Mental Toughness
Hello Dear Reader!
I’ve written before about why I think it’s important to do hard things. But today I want to talk a little bit about mental toughness.
My gym, which is arguably one of the coolest gyms to ever exist, has just entered our summer programming phase. The name of this phase? “The Rivendell Regimen”. Yes, that’s right, our workout is named after something from LOTR. One of the benchmark workouts during this phase that we use for testing is called Rivendell. This workout is as follows:
500 m kettlebell carry — (Carrying all your supplies as you head out from Rivendell)
50 ft crawl — (Smeagol)
500 m run — (Running in Khazad-dûm from the Balrog)
50 ft crawl — (Smeagol)
500 m row — (Frodo and Sam taking the boat and separating from the fellowship)
50 ft crawl — (Smeagol)
500 m sand bag carry — (The ring gets heavy…)
50 ft crawl — (Smeagol)
100 step ups with sand bag — (I can’t carry the ring, Mr. Frodo, but I can carry you!)
Sam carries Frodo up Mt. Doom. You think 100 step ups with a sandbag is tough? Try walking up a freaking active volcano with a hobbit on your back when you’re exhausted, hungry, thirsty, and nearly out of hope.
Not gonna lie, I geek out over this kind of stuff. I enjoy doing obstacle races and I always imagine myself on some kind of adventure, either al la Tomb Raider, or Dungeons and Dragons, or something. How often do you get to go run around on a trail outside, lift and carry heavy stuff, climb over things, climb under things, wade through mud or cold mountain streams, and try to actually do some of the crazy stuff that your characters actually do when they’re adventuring? For most of us, not that often. Maybe I’m just wired a little weird, but for me, it just makes my brain all kinds of happy.
Anyway. Back to my whole point.
Depending on the weight that you choose, the above workout can be a bit of a doozy. There comes a point where it becomes a little bit about mental toughness. Ryan (who was coaching on the day I did this workout), was talking about how, especially at the end, the step ups can feel like a bit of a grind. He was saying something along the lines of “If you want to put the sandbag down and keep going without it, I might come back over and ask you to think about it again, and see if you can dig a little deeper, and maybe challenge yourself to pick the sandbag back up and keep going.” And then of course he was like, “Remember who we are doing this for: for Frodo, and the Shire!”
But he has a point.
Did I want to put down the sandbag? Sure I did. Was I hot and sweaty and uncomfortable and out of breath and tired? Yep. Would it have been easier to complete the workout if I had put the sandbag down? Also yep. Did I do it? HELL NO!
I think so often we get scared of discomfort. We don’t want to be uncomfortable. That’s kind of the whole point! Being uncomfortable can be awful! Who would want that?! When something is hard, it’s not always fun. When we’re not good at something, it can be really hard not to get discouraged or for it to feel like a slog. It’s easy to want to take a short cut, to put the sandbag down, or even to give up. To put the ring on and disappear…
Just give up and all your suffering will go away… (LIES! Don’t believe the Ring Frodo!)
Like Coach Ryan, I’m here to tell you: “Don’t do it!” Don’t shortchange yourself. YOU ARE SO. MUCH. STRONGER. THAN. YOU. THINK.
In an age of instant information, instant gratification, and ultimate convenience, I fear mental toughness may become something of an objet.
And as much as it sucks, getting through those miserable spots, be they physically suffering in a workout or some other kind of emotional or mental or stressful type of misery that one endures for a greater gain, the reward is all the more amazing for persevering. Once you get to the other side, the sense of pride and accomplishment, the confidence, all if it are just that much better knowing how much work you put in and how much more skilled or knowledgeable or wise you are after the fact, and especially knowing YOU DID NOT GIVE UP!
There are going to be times in your life when you can’t put down the sandbag. When things get really tough or uncomfortable and you have to find your way through. When we don’t have the option to set down the sandbag and complete the workout without it. Help set yourself up for success by practicing your mental toughness now, so that metaphorical muscle is strong when you need it.
Even beyond times of crisis, I would argue that discipline is a form of mental toughness. You don’t want to sit down and write your book? Fine. Don’t. But you won’t get it done that way. Consistency is the what gets things done. Some days you may not feel like it, but the more discipline and routine you can build into your own mental operations, the easier time you will have achieving your goals, and the less you will struggle to accomplish what you want.
I’m not going to go down the rabbit hole into any of the sciencey stuff about the anterior mid-singulate cortex and how much our brains benefit from doing hard things, but the benefits of challenging yourself and doing things to build your mental toughness are vast and wonderful.
I would encourage you to find ways to challenge yourself a little bit, see where you can build some mental toughness. Take a cold shower. Drive to or from work without your heat or your AC. Challenge yourself (safely) a little bit more in the gym this week. For me personally, I find that when I work on my mental toughness I have more of a sense of gratitude for the comforts and luxuries I do have, and also that inconveniences and annoyances tend to bother me less. Hot water heater break down? Oh well, it’s just a cold shower. Unpleasant, but very much not the end of the world, nothing I haven’t experienced before. I am mentally strong and capable and therefore I can handle it.
I dunno, to me it seems there is a sort of sense of sort of unflappableness that comes with increased mental toughness. Maybe you’ve experienced this too?
Till next time dear reader, get out there and go do something unpleasant. You may be surprised at just how tough you are. <3 Tiff
