1909 poem “If” was inspired in Kipling after observing one military leader’s actions during the Boer Wars (Lt. Colonel Eduardo Jany, personal communication, October, 2007).

Spartans left it all on the battlefield. They had a saying, “Come back with your shield, or upon it.” In other words, either come back with your shield in hand, victorious, or come back with your dead body upon your shield.   Victory

Mi resi conto, allora, che l'unico vero collaudo della forza – del tono muscolare, per così dire – della sanità mentale è la capacità di sostenere l'urto di un interrogativo dietro l'altro senza che vi sia neanche l'ombra di una risposta.

Novelist Raymond Chandler once explained his writing discipline to his friend Alex Harris. Chandler wrote in a letter, “Either write or nothing…. I find it works. Two very simple rules, a: you don’t have to write. b: you can’t do anything else.

McAdoo and Graham were discussing that most essential characteristic of great entrepreneurs: mental toughness, the ability to overcome the hurdles and negativity that typically accompany something new. McAdoo and his partners had identified this kind of true grit as the most important attribute in the founders of their successful portfolio companies, like Google and PayPal.

For whatever goal you want to achieve, there is discomfort along that path. Self-discipline drives you through this discomfort and allows you to achieve and attain. It’s an essential component of mastery, and nothing great was ever accomplished without it.

Confidence is an expectation that we can prevail over difficult, uncomfortable situations. This self-trust stems, in part, from our abilities, which are comprised of our knowledge base, talents, and areas of proficiency. We’re confident when we feel prepared for our circumstances.

Even though mastery seems like a goal or destination—and to a certain extent, it is—true masters know that a warrior will never stop learning, never stop pushing boundaries, and never stop growing. So masters focus on mastering the details of the journey every day, rather than the end-state.

But back then we had to amuse ourselves, and fighting seemed to be all we had. Looking back, it was good for us. You got a lot out of your system. And you learned a lot. And then when our country needed soldiers we were in shape. We already had a mental toughness. I graduated from the eighth grade

Cousin Mary hoped her journey through periods of dark and light was like that of a Swiss train toiling up the mountainside, in and out of tunnels but always a little farther up the hill at each emergence. But she could only hope that this was so, she did not feel it. It seemed to her that she did not advance at all and that what she was learning now was only to hold on. The Red Queen in Alice Through the Looking Glass, she remembered, had had to run fast merely to stay where she was, but doubtless she had run in hope, disdaining despair; and hope, Cousin Mary discovered, when deliberately opposed to despair, was one of the tough virtues.

Masters: Situation appears dire. Look around. Do you see any adults? Me: My ball size indicates I’m the adultest thing here. Me: I haven’t been rejected this hard since I tried to block the punt in that game against OSU last semester. Masters: My wife says rejection is good for you. Makes you mentally tough. Me: You love saying that phrase “my wife.” Masters: You bet your fat ass I do. Me: You don’t think it’s completely strange that you’re 21 and acting like a Taylor Swift song? Masters: Bro, sorry you feel left out. Stop by later and I’ll give you a hug. Me: Fuck off. Masters: I have MY WIFE to do that for me. Thanks, though. Hug still stands. I’ll even let you smell me. MY WIFE says I smell delicious. Me: I’ve smelled you before, which is why I’m not sure how you convinced Ellie to marry you. She must have defective olfactory senses. Masters: Me and MY defective WIFE will be getting it on tonight. While u have only Rosie Palm. Me: Don’t worry. I get plenty of variety. Left-hand Laura sometimes steps in. Masters: Heard you were out with Josie Weeks. Be careful. She eats little linebackers like you for breakfast. And the fact that I don’t even want to make a sexually charged comeback tells me exactly how I feel about Josie. Hope she doesn’t mind being just study partners.

Running is not magic beans and I now know that I can’t expect it to inure me to the genuine sadness of life. But throughout tough periods in my life, and without realising it, I had finally acquired a coping skill, one that has helped me every day since I found myself on that floor, wondering how I’d ever get up. It’s something that has taken me out of my self-made cage, propelled me towards new jobs, new experiences, real love and a sense of optimism and confidence that I can be more than just a woman with crippling anxiety. It has given me a new identity, one which no longer sees danger and fear first. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I ran myself out of misery. It has transformed my life.

The next time you feel that you’re about to give in to an urge or temptation, stop and ask yourself how you will feel ten minutes, ten hours, and ten days from now. The 10-10-10 Rule may not seem all that powerful, but it’s effective because it forces you to think about your future self and to see how your actions will affect you in the future—for better or worse.

115 BPM Fine motor skills deteriorate 145+ BPM Complex motor skills deteriorate 175+ BPM “A warrior can expect to experience auditory exclusion or loss of peripheral vision and depth perception. This initiates a catastrophic failure of cognitive processing capabilities, leading to fatal increases in reaction time or hypervigilance (freezing in place or irrational acts).” p.7-8

One strategy to help you master delaying gratification is to think about your future self more—the one who will be rewarded for your temporary suffering. Integrate your view of your future self as one and the same with the you that is acting now. When you’re emotionally one with your future self, it becomes easier for you to act for the good of your future self instead of just following the whims of your present self.

Her mental list of items she’d need from her apartment was growing. There were things a girl just couldn’t live without, so Keegan would have to get them when he retrieved Muffin. “I need another purse. Can you get me my Prada knockoff? It’s in my closet on the shelf. Pink. It’s pink. I got it from a vendor in Manhattan. Jeez he was a tough negotiator, but it was worth the haggling. It’s soooo cute.” Keegan sighed, raspy and long. “Okay.” “Oh! And my nail polish. I have two new bottles in the bathroom under the sink in one of those cute organizer baskets, you know? Like the ones you get at Bed Bath and Beyond? God, I love those. Anyway, I need Retro Red and Winsome Wisteria.” Another sigh followed, and then a nod of consent. “My moisturizer. I never go anywhere, not even overnight, without my moisturizer. Not that I ever really go anywhere, but anyway I need it, or my skin will dehydrate and it could just be ugly. Top left side of my medicine cabinet.” “Er, okay.” “My shoes. I can’t be without shoes. Let’s see. I need my tennis shoes and my white sandals, because I don’t think there’s much hope for these, wouldn’t you say?” Marty looked up at him and saw impatience written all over his face. “And my laptop. I can’t check on my clients without my laptop, and they need me. Plus, there’s that no-good bitch Linda Fisher. I have to watch that she’s not stealing my accounts. Do you have all of that?” He gave her that stern look again. The one that made her insides skedaddle around even if it was meant in reproach. “I’m going too far, huh?” His smile was crooked. “Just a smidge.

Michael Jordan, the basketball great, is a case in point. In a famous Nike commercial, he said: ‘I’ve missed more than nine thousand shots. I’ve lost almost three hundred games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.’ For many the ad was perplexing. Why boast about your mistakes? But to Jordan it made perfect sense. ‘Mental toughness and heart are a lot stronger than some of the physical advantages you might have,’ he said. ‘I’ve always said that and I’ve always believed that.’ James

Ten Principles for Success Strive to be a leader of character, competence, and courage. Lead from the front. Say, “Follow me!” and then lead the way. Stay in top physical shape—physical stamina is the root of mental toughness. Develop your team. If you know your people, are fair in setting realistic goals and expectations, and lead by example, you will develop teamwork. Delegate responsibility to your subordinates and let them do their jobs. You can’t do a good job if you don’t have a chance to use your imagination or your creativity. Anticipate problems and prepare to overcome obstacles. Don’t wait until you get to the top of the ridge and then make up your mind. Remain humble. Don’t worry about who receives the credit. Never let power or authority go to your head. Take a moment of self-reflection. Look at yourself in the mirror every night and ask yourself if you did your best. True satisfaction comes from getting the job done. The key to a successful leader is to earn respect—not because of rank or position, but because you are a leader of character. Hang Tough!—Never, ever, give up.

The mind cannot differentiate between past, present and future events with regards to imagery in the mind. If you attached enough emotional context and feeling to what you are playing in your minds eye I.e. a past memory or projected future event, the body elicits exactly the same biochemical response, as if that experience was happening right now. It’s a clever trick which can convince the mind into believing that you have already achieved these things. The subconscious will then go to work in serving up additional and similar opportunities to bring into your physical reality.

To achieve SEAL-worthy success, you must: • establish your set point, turning a deep sense of values and purpose into a touchstone that will keep your feet in the sand and your eyes on the goal • develop front-sight focus so nothing can derail you on your way to victory • bulletproof your mission to inoculate your efforts against failure • do today what others won’t so you can achieve tomorrow what others can’t • get mentally and emotionally tough, and eliminate the “quit” option from your subconscious • break things and remake them, improving them through innovation and adaptation • build your intuition to utilize the full range of your innate wisdom and intelligence • think offense, all the time, to surprise your competition and dominate the field • train for life to develop mastery of your physical, mental, emotional, intuitional, and spiritual selves Though many of the

Eventually, many years later, I came to see him the way everyone else saw him—a nice guy who, despite all the damage he did to us, wasn’t a bad man, not inherently bad, anyway. He just wasn’t very bright, and was in over his head on almost every level of life. He was capable of only so much and not a drop more, and because he seemed so harmless and lost, people not only liked him, they protected him. My mother, despite her poverty, left the opposite impression. She left no doubt that she was psychologically tough and mentally sharp, and because of that the Wozniaks disliked her. And that was another difference between my mother and father. My father was a whiner, a complainer, a perpetually unhappy man unable to comprehend the simple fact that sometimes life is unfair. My mother never complained, and yet her poverty-stricken life was miserable. She never carried on about the early death of her raging alcoholic mother, or the father who raped her, or of a diet dictated by the restrictions of food stamps.

These women do not stop to ponder the consequences of their claims to be playing with the boys. They do not consider the full male experience, but cosplay the particular parts the system wants them to play. She works hard for the corporation. She has meaningless sex. She acts tough. She isn't afraid to fight. She then wonders why women are depressed more, committing suicide more often, and why one in four are on mental medication. Playing at just a few parts of the male role drives women to medication, drinking, and despair. It is womans ignorance of masculinity that they would ever dare to claim she was performing a father's role. No man would claim to do a mother's role, for he knows he could never be a mother. A dog may jump around and act like a cat, but it is still a dog.

Where is everybody?” “Hiding,” she said. “Except for Doolittle. He was excused from the chewing-out due to having been kidnapped. He’s napping now like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I got to hear all sorts of interesting stuff through the door.” “Give.” She shot me a sly smile. “First, I got to listen to Jim’s ‘it’s all my fault; I did it all by myself’ speech. Then I got to listen to Derek’s ‘it’s all my fault and I did it all by myself’ speech. Then Curran promised that the next person who wanted to be a martyr would get to be one. Then Raphael made a very growling speech about how he was here for a blood debt. It was his right to have restitution for the injury caused to the friend of the boudas; it was in the damn clan charter on such and such page. And if Curran wanted to have an issue with it, they could take it outside. It was terribly dramatic and ridiculous. I loved it.” I could actually picture Curran sitting there, his hand on his forehead above his closed eyes, growling quietly in his throat. “Then Dali told him that she was sick and tired of being treated like she was made out of glass and she wanted blood and to kick ass.” That would do him in. “So what did he say?” “He didn’t say anything for about a minute and then he chewed them out. He told Derek that he’d been irresponsible with Livie’s life, and that if he was going to rescue somebody, the least he could do is to have a workable plan, instead of a poorly thought-out mess that backfired and broke just about every Pack law and got his face smashed in. He told Dali that if she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to accept responsibility for her own actions instead of pretending to be weak and helpless every time she got in trouble and that this was definitely not the venue to prove one’s toughness. Apparently he didn’t think her behavior was cute when she was fifteen and he’s not inclined to tolerate it now that she’s twenty-eight.” I was cracking up. “He told Raphael that the blood debt overrode Pack law only in cases of murder or life-threatening injury and quoted the page of the clan charter and the section number where that could be found. He said that frivolous challenges to the alpha also violated Pack law and were punishable by isolation. It was an awesome smackdown. They had no asses left when he was done.” Andrea began snapping the gun parts together. “Then he sentenced the three of them and himself to eight weeks of hard labor, building the north wing addition to the Keep, and dismissed them. They ran out of there like their hair was on fire.” “He sentenced himself?” “He’s broken Pack law by participating in our silliness, apparently.” That’s Beast Lord for you. “And Jim?” “Oh, he got a special chewing-out after everybody else was dismissed. It was a very quiet and angry conversation, and I didn’t hear most of it. I heard the end, though—he got three months of Keep building. Also, when he opened the door to leave, Curran told him very casually that if Jim wanted to pick fights with his future mate, he was welcome to do so, but he should keep in mind that Curran wouldn’t come and rescue him when you beat his ass. You should’ve seen Jim’s face.” “His what?” “His mate. M-A-T-E.” I cursed. Andrea grinned. “I thought that would make your day. And now you’re stuck with him in here for three days and you get to fight together in the Arena. It’s so romantic. Like a honeymoon.” Once again my mental conditioning came in handy. I didn’t strangle her on the spot.

The first requisite of all education and discipline should be man-timber. Tough timber must come from well grown, sturdy trees. Such wood can be turned into a mast, can be fashioned into a piano or an exquisite carving. But it must become timber first. Time and patience develop the sapling into the tree. So through discipline, education, experience, the sapling child is developed into hardy mental, moral, physical man-timber. If the youth should start out with the fixed determination that every statement he makes shall be the exact truth; that every promise he makes shall be redeemed to the letter; that every appointment shall be kept with the strictest faithfulness and with full regard for other men’s time; if he should hold his reputation as a priceless treasure, feel that the eyes of the world are upon him, that he must not deviate a hair’s breadth from the truth and right; if he should take such a stand at the outset, he would … come to have almost unlimited credit and the confidence of everybody who knows him.

When you try to break a bad habit or form a positive one, you’re naturally going to feel awkward or uncomfortable at first because you have to actively make decisions about your behavior. Your brain has already been programmed to function in a certain way, so it will resist the change and, as a result, make the new behavior feel wrong and even frightening. The best thing to do in order to successfully reprogram your behavior is to embrace that awkward feeling of wrongness. It will take a while for your new routine to feel right or natural, so just accept that and keep chugging along. It’s a bit like starting to wear eyeglasses for the first time. You start out feeling uncomfortable and overly conscious of that foreign object sitting atop your nose, but you get used to that feeling with continued wear, such that sooner or later you don’t even notice it when your eyeglasses are on. Eventually, the behavior you want will be wired into your basal ganglia and you can go back to autopilot as an improved version of yourself. Before that happens, though, habit formation will start with feelings of unease rather than feelings of excitement and comfort.

Mental toughness is the ability to focus on and execute solutions, especially in the face of adversity. Greatness rarely happens on accident. If you want to achieve excellence, you will have to act like you really want it. How? Quite simply: by dedicating time and energy into consistently doing what needs to be done. Excuses are the antithesis of accountability. Important decisions aren’t supposed to be easy, but don’t let that stop you from making them. When it comes to decisions, decide to always decide. The second we stop growing, we start dying. Stagnation easily morphs into laziness, and once a person stops trying to grow and improve, he or she is nothing more than mediocre. Develop the no-excuse mentality. Do not let anything interrupt those tasks that are most critical for growth in the important areas of your life. Find a way, no matter what, to prioritize your daily process goals, even when you have a viable excuse to justify not doing it. “If you don’t evaluate yourself, how in the heck are you ever going to know what you are doing well and what you need to improve? Those who are most successful evaluate themselves daily. Daily evaluation is the key to daily success, and daily success is the key to success in life. If you want to achieve greatness, push yourself to the limits of your potential by continuously looking for improvements. Within 60 seconds, replace all problem-focused thought with solution-focused thinking. When people focus on problems, their problems actually grow and reproduce. When you train your mind to focus on solutions, guess what expands? Talking about your problems will lead to more problems, not to solutions. If you want solutions, start thinking and talking about your solutions. Believe that every problem, no matter how large, has at the very least a +1 solution, you will find it easier to stay on the solution side of the chalkboard. When you set your mind to do something, find a way to get it done…no matter what! If you come up short on your discipline, keep fighting, kicking, and scratching to improve. Find the nearest mirror and look yourself in the eye while you tell yourself, “There is no excuse, and this will not happen again.” Get outside help if needed, but never, ever give up on being disciplined. Greatness will not magically appear in your life without significant accountability, focus, and optimism on your part. Are you ready to commit fully to turning your potential into a leadership performance that will propel you to greatness. Mental toughness is understanding that the only true obstacles in life are self-imposed. You always have the choice to stay down or rise above. In truth, the only real obstacles to your ultimate success will come from within yourself and fall into one of the following three categories: apathy, laziness and fear. Laziness breeds more laziness. When you start the day by sleeping past the alarm or cutting corners in the morning, you’re more likely to continue that slothful attitude later in the day.

Some kinds of instruction in prayer used to say, at the beginning, ‘Put yourself in the presence of God.’ But I often wonder whether it would be more helpful to say, ‘Put yourself in the place of Jesus.’ It sounds appallingly ambitious, even presumptuous, but that is actually what the New Testament suggests we do. Jesus speaks to God for us, but we speak to God in him. You may say what you want – but he is speaking to the Father, gazing into the depths of the Father’s love. And as you understand Jesus better, as you grow up a little in your faith, then what you want to say gradually shifts a bit more into alignment with what he is always saying to the Father, in his eternal love for the eternal love out of which his own life streams forth. That, in a nutshell, is prayer – letting Jesus pray in you, and beginning that lengthy and often very tough process by which our selfish thoughts and ideals and hopes are gradually aligned with his eternal action; just as, in his own earthly life, his human fears and hopes and desires and emotions are put into the context of his love for the Father, woven into his eternal relation with the Father – even in that moment of supreme pain and mental agony that he endures the night before his death.

The most vital weapons at the disposal of a special forces soldier are his intellect and his mental toughness. Sometimes it all comes down to 'who wants it most', i.e. whoever is more willing to keep fighting and trying to survive. Being able to keep your head and look for advantages or escape routes is a big plus too. Getting into 'survival mode' requires shifting mental gears when you need to. Good training helps with this as well as giving you the skills you need, but ultimately the will that drives your bid to survive is yours. If you give in to fear or go into denial, pretending that it is not happening, then you will fail. Instead you must accept that it IS really happening and deal with it. So if you find yourself thinking, "What's he going to do to me?', you have to force yourself to answer, 'Nothing. I'm not going to let him.' If you have done all you can to avoid trouble and it finds you anyway, then it is down to you to make a way out of the situation with as little harm to yourself as possible. Yes, you will be scared. Yes, you might indeed get hurt. Yes, it is possible that you could fail to defend yourself... but not for lack of trying. If the bad guy will not let you withdraw or de-escalate the situation, if he insists on fighting then he has decided that someone is going to get hurt. But it is you, not him, that gets to decide who.

How Journal Writing Helps Because of your social anxiety, you may be so afraid that any opinions you have are wrong that you remain neutral on most subjects. Or, you might feel like a chameleon who changes opinions depending on the situation. Not expressing your opinions can make you feel empty and unsure of what you really believe. Writing your thoughts and feelings in a journal can help you figure out your likes and dislikes, your opinions on tough issues, and what you stand for. Once you have your true beliefs down on paper, they will seem more concrete and you will be able to remember them during social situations. Although you probably are aware of what causes you the most anxiety, you also may have worries that are more difficult to identify. People often use various mental tricks to bury problems that are painful or difficult. As you write in your journal, you will become more aware of hidden fears and worries. Once they are brought into the open, you can begin to cope with them more effectively. Writing about events also makes it easier to be objective. While a belief, such as “Everyone thinks I’m stupid,” may cross your mind unconsciously, writing it down makes you realize how false and exaggerated it is. Once you see how maladaptive some of your thoughts are, it is easier to change them. In addition, a journal is valuable whenever you feel discouraged. Reviewing past entries will remind you how much you have improved over time. This insight will help you stay motivated and will make you want to keep working on the problem. Past entries are also helpful in figuring out how to deal with events in the present. You can look back at various situations, discover what actions worked (or didn’t), and feel confident in repeating them (or not).

What are you doing?” “Coming to pick you up in a little bit,” he said. I loved it when he took charge. It made my heart skip a beat, made me feel flushed and excited and thrilled. After four years with J, I was sick and tired of the surfer mentality. Laid-back, I’d discovered, was no longer something I wanted in a man. And when it came to his affection for me, Marlboro Man was anything but that. “I’ll be there at five.” Yes, sir. Anything you say, sir. I’ll be ready. With bells on. I started getting ready at three. I showered, shaved, powdered, perfumed, brushed, curled, and primped for two whole hours--throwing on a light pink shirt and my favorite jeans--all in an effort to appear as if I’d simply thrown myself together at the last minute. It worked. “Man,” Marlboro Man said when I opened the door. “You look great.” I couldn’t focus very long on his compliment, though--I was way too distracted by the way he looked. God, he was gorgeous. At a time of year when most people are still milky white, his long days of working cattle had afforded him a beautiful, golden, late-spring tan. And his typical denim button-down shirts had been replaced by a more fitted dark gray polo, the kind of shirt that perfectly emphasizes biceps born not from working out in a gym, but from tough, gritty, hands-on labor. And his prematurely gray hair, very short, was just the icing on the cake. I could eat this man with a spoon. “You do, too,” I replied, trying to will away my spiking hormones. He opened the door to his white diesel pickup, and I climbed right in. I didn’t even ask him where we were going; I didn’t even care. But when we turned west on the highway and headed out of town, I knew exactly where he was taking me: to his ranch…to his turf…to his home on the range. Though I didn’t expect or require a ride from him, I secretly loved that he drove over an hour to fetch me. It was a throwback to a different time, a burst of chivalry and courtship in this very modern world. As we drove we talked and talked--about our friends, about our families, about movies and books and horses and cattle.