MENTAL TOUGHNESS

Build A Successful Mindset,

Self-Discipline, Resilience and Willpower To
Achieve
Long Lasting Goals
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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Mental Toughness & Resilience
Understanding Fear And Conquering Fear
When Worry Becomes Anxiety
Generalized Anxiety Disorder
The Mythology of Stress and Anxiety
Stress Myths
Myths About Anxiety
Setting Goals
The Right Goals
How to Set Clear Goals that You Actually Achieve
Daily Habits That Can Keep You Focused And Disciplined And Increase
Resilience
Dumping bad habits
Starting good habits
Determining the most beneficial habits
Focus on Learning Instead of Past Failure
Zero Criticism or Complaining
Appear to Be in Control at All Times, in All Situations
Feel Happiness When Others Succeed
Shove less Important Situations to the Side
Look at Each Day as a Gift and Opportunity
Bring Your Best to the Table and Others Will Follow
Why Develop Mental Strength?
To establish a winner’s mind:
Mental toughness allows you to be able to prioritize.
Mental toughness teaches you patience
Mental toughness gives you greater life satisfaction:
The Power of Resilience and Discipline
What Is Discipline?
 What Do They Have to Do With Mental Toughness?
How to Be More Resilient
Know Your Why
See Change as Positive Instead of Negative
Look for the Good in Every Situation
Have Confidence in Yourself and Your Abilities
Treat Problems Like Puzzles
Get Ahead of Problems When You Can
Never Ever Give Up
How to Be More Disciplined
Take Care of Your Basic Needs
Building Mental Toughness
Mental toughness is required for managing emotions.
Mental toughness is required for controlling and handling your thoughts.
Essential Traits of the Mentally Tough
Self-Confidence
Emotional Intelligence
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
The Ability to Listen to Your Emotions
Why Do You Need Emotional Intelligence?
When Do You Need Emotional Intelligence?
In Relationships
At Work
Emotional Intelligence versus Intellectual Intelligence
How to Gain Emotional Intelligence
Solicit the opinions of others.
Applying Mental Toughness in Different Fields
Applying Mental Toughness in Sports
Applying Mental Toughness in the Workplace
Applying Mental Toughness in Entrepreneurship
Applying Mental Toughness in Education
Applying Mental Toughness in the Military and Navy SEALs Mental
 Toughness
Applying Mental Toughness in Personal Matters
Gaining Full Control
1: Understand what thoughts actually are
2: Organize your thoughts
3: Turn negative thoughts around
4: Separate yourself from your thoughts
5: Choose acting over thinking
Conclusion
 INTRODUCTION
One of the biggest reasons we live a disconnected life is because we carry
around a lot of emotional and spiritual pain. We may or may not have a
reason why we do this but, believe me, many of us are in some kind of pain.
Sometimes our hearts are weak and our spirits are broken, but, still, we get up
and go about the day and push down the pain. Maybe we were born with
spiritual pain or we have unresolved emotional issues that we haven’t let go
of and we hold them inside not knowing how to let them go.

Some believe in past lives and that we are born with pain and this pain is
punishment from a past life. For those who are Christian, they believe that we
can remove the pain by giving it to God. Pass it to something or someone and
let it go if you have it.
It’s not worth holding on to. Without being mindful, we hold on to pain so
tight that it leaves us exhausted, spiritually, physically and emotionally.

Most of the pain is only in our minds and it is a dialogue we have with
ourselves (the so called “negative self talk”). I am not saying things didn’t
happen to you in your past. Maybe you can’t even remember or pin point
anything. I couldn’t imagine some of the circumstances people have gone
through and are still able to live each day. I have had hardships, but I am
blessed that my pain is not as deep as other’s pain. All pain needs to be
identified and let go of, though. The point here is to give yourself the gift of
seeking out help to rid yourself if you are in pain.
Start fresh again, even if for only once in your life.

Make the choice to be free.

If you are in pain, the only way out of the darkness is to release it and let it go
through you and then let it go. We must stop burdening ourselves and others
with our pain. No more stories to tell others about why we are in pain. We
protect ourselves from feeling the pain and we carry the baggage. We don’t
understand how much we suffer and, conversely, we don’t know what it is
like not to suffer. We expose ourselves to our pain by virtue of being in pain
in the first place. We are constantly thinking about the pain of the past, the
present and the pain we will endure in the future. We don’t know we are in
pain most of the time; however, we feel it but don’t recognize it until we have
a problem and it affects our behavior.

Mental toughness is essential because it compensates for the lack of skill,

natural ability, and strength. You have often heard it said that the people at
the top, in any field whatsoever, are not the most talented; they are those who
stayed and kept at it despite the challenges they faced.

Mental toughness is essential to prevent you from becoming a quitter.

 MENTAL TOUGHNESS & RESILIENCE
Mental toughness may mean something different to you than it means to
someone else. Oftentimes, people think about surmounting hurdles and
challenges that present themselves in order to keep pushing forward toward a
goal. But what allows a person to form the drive and motivation to desire and
believe that he can achieve that goal, and then to formulate a plan to achieve
that goal? What gets the person to stop procrastinating and take steps toward
achieving that goal? And what allows the person to stay focused, not get
frustrated, not give up and follow through on trying to achieve that goal until
he actually achieves it? Mental toughness is what it takes to channel your
motivation, determination, and desire to achieve the objective you’ve set.

It takes mental toughness to be on your way to achieving your

goals and to take all of the steps that are listed above without
getting sidetracked by distractions, emotions, thoughts, and other
things that can take you off of your path.
In fact, everything that a person wants to achieve in life takes
some degree of mental toughness. How much mental toughness
it takes is based on the difficulty of the goal. This is especially
true because things may not always be easy for you to do and
your goals may not be easy to accomplish. Learning how to
develop your mental toughness can help you tremendously when
setting out to achieve your goal. In fact, it is so important that
you have a significant degree of mental toughness when trying to
achieve the goals that you have in life. Education, money, and
connection may all come in second, third, and fourth to having
the mental toughness and fortitude to establish your goal, stick to
it, and believe that you can achieve it.
Mental toughness is often thought of as resilience - the ability to withstand
what life throws at you and to keep going. One example of this comes into
play when discussing mental toughness and professional athletics. If a major
league baseball pitcher walks three batters in a row, he still must have the
resilience to stand on the mound and pitch to the next batter even though the
crowd might be booing, the backup pitcher may be warming up, the coach
may be yelling at him, and his teammates are disappointed.

Why Do You Need Mental Toughness?

Your mental state is just as important, if not more important, than the amount
of knowledge, skill or money you have when you are trying to achieve a goal.
There are a lot of people out there with the knowledge and education that
they need to accomplish big dreams, but they do not have the proper mental
state to do so. They may state moving along the way toward a goal and then
back down for fear that they may fail, it will take too long, be too difficult, or
somehow has otherwise become impossible.
In fact, many people fail to state on their way toward achieving big goals at
all because either they do not believe that it can be done, or they do not have
the strength of mind to think that they can do it.

Mental toughness can provide you the inner strength that you need to be on
your way to achieving your goals. Much of a person’s inner strength to
persevere and achieve is derived from his or her mental state. Thus, it is
important for you to have a strong, stable mental state in which you can think
clearly and, understand your emotions and desires, and take active steps
toward achieving your goals.

Mental toughness is required to manage emotions.

It is unavoidable that people will experience emotions. Emotions are a
naturally occurring state of mind that is the result of a person’s surrounds,
mood, and relationships and interactions with other people. Because emotions
are naturally occurring, they may actually overtake a person’s thoughts and
become their main focus if a person lets them do so.

This is where mental toughness comes in.

Mental toughness gives a person the ability to control, to some extent, his or
her emotions, as well as the way in which he or she reacts to them and how
much these emotions take over the person’s mind.
For instance, you may have had a fight with your spouse or significant other
in the morning which has you stressed out, sad or feeling some other emotion
that is not conducive to getting a great deal of work done. Some people may
not get much accomplished that day or even irritate their co-workers or make
mistakes on the job because they are focusing on their emotions. A person
who has mastered mental toughness, however, should be able to perform at a
high level even if he or she still cares about the argument and has
experienced some of the same emotions as the person who messes up at work
that day. The saying ‘it’s not what happens to you, it’s how you handle it’ is
true to a significant extent.
Thus, mental toughness is very important when you seek to handle your
emotions properly so that you can make wise and effective decisions while
still experiencing emotions.

Mental toughness is required to control and handle your

thoughts.
Thoughts differ from emotions due to the fact that they are not always about
feelings. In fact, a significant portion of our time is spent thinking about
things that do not have much to do with our emotions. You may think about
whether or not you are going to be able to finish your homework or work
project on time. Although the thought of not finishing the assignment on time
may evoke some feelings and emotions, the thought of whether or not you
will finish the assignment on time is not primarily based on emotion.
In order to think clearly and focus, you need to be able to control your
thought. However, a challenge arises when there is a lot of things that are
going on around you, and you find it difficult to focus on or even identify
what is and what is not important. This is why it is so important to have
mental toughness. Mental toughness can help you to control your thought
processes so that you can focus and concentrate on the things that you need to
be focused on or the task at hand despite whatever is going on in the world
around you.

There are some key people who are known to need and have an exceptional
level of mental toughness. People such as performer and world-class athletes
must possess a tremendous amount of mental toughness to perform in front of
millions of people and excel without getting distracted by the crowd noise,
problems at home, worries that they have and more.
Examples of people who possess this type of mental toughness include
people such as Beyoncé, NFL players, Tiger Woods, and more. Beyoncé
must get up on stage and perform for crowds of thousands of people on the
day of the concert whether she is feeling happy, sad, sick or tired. She must
remain focused to hit her dance steps perfectly, remember her songs even
with the crowd noise and some of the fans singing along.

Furthermore, the amount of talent that she has would not get her to where she
is alone. She had to have the drive to get to the top, and she had to be
determined along the way and stay focused. There are a lot of other singing
acts and groups that were around when she started that were considered to be
just as good as Destiny’s Child from which she came. Many of these groups
and the singers in them are no longer around because they did not have the
mental toughness to forge along through all of the struggles and hurdles that
it takes to get to the top of the music field.
In fact, many people may not even want to be where Beyoncé is because they
understand that it is too much mental pressure for them to handle. Many
people would like to accomplish much smaller goals with far fewer people
watching in order to minimize the mental pressure that is put upon them. This
is why most of the articles and books that you find about mental toughness
are focused on professional athletes and major performers, so much so that
they often neglect giving advice to the average layman about how he can
utilize mental toughness in his daily life. Throughout this book, however, you
will learn how to develop mental toughness even if you never plan to play a
professional sport or get up on a stage and perform for a crowd of millions
because everyone can benefit from developing and increasing their mental
toughness to that they can move to new heights in their own lives.
Just think about how much mental toughness a major league baseball player
must have to stand at the plate with a baseball being thrown in his direction
so close to him at almost 100 miles an hour if not more. He must be able to
block out the crowd and not let the number of people who are watching cloud
his judgment in any way. This is not an easy feat to accomplish, but it is a
necessary one is he is to have any chance of succeeding at the game.
Mental toughness is the key to willpower.
Most people would be surprised to find out that willpower or lack thereof is
the primary obstacle that most people face when trying to better themselves.
You would probably assume that it would be money, race or class; however,
in this day and age, it is possible to achieve almost anything that you want in
spite of these obstacles which used to limit people in the past but are no
longer considered to be hurdles today. The lack of the ability to stick to
something and see it through and have the determination to make it to a set
target is the obstacle that people face. This is something that is within your
control; therefore, a lot of people think that they can make a few small
adjustments and they will have the willpower and the determination that they
need to accomplish something that they want to do. They soon find out that
they were wrong when they thought that gaining willpower meant a few
small changes and they were on their way toward the end goal that they
desired. No, willpower takes a lot of major changes and hard work. The main
thing that you need to change to gain more willpower is your mind. Mental
toughness plays a substantial role in willpower as willpower is considered to
be one of the key traits that those who have mental toughness display.
Mental toughness is required to navigate through trying times.

During times when you are doing well, have some money in the bank, your
relationships are good, you are in good health, and you are rather happy,
mental toughness may not be called in as much unless it is I certain high-
pressure situations. However; if you ever experience hard times such as the
death of a spouse or a child, loss of a job and source of income, a natural
disaster or something of that nature, it is very important for you to have
mental toughness to get through the situation that you are in the best that you
can and get back on your feet. Hard times really are a test of your will. And
hard times can happen to anybody whether they expect it and have planned
for it or not.
To be prepared for whatever life throws at you and prepared for a hard time
should you experience them, it is good to develop some mental toughness
skills in advance. In fact, if you have never experienced true hard times,
things that would not seem like as big a deal to someone who has may seem
like a bigger deal to you. Thus, you will feel that you need some mental
toughness to navigate through life and succeed.

Mental toughness is required for everyday life situations.

Suppose you are driving your car, the same car that you had for the last four
years, down a road and you swerve to avoid hitting a deer than just ran into
the street and run off of the road. As your car is careening toward a group of
trees whether you go into full panic mode and let fate take over or you
attempt to steer depends on how much mental toughness you have. I
experienced a similar situation, and the main thing that I found out is that a
group of trees looks much denser from the road; however, the trees are far
enough apart that you can steer through them if you have the wherewithal to
do so. A friend of mine was a passenger in a car in which a car accident was
about to occur. Instead of trying to help the driver concentrate on steering,
she suggested that we all pray together (The driver ignored her suggesting
and used navigation skills instead of prayer to avoid the accident). If my
friend in the driver’s seat had been the driver when my car ran off the road, I
do not believe that she would have made it because she may have been to in
shock to realize that steering and maneuvering through the trees somewhat is
possible.
One of the reasons that my friend may not have survived if she had been in
the first car accident is that she does not possess the same amount of mental
toughness that I have conditioned myself to utilize, especially in tough and
trying situations. I would say she lacks a substantial amount of mental
toughness; however, some people may disagree and argue that she possesses
a normal amount of mental toughness. This is a skill she may never have tried
to hone. But then you can look at the fact that she wanted to go to graduate
school, but she didn’t because she didn’t believe that’s he could get the
money or would have the time. I, on the other hand, graduated from graduate
school because I did not look for the hurdles to stop me, I looked for the
hurdles to go.
In everyday life, situations that require mental toughness often present
themselves and for you to get through the situation intact, you need to have
already developed some mental toughness skills that will allow you to handle
that specific situation.
Therefore, it is wise for you to take some of the practice lessons in this book
to heart and learn some skills for enhancing your mental toughness so that
you can handle life at your best.
 UNDERSTANDING FEAR AND CONQUERING
FEAR
Let’s begin by getting our terms straight. When we talk about stress, what we
are discussing is a physiological and psychological reaction to a change of
environment or circumstance that requires some sort of response from us, and
it happens every day. Traffic is slow on the way into work: stress. The
electric bill is due: stress. You find out that you and your partner are going to
be parents: stress. Normal stress, in and of itself, is neither good nor bad. In
fact, it can be quite helpful, increasing your alertness and motivation and
preparing you to dodge a threat by engaging your body’s built-in fight-or-
flight response.
The problem is that for some people, that stress doesn’t stop. Your body can
handle intermittent stress, even severe intermittent stress, as long as that
stress is resolved, and the body can relax again. When stress becomes
chronic, it causes physical and emotional problems, including anxiety and
worry, which bring with them a host of issues, including additional stress.
Worry Versus Anxiety

The two terms are often used to mean the same thing, and they share many
traits, but there are differences. The primary difference is that worry is a
temporary, normal mental state. It is marked by dwelling on something real
that you find threatening or fearful, but the nervousness that defines it passes
when that real fear or threat is abated. Your understandable worry about
presenting a paper in class, for example, will pass once you get up there and
begin presenting it. Anxiety, however, is different. Instead of a definite threat,
anxiety is a physiological response to a potential threat. It’s that unease you
feel walking down a dark alleyway. It’s vague, there is nothing you can really
pinpoint, but you feel the apprehension nonetheless.

When Worry Becomes Anxiety

Worry can get out of hand, becoming chronic and assuming a central role in
your life. When that happens, it can go from a normal stress reaction to, say,
having to appear in traffic court, to a generalized anxiety disorder that colors
everything in your life.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Understand that there are a number of different anxiety disorders that arise
from a number of different sources. Here, however, we are discussing what is
known as Generalized Anxiety Disorder, which presents as severe and
crippling worry and agitation about everything and nothing at all.
Everyday life becomes a minefield of worry with the sufferer unable to
escape the feeling that some tragedy for which they are not ready is just
around the corner waiting to happen. This is someone who cannot put things
into any sort of perspective. It’s all horrible, and like an alligator lurking just
below the surface of the water, it’s going to get them. Some of the things
people with generalized anxiety disorder stress over are:

Losing their partner,

Losing their job,
Debt,
Their health,
Missed appointments,
Being cheated, and
So much more.

In fact, there are those who worry about their worries. It’s a vicious cycle: the
greater the stress, the greater the worry, the greater the anxiety, the greater the
symptoms, the greater the stress, and the victim is left fearful of life and
suffering physical symptoms that can leave them open to heart and
gastrointestinal problems.

The Mythology of Stress and Anxiety

These are real problems faced by real people, and yet there are a number of
myths surrounding them that have become widely accepted and even
encouraged in our society because they play into the ideas surrounding
success, wealth, and power; myths that often prevent people from finding
treatment and relief.

Stress Myths
Here are some of the most prevalent myths about stress that have to be
debunked if we want to get beyond management and get rid of stress for
good.
Stress is always external. There are those who hold that the stress we
experience is entirely external, that it comes from the things that happen in
life. In fact, stress is the body’s reaction to those external circumstances. It’s
based on the personality and the emotional make-up of the person
experiencing those events, which explains why different individuals react to
the same things in different ways.
Stress will spur you to action. Under certain circumstances, it might, but only
in reaction to a threat, like seeing a gang while walking along the street,
might make you go another way or hail a cab. That is not the same thing as
setting and meeting goals and deadlines or training to achieve something.
Stress actually keeps you from performing at your best, and any success
comes from powering throw it, not using it.

Stress is good. Sure, if it keeps you from doing something stupid like
climbing up on a narrow ledge. The truth is that stress is a major contributor
to the leading causes of death, including heart disease, cancer, respiratory
illnesses, cirrhosis of the liver, accidents, and suicide. It also figures strongly
in more than 75% of all doctor’s appointments.

You need stress to live. As we get older and have more and more
responsibility and obligation piled onto our lives, we get used to
the stress that comes with it. That’s not to say it doesn’t affect
us, but rather that we cannot remember a time when we didn’t
have it, leading to the erroneous conclusion that it is somehow
necessary. Nothing could be further from the truth. Think back to
your childhood. Your stress levels were low, your energy was
high, and you got things done.
You can get rid of stress for good through exercise and
 relaxation techniques. No, you can’t. exercise, relaxation,
breathing exercises, and so on are good for dealing with the
symptoms of stress, but they do nothing to actually stop the
stress itself. Without addressing the cause of stress, which is
your mental and emotional reaction to external events, the stress
will always come back. What you need to do instead is change
your relationship with these situations, the way you think about,
and react to, them.
You can choose to not feel stress. Again, no. Stress is not a
choice, like picking eggs over waffles for breakfast. It’s a
reaction based on how you see the world, not something you can
choose to experience or not experience at will. This means that
in order for you to get rid of stress, you need to change the way
you see things.

Stress is always going to happen. We can all come up with a list

of things that don’t cause us stress in the least but do stress other
people. You might find flying to be no big deal, while someone
else could get physically sick at the mere idea of it. Again, this
harkens back to the basis of stress, which is your own thoughts
and beliefs. By changing the way you think about situations that
are now stressful for you, that stress can be eliminated. You just
need to see things differently.
Stress is nothing to be concerned about. As mentioned above,
stress carries serious health risks, which alone makes it
something to be concerned about. Also, the effects of stress are
cumulative. They pile up, and with every frustration, annoyance,
hurt, and worry you have, that pile gets bigger, and you will find
fewer moments of peace, day in and day out, as it takes its toll on
your body and mind. So yes, there is a lot there to be concerned
about.

Myths About Anxiety

Anxiety is a real problem, what with the aches and pains, the panic attacks,
the constant sense of foreboding. It will affect a third of the population at one
point or another, and for millions, it will be chronic and debilitating. The fact
is that it can happen to anyone, with celebrities like Wil Wheaton, Bella
Hadid, Kristen Stewart, and others getting the word out to remove the stigma
that still lingers over this as well as many other psychological conditions, and
also so others who suffer won’t feel so isolated. What follows is a list of
some of the more prevalent myths about anxiety, as well as the realities of
this condition.

Worry and anxiety are the same thing. While they can feel the
same, with vaguely-defined fears, jittery nerves, and so on, the
difference is in their underlying cause. Worry arises from
something real and external, a situation that the worrier has to
deal with, and passes away with the event itself. You might
worry about taking your college finals, but once they are over, so
is the worry. Anxiety, by contrast, is internal and doesn’t rely on
anything external to stimulate it. In fact, is it often so vaguely
defined that the sufferer cannot actually point to any one thing
causing it.
You can just grow out of being anxious. Anxiety is not
something that will just “go away” given enough time. An
anxious teenager will become an anxious adult if they don’t get
help. The nature of that anxiety may change, the symptoms may
evolve, and so might the coping mechanisms of the sufferer, but
that is hardly the same thing as the condition resolving itself.
Treatment by a therapist who understands anxiety and is
equipped to deal with it is necessary to find relief.

Anxiety is only a problem for women. This is an old one that

harkens back to the days when women were considered the
“weaker sex.” The truth of the matter is that men and women
experience exhibit anxiety differently, with the men tending to
show anger while the women are more likely to show more
classic symptoms of fear and worry. The bottom line is that you
cannot necessarily tell what is going on with someone just by
looking. You need to talk to them and find out what has
happened.
Panic attacks are not real. When you have a panic attack, you are
undergoing a physical stress reaction to a perceived immediate
threat. It cannot, and should never be, dismissed as mere
“drama,” and it is certainly not a cry for attention, and as
stressful and inconvenient as they can be to witness, it is far
worse for the person having a panic attack. They experience
feelings of terror, difficulty breathing, dizziness and
disorientation, chest pains, and other physical symptoms. There
are ways to cope with panic attacks that can help the victim get
through the experience, but not everything works for everyone.
To learn them, you will need the help of a good therapist.
There is nothing you can do to help. Anxiety not only makes you
feel fearful, but it also makes you feel all alone. After all, other
people don’t share your feelings, so how can they understand?
The fact is that most cannot understand what the sufferer is
going through, but they can understand that they are going
through something. That’s the point. Show the person that they
are not alone, that they don’t have to face it by themselves. More
than that, because anxiety arises from the same area of the brain
as decision-making, if you take the lead there, and come up with
activities that can calm their anxiety, you will have done them a
great service.

You just need to breathe. Anxiety can cause a number of

different physical symptoms, from rapid heartbeat and sweating
to feeling dizzy and losing balance. There are breathing
techniques that can help with some of these symptoms, but that
is all they do. Because breathing techniques do not relieve all of
the symptoms or address the actual cause of the anxiety, the
person with the anxiety needs a variety of coping mechanisms.
These can include things like muscular relaxation techniques,
meditation, weighted blankets, even certain supplements like
magnesium. There are quite a few available, and it’s a pretty
good bet that the anxiety sufferer will find a combination that
will work for them.
You are weak if you take medication. There is a stigma attached
to taking psychiatric medications that are not appended to things
like antibiotics, hypertension, or diabetes medications. This is
more than simple ignorance; it is an injustice to those who need
anti-anxiety medication but are reluctant to take it because of
how it would make them look. With such medications and
treatment from a good therapist, people who suffered from
debilitating anxiety have taken their lives back.
You can only cure anxiety with medication. There are a number
of ways to treat anxiety that have nothing to do with medication.
It is one option among many and is often used to supplement
other treatments. The truth is that any treatment has to be tailored
to the individual patient, and it may or may not include anti-
anxiety medications.

Anxiety is the worst thing in your life. As unpleasant as anxiety

can be, you have to put it into perspective and remember that it is
a physical reaction to something that either has happened or is
happening in your life that can help guide you through.
Sometimes, when it becomes chronic and overwhelming, we see
it as a disorder that requires treatment. It is nothing to be
ashamed of, nothing to hide. Think of it in the same terms you
would use for any health issue. Would you be ashamed of
diabetes? Of course, not. Would you hide your arthritis? No, you
would not. Why is anxiety any different? It’s an issue, like any
other, that needs to be identified for what it is and addressed.
 SETTING GOALS
Setting clear goals gives you a sense of direction in life. Without goals, it is
easy to drift through life without a main agenda. When you don’t have goals,
you become open to anything. Suddenly, nothing will seem important to you.
If you hit a detour or the going gets tough, you will simply give up, change
your mind and go after something else.
Setting goals helps you realize what is important to you and what isn’t. Once
you become clear about what you want in your life, committing becomes
easier. One of the reasons you may jump from one activity to another and fail
to push through when times get tough is because at the back of your mind,
you know that whatever you are doing may not be very important after all.
Goal setting changes all that by giving meaning to whatever you set out to do,
and by doing that, it helps sharpen your focus and enables you to go after
your goals no matter what stands in your way. That is why it helps to
improve your mental toughness.

This chapter will teach you how to set goals in the proper way to make sure
you achieve them.

The Right Goals

Before setting goals, it's important to know what the right goals are. For one,
you must be able to differentiate between goals and fantasies or daydreams.
Daydreaming and/or fantasizing aren’t just shallow and unsystematic but can
also be counterproductive in terms succeeding in life. On the other hand, the
right kinds of goals can help you register continuous improvements in the
quality of your life. These improvements include upward career mobility in
both traditional and unconventional careers.
Another thing to consider when figuring out whether the goals you’re setting
are the right ones are your life purpose and passion. Goals that aren’t in line
with any or both of these two things aren’t worth pursuing. This is because
accomplishing them won’t provide any real sense of satisfaction and
worthwhile accomplishments. Pursuing goals that aren’t in line with your
life purpose and passions will just render your efforts futile. And given your
very limited time, energy and resources, you should choose the right kinds of
goals.

You must also be able to distinguish between goals and desires. Why? Your
ability to do so will determine how successful and satisfied you can be in
life. How do you determine which of your “goals” are actually goals and
which are merely desires?

Goals should be things that you have a great deal of or complete control
over. Desires are the things you want to accomplish, acquire, or experience
that are greatly or completely dependent on the cooperation of other people,
events, or circumstances. For example, let’s say you want to become an actor
in Hollywood. Your goals might consist of you auditioning across the world,
attending acting workshops, starting off in television, and then working your
way into films. Your desires would be to work with Robert Downing Jr.,
Kevin Hart, Julia Roberts, or any other great actor in the industry. You’d feel
a great degree of satisfaction from working with these people, but it is not
necessary to achieve your true goal. Furthermore, reaching top level status,
building a raving fanbase, and a pinch of luck would probably be the
necessary potion to fulfill that desire. These desires are out of your control
compared the actions set in the goal creation. Why's it important that you
properly classify the things you want to accomplish, acquire or experience as
goals or desires?
If you set a desire as a goal, your chances of being able to accomplish them
are at best, low. Why? It’s because accomplishing, acquiring, or
experiencing them are largely dependent on other people, events, and
circumstances. When others aren’t able to do their part or if events and
circumstances don’t turn your way, you won’t accomplish your goal. If most
or all of your goals are like this, you’ll have a very low success rate with your
life goals. With more failures than successes, it will be very hard to stay
motivated in life. You might just lose hope.
If the goals you set are mostly – if not completely – within your control, your
success rate will be much higher. Why? Because your success doesn’t have
to be dependent on other people’s ability or willingness to act, circumstances,
and events. The only hindrance to your ability to accomplish your goals will
be yourself. There’s no one else to blame. There’s no one else to take credit.
It’s just you…making things happen.

So, what about desires then? Does this mean you should just leave them
completely to chance, fate, or the God that you worship? No, it doesn’t mean
that. What it means is that you should focus your energy, time, and resources
on goals instead of desires. In fact, goals are the means by which you can
significantly improve your chances of acquiring, accomplishing, or
experiencing those, which you desire. In other words, you can use your
desires as the bases for setting your goals, i.e., your goal-setting map.

I know it can sound a bit too philosophical so allow me to use another

example for a clearer understanding. Let’s say you want to earn at least
$10,000 monthly so you can provide for your family’s needs and more.
Being able to earn $10,000 every month isn’t something you have complete
control over. If you’re an entrepreneur, it will be highly dependent on the
cooperation of customers or clients. If you’re an employee, getting a
substantial raise will be entirely dependent on your bosses. If you’re a
blogger, vlogger, or self-publishing author, it will be entirely dependent on
your audience’s patronage. Hence, you should classify this as a desire.
Now that you know what you want, you can set and pursue goals that will
either enable you to get what you desire or substantially raise your chances of
being able to do so. Examples of the “right” goals that will enable you to get
what you desire may include:

Writing a kick-ass, bestseller-material e-book and sell it on

Amazon’s Kindle Store (self-publishing author);
Creating engaging written or visual content on a weekly basis for
either a blog or a vlog and publishing them regularly (blogger or
vlogger);

Exceeding your monthly production quota at the office so that

your bosses will see that you deserve to be promoted and paid
much more (employee); and
Reach out to at least 3 customers every week to get product or
service feedback that can be used to improve your business’
products and services even more. By doing so, you can ensure
 superior services or products that customers will prefer over your
competitors (entrepreneur).

Take note: the examples above are things you have a great deal of or perfect
control over. As such, your chances of accomplishing them are very, very
high. And when you’re able to successfully accomplish them, you can
substantially increase your chances of getting what you desire. And in this
case, it’s to earn at least $10,000 monthly.

How to Set Clear Goals that You Actually Achieve

So how do you go about setting clear goals that motivate you and enable you
to achieve your goals? Just follow the steps covered below.

Step 1: Start by visualizing what you want to achieve

The first step that you need to take is that of forming a mental picture of what
you want to achieve in life. You cannot achieve anything unless you first see
it in your mind. Any great achievement by someone else started as a mere
thought. And that is why you need to start there.
Many times than not, this is always the hardest part. For many people,
knowing what they want in life can be a tough question to answer. So, it
helps to give yourself as much time as you need so that you can come up with
an accurate assessment.
A good starting point would be asking yourself a question like, “What do I
want to offer the world, the community or my family.” You could also try,
“How do I want to grow?”

It doesn’t matter if you come up with broad and vague answers at this point.
Long-term as well as short-term goals are just as good. You can redefine
them later.

Step 2: Redefine your goals: Ensure they are specific

Being very specific about your goals makes you push yourself to achieve
them as opposed to those that are general and vague.

As an example, let us look at a goal like, “I want to be rich.” Wait a minute,

exactly how rich do you want to become? This goal is very general and non-
specific. The very nature of this goal gives you no motivation to set out and
achieve it. Look at a modified version that says, “I want to make one million
dollars.” This one is more objectified and specific. You are more likely to act
on this one than the first. Moreover, you need to know why you want your
specified amount. Wanting one million dollars is cool, but for what? It
sounds nice to be a millionaire, but it may far exceed the necessary wealth
required to live life the way your truly desire. Figure out the specifics of your
desires and how much they cost to find the total sum of your true goal. Write
these rewards down and keep them in very close visual proximity to your
goals.

Take the same approach to every goal that is on your list. Revise the list and
come up with an entirely new list that contains goals that are specific.

Step 3: Ensure that the goals are measurable

What does it mean to set measurable goals? This simply means that you
should be able to tell when you have achieved your goals. If we go back to
our example of setting out to becoming rich, you will see that the goal itself
is not measurable. At what point, will you be able to tell that you have
attained your goal. It helps to know the destination of your journey.

The more refined version of making a million dollars is measurable. All you
have to do to be certain that you have attained this goal is a look at your bank
balance. So, go over to your list and try to ask yourself, “At what point will I
be certain that this goal has been achieved?” Write the answer below the goal.
It also helps to set small checkpoints, otherwise known as milestones, along
the way so that you can check your progress, especially when it comes to
long-term goals. Therefore, in the case of the one million dollars, you can
have milestones/short-term goals of making 100,000, 250,000, 500,000,
750,000 and then 1,000,000.

Step 4: Set attainable goals

Next, make sure that your goals look and seem achievable from a realistic
point of view. First, assess the position that you currently are in life. It does
you no good to set a goal that seems too far-fetched. Sure, ambition is a great
thing, but being over-ambitious is just as bad. If you take this approach, you
may end up feeling down and disappointed for not achieving your goals, and
this can be a great setback.
For instance, setting a goal of earning a million dollars when you are earning
a minimum wage seems very unrealistic. It may help to set a goal of earning
maybe ten, perhaps fifty thousand, and then work your way up from there.
Accomplishing smaller goals first is the key to success as momentum is the
most powerful asset you can have. Why do you think artists like Drake or
actors like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson are ALWAYS working on one
project after another? Why do you think one-hit wonders are so common in
today’s entertainment industry? It’s very simple. One person understood that
you have to keep going when you reach success in order to keep it whereas
the other thought they “made it” after going viral, but actually lost everything
after a few months.

Step 5: Attach a time limit to your goals

Finally, make sure you attach a time limit to every goal. Whether your goal is
a short-term or a long-term one, no goal is supposed to take forever. Setting a
time limit gives you a sense of urgency, which helps you stay disciplined and
work towards achieving your goals. So make sure you assign a realistic time
limit to every goal.

Step 6: Write them down

Once you have considered all the above when coming up with your goals,
write them down. Writing serves a very important purpose. Often, people just
assume that you could keep the goals you set somewhere at the back of your
mind. This is very wrong.

For one, your goals need to feel tangible. Writing them down accomplishes
that. Otherwise, they will remain to be just some abstract concept and
therefore, you may not attach as much importance to them. In addition, you
increase the chances of forgetting, if you do not write your goals down.
Further, you clear space for other important things in your mind.

Step 7: Prioritize
Once you have come up with a list of the goals you want to achieve, the next
step is that of prioritizing. Obviously, some of the things on your list are
more important than others. Prioritizing helps you sort them out in the order
of their importance. A simple way to do this is to classify your goals into
three categories, first tier, second tier and third tier.
Goals in the first tier are attached with the highest priority. Imagine these
goals as “must be achieved” for success in your head. Goals in the second tier
are important but are not crucial to the ultimate vision you have set. In other
words, you should want to accomplish this goal as it will only help boost
your sense of self-worth. Lastly, those in the third tier may not be as essential
and you could get away with not accomplishing them. This is the “sure, why
not” section of goals. Let me give you an example. A dancer decides to sit
and write down prioritized goals to improve their success. This particular
dancer is at a point in their career where they feel the need to broaden their
repertoire of dance styles. A first tier goal may be to attend a specific amount
of dance conferences across the country in the span of six months. This goal
is paramount to improving their success because it offers a chance to learn
more styles of dance. An extra bonus is the networking opportunity to meet
other dancers who specialize in their respective styles. A second-tier goal
would be to eat healthy foods or go to the gym at least four times a week
along the way. Do you see how this type of goal serves as a supportive role to
the first tier? Healthy food provides nutrition. Nutrition provides stability and
longevity in an athlete’s career (or anyone else’s career for that matter).
Going to the gym supports muscular endurance and joint strength which are
major keys for the body to stay active at peak performance. Lastly, a third-
tier goal would be to learn social media marketing to build a following. It’s a
great goal to obtain. However, it is not directly related to the art of dance or
this person’s burning desire to simply improve as an overall dancer.
To summarize, goals not only act as guides in life but also help you realize
what is important in your life. They help give you a laser-sharp focus that
will make you impervious to distractions and setbacks that will inevitably
come along the way.
 DAILY HABITS THAT CAN KEEP YOU
FOCUSED AND DISCIPLINED AND INCREASE
RESILIENCE
The habits you develop, good or bad, play an important role in every aspect
of your life. Developing a bad habit of forgetting to set the alarm clock means
you will find yourself running late most days. Bad habits are a killer when it
comes to the development of mental toughness. You need to get every area of
your life shored up and supported by good habits and tendencies. The best
intentions will not get things done. Bad habits are self-made barriers to
progress. No matter what your bad habits might be, they will impact your life
negatively at some level.
The ability to be mentally tough can be sidelined by bad habits like
procrastinating, not finishing a project, focusing on past failures, or feeling
bitter about someone beating you out of a job promotion. Becoming
cognizant of the habits you have and getting rid of the bad is a sure way to
increase your mental toughness.

Dumping bad habits

Getting rid of bad habits is the fastest way to begin creating the personality
you need to tackle any task and get things done. Habits are not always easy to
quit. It becomes second-nature and might take having people that can help
hold you accountable. Use post-it notes and calendar reminders to break
tougher habits of putting off projects or poor time management.

Starting good habits

Beginning new habits that are good and productive might be as difficult as
stopping the bad ones. The difference will be in your experience of positive
benefits from good habits. Leaving to appointments on time, never being late
to the job, always getting started on projects right away are all habits that will
provide nearly immediate positive results. Sticking with your new routine and
habits for 21 to 30 days will ensure that they are there for life, or at least the
length of time you figure they are beneficial.
Determining the most beneficial habits
Determining the good habits to initiate that will benefit you most is easiest
when taking a complete assessment of your current bad habits. It gives you a
cheat sheet that allows you to see the areas in your life that are in need of a
little reorganization or attention to specific details. You probably already
have somewhat of an incomplete mental list already. Choosing from there
will depend on how you highlight them in order of importance.
Overwhelming yourself with changes will not be helpful and could actually
make you give up in a short amount of time.

Focus on Learning Instead of Past Failure

If you try and focus on failure, your mind will gravitate towards it every time.
Many of the most powerful men and women in business have had to file
bankruptcy and create a business more than once. Rather than looking at it as
a failure, they chose to view it in the light of education and learning. Failure
is a negative term that leaves no room for actual improvement of skill,
knowledge, and business acumen. Giving an idea a try and learning from a
few mistakes is putting it to a brighter and more positive level.

Zero Criticism or Complaining

Mentally tough people are not prone to complaining or criticizing a great
deal. For one thing, it does not bring about any sort of resolution to an
existing problem. You are more apt to turn people away and get them
criticizing and complaining about your own behavior. The best way to deal
with any problems is to roll up your shirt sleeves and get proactive. Solutions
are all around, but it is up to you to find the right one to fit the situation.

Appear to Be in Control at All Times, in All Situations

If you have earned the designation of mental toughness, not much should
bother you to the point of losing your cool. Everything should wash off like
spring rains. Personal upsetting news or finding out a friend or family
member passed away should be the only times you really struggle. Whether
you feel completely calm on the interior, your exterior should exude the
ultimate state of relaxation and reason. Setting the example will earn you
bigger rewards down the line.

Feel Happiness When Others Succeed

It is never an emotionally healthy thing to have hard feelings towards anyone
that is experiencing a round of success. A strong mentality is not given to the
weakness of feeling bitter and resentful over the happy moment's others are
trying to enjoy. You have no idea how hard their walk was that got them to
this moment, and they have every right to savor the excitement. You would
not want your celebratory mood ruined if success had come your way. Find
reasons to experience happiness at their achievement.

Shove less Important Situations to the Side

Mental toughness means you have to value every available second of your
time. The time you have is something that cannot be reclaimed. Give priority
to the important things in life such as family, your business or job, and spend
less time in petty endeavors that you could care less about. Trade the evening
at a political club dinner for a class on something you really want to learn. As
simple as it sounds, it can increase your satisfaction by a huge percentage
margin. Spend an afternoon with your kids at the park rather than in some
boring literary club meeting.

Look at Each Day as a Gift and Opportunity

Another important habit to develop for mental toughness is looking at each
day as an opportunity to expand your horizons. It is a gift that you can take
time to share with loved ones and make the most out of every moment in this
life. Place your focus on the things that are important to you. Give everything
you can to get the maximum enjoyment out of life.

Bring Your Best to the Table and Others Will Follow

Good habits can be the skeletal system that the rest of your mental toughness
skills rest on. If you there are areas that can be improved or bad habits
deleted, take time out to get it done. Be persistent and remember that it takes
a solid four-weeks to make the changes permanent. You can see immediate
improvements in every area of life quickly. Do not be afraid to take the
plunge and make dramatic, sweeping change.

Mental strength can be developed over a period if you choose to make your
development and growth a priority. You learned about the things that a
mentally strong person will never indulge in. In this chapter, you will learn
about the different daily habits of mentally strong individuals that help in
making them stronger. Read on to learn more about the various habits.

Habit 1: Judicious use of your mental energy

It is quite easy to get distracted by different thoughts and things. Did you ever
start working and get distracted by something that’s entirely different? Not
everything is essential, and you indeed don’t have to exert the same mental
energy and focus. A mentally strong person is capable of prioritizing and
knows the importance of making proper use of their mental energy to
accomplish their goals.
Perhaps the best way to envision the benefits of using your mental energy
judiciously is to liken mental energy to money. The average person has a
fixed amount of money that they can spend at any given time. Unfortunately,
it can be all too easy to “leak” small amounts of money here and there,
resulting in having less to spend on things that matter. For this reason, one of
the first rules when it comes to saving money is to cut out unnecessary
spending, thereby eliminating the seemingly small expenses that tend to add
up.

Thus, by not buying a cup of coffee a day you can save as much as five
dollars a day, which can add up to over one hundred dollars a month. The
same is true for mental energy. When you allow small amounts of your
concentration to wander in different areas you wind up with less mental
energy to spend on the things that matter. Therefore, it is critical to eliminate
even the tiniest of distractions so that you have the bulk of your mental
energy to spend on the tasks that are important. The more energy you spend
is the better your performance will be, and thus the greater the results you
will be able to accomplish.

Habit 2: Reframing all negative thoughts

Who doesn’t have negative feelings? A mentally strong person knows that
there is no point in encouraging negative thoughts and such a person would
try to reframe all their negative thoughts into positive ones. Instead of getting
discouraged by the negative thoughts, they would think of a way in which
they can make it positive. They consciously try to change the pessimistic
dialogue in their head to something positive that will encourage them to work
harder. Whenever they feel low, they give themselves a pep talk.
There are two main ways in which reframing negative thoughts can benefit
your life.

The first is that when you turn negativity into curiosity you eliminate the
burden of having to succeed. In other words, the fear of failure might cause
you to feel responsible for avoiding failure. However, when you turn the fear
of failure into a sense of curiosity regarding the outcome you remove the
burden of having to succeed. This frees your heart and mind to focus on the
things you can control, which, in turn, increases your chances of success
exponentially.
The other way that reframing negative thoughts can benefit your efforts is
that it can enable you to open your mind to other possibilities. If you are
afraid that a certain plan will fail, or that you will fail if you pursue a certain
goal, simply ask yourself “why?” Now, instead of running from a fear of
failure you can examine the situation to see if there are better ways to achieve
your goal, or better goals to pursue altogether. In the end, a fear of failure can
be turned into a wakeup call to examine bigger and better options.

Habit 3: Working towards established goals

A mentally strong person always establishes precise personal and
professional goals for themselves. They don’t believe in immediate
gratification and can work towards long-term goals without giving up. Every
hurdle that they have to overcome is viewed as a challenge and not a
problem.
When you establish goals you essentially create a roadmap to follow in order
to arrive at your ultimate destination–turning your dreams into reality. Only
by working toward specifically established goals can you ensure that your
direction remains true. Unfortunately, most people lose their way by not
creating established goals, and this is what keeps so many people from ever
achieving their ambitions. However, when you established specific goals you
set a clear and measurable course that will take you to where you need to be.
Another benefit of working toward established goals is that this process
allows you to break down large, overwhelming objectives into smaller, more
manageable projects. This is the same concept as that embodied in the ancient
Chinese axiom which states that even the longest of journeys is made up of
individual steps. Thus, by breaking down a large goal into smaller “steps”
you can avoid being overwhelmed by the size and scope of the overall goal,
only ever having to deal with smaller objectives that are within your ability to
achieve.

Habit 4: Reflecting on your progress

A mentally strong person will spend a couple of minutes daily to review their
goals and their progress so far. Only when you consider your performance
you will understand how well you are doing and the scope for improvement.
They are capable of holding themselves responsible for any mistakes they
make and will strive for something better.
When you take the time to reflect on your progress you will set yourself up
for success in ways that you may never have imagined. The first thing you do
by reflecting on your progress is avoid the trap of being carried away by the
momentum of your efforts. All too often when people simply push ahead
with their efforts, never taking the time to reflect on their progress, they
become swept away in the direction that their efforts take them.

If things are going the right way this won’t be a bad thing. However, if things
start to go wrong this momentum can keep a person from changing their
actions from wrong ones to right ones. However, when you take the time
each and every day to examine your progress you will ensure that you never
get swept away by the momentum, thus you are in constant control of your
actions and the direction those actions take you.
The second way that reflecting on your progress will benefit you is that it will
keep you from feeling as though you will never reach your goal. This is
particularly true in the event that your goal is one that requires a great deal of
time and effort to achieve. After a while it can be tempting to give up when
you still feel so far away from the proverbial finish line. However, when you
take the time to reflect on your progress you will be able to see just how far
you have gone. Even though the finish line might still be a long way off, by
being able to see how far from the starting line you are you can feel as though
your efforts have been worthwhile. Taking the time to celebrate even the
smallest amount of progress can go a long way to keeping your heart and
mind motivated, which can make all the difference.

Habit 5: Tolerate discomfort

At times, people tend to go to great lengths to avoid any form of pain or
distress. A strong person knows to endure a little discomfort if it means they
can achieve greater things. It could be something as simple as pushing
yourself to exercise after a long and a tiring day at work.
This is where the axiom “no pain, no gain” proves to be entirely true. When
people only ever stay within their comfort zone they restrict the opportunities
available to them. As a result, they will never achieve any meaningful
success. Instead, they will only ever do things that they know are possible,
leading to the meager results that reflect the meager efforts they are willing to
invest.
By contrast, when a person is willing to break out of their comfort zone they
are able to broaden their horizons, thereby making themselves available to a
whole host of opportunities that would have otherwise been hidden from
them. Therefore, instead of shying away from the things that you know will
take you out of your familiar territory, embrace the discomfort, knowing that
it will lead to bigger and better things.

Another way in which embracing discomfort can lead to success is to

recognize that discomfort is a sign of transformation. Again, the axiom “no
pain, no gain” is highly significant here. When a person feels pain and ache
as a result of exercise, especially weight lifting, they are feeling the effects of
exercise on their muscles. By continuing the exercise they will continue to
develop their muscles, thereby gaining the strength and physique that they
desire. Thus, the pain they feel is indicative of the gain they are experiencing.
So it is with all things. Always embrace discomfort, knowing that it is a sign
of personal growth and development, not something to be avoided.

Habit 6: Being grateful

A mentally strong person believes in practicing gratitude daily. They know
how fortunate they are and will always count their blessings instead of
thinking about all the things they don’t have. You should always be grateful
for the things you have. Any self-help book that you pick up will tell you the
same thing. Appreciate what you have, that’s the only way in which you will
learn to be happy with yourself.

Taking the time to be grateful for what you have can make a huge difference
in terms of your overall success in life. As a result, no amount of acquisition
ever satisfies their desires. Only when you take the time to appreciate what
you already have will you be able to appreciate any success you go on to
achieve. Therefore, it is critical that you nurture and develop a strong sense of
gratitude in your heart and mind.
Another reason why gratitude increases your chance of success is that it
keeps you from constantly feeling as though you don’t have enough to
achieve your goals. If you aren’t grateful for the things you have you will see
them as being inferior, or less than what you need. This, in turn, will
undermine your confidence in being able to fulfill your ambitions. However,
when you are grateful for what you have and who you are you find that you
are more confident in your ability to achieve any level of success that you
desire. This creates the irony that when you are grateful for what you have
you stand an infinitely better chance of being able to acquire and achieve
even more!

Habit 7: Balancing emotions and logic

Balancing logic and emotions is important. A mentally strong person realizes
the importance of doing this. Such a person won’t react to a situation
immediately and would instead spend some time to analyze the situation and
then respond accordingly. A mentally strong person will never let their
emotions get the better of them and will decide rationally.
The importance of balancing emotions and logic cannot be overstated. Most
of the people you come into contact with on a regular basis are controlled by
their emotions. This causes them to react impulsively, often doing things that
they later regret. Needless to say, such a lack of control will keep anyone
from ever achieving any level of meaningful and lasting success. Therefore,
the first thing you need to do is to control your emotions. When you balance
your emotional response with logic you allow your critical thinking to rein in
your passions, thereby keeping you from doing anything that could
undermine your chances of success.
There is another side to this, however, and that is balancing logic with
emotions. All too often it can be easy to simply ignore and reject any
emotions regarding a situation. After all, if emotions lead to impulsive
behavior, then removing them should be a good thing. Unfortunately, there is
as much danger in too few emotions as there is in too many emotions. When
you become unfeeling you ignore the needs of those around you. Since
success is often the result of a collective effort, the needs of those around you
should always be taken seriously. Therefore, never allow your logic to blind
you to the simple emotional needs of yourself or those in your inner circle.
Instead, make sure you give them the support and encouragement they need.
This will keep them loyal to you, and will increase the value of their efforts.

Habit 8: Living according to your values

You might feel like measuring your self-worth by comparing yourself with
others. However, mentally strong people avoid doing anything of this sort.
All such comparisons are nothing but unnecessary distractions. Instead, they
focus all their energy on doing their best, regardless of the surrounding
circumstances. All that matters to them is whether they managed to do
something productive or not.
The very measure of success comes down to whether or not a person lives
according to their values. All too often you see examples of people
sacrificing their morals in order to achieve the success they crave.
Unfortunately, in doing so those people tend to lose the things that truly
matter in their lives, such as friends, loved ones and even their own sense of
self. Alternatively, when a person is true to their values they ensure that they
are able to share their eventual success with their friends, family and loved
ones. This provides a greater sense of meaning to any success achieved. After
all, if you can’t share your success with those who matter then can you really
call it success?

Staying true to your values can also come in handy when you choose the
goals you want to pursue. Too many people set their sights on goals that
others find meaningful, rather than on goals that are meaningful to them. As a
result, they often lose interest in the journey long before they reach the end.
However, when you live according to your values you will always set goals
that are meaningful and fulfilling to you. This means you will stay motivated
longer, and that the successes you achieve will serve to improve your life. In
the end, only by chasing dreams that are true to you will your life possess any
true meaning or purpose.
 WHY DEVELOP MENTAL STRENGTH?
The answer to why develop your mental strength is a rather easy one –
because if you have not taken the time to do it yet, there is a good chance that
your mental strength is not as developed as it can be and you are not able to
achieve your goals at the level that you would like as a result of this fact.
You should develop your mental strength so that you can be more productive
in your life. Productivity and mental strength go hand and hand.
It takes mental strength to concentrate on tasks and fortitude to finish them.
This is especially true with complicated tasks.

Productivity is one of the key factors that determine how well you perform on
your job and in any other tasks that you choose to undertake in life. If you
lack productivity, it may be due to lack of concentration, being distracted by
your emotions, lack of drive, energy, desire, and more. To become more
productive, have more success in your career and accomplish more of the
things that you want to do in your life, you should practice mental strength
exercises. You may even get that raise that you have wanted for so long!
You should develop your mental strength so that you can overcome
challenges and hurdles. Mental strength gives you the ability to overcome
challenges and hurdles. The difference between people who keep going when
they reach obstacles that they need to overcome on their way to a goal and
people who do not overcome these obstacles but instead turn away and
decide that the tasks are too tough is that the first group possesses mental
strength. Mental strength is what is needed to see a way around the hurdles
that you face in life and try to go around them so that you can achieve larger
goals. Thus, lacking mental strength allows you to only achieve smaller
unimpeded gaols in life that are easy to attain.
If you ever desired to get a job which requires you to have a master’s degree
or a PhD, you can either see the hurdles ahead of you such as lack of time or
lack of money or energy or you can see the opportunity for advancement in
front of you and decide that these aforementioned hurdles can be surmounted.
This is not to0 say that these hurdles are less real or apparent to the people
with the mental strength to try to go past them and enroll in the school
program that they want. This hurdles are just as real and may result in
struggling and difficulty for a time; however, the people with mental strength
are willing to handle these struggles in order to achieve the end goal whereas
the people who lack mental strength try to avoid the struggles toward the goal
and thus avoid the goal itself.
You should develop your mental strength so that you feel that you have more
control over your life. In order to have control over your life, you need to
have mental strength. Mental strength conditions you to believe that you have
the power to control the things that are going on around you.

You should develop your mental strength to adjust to change.

The world is changing every day. Many so-called baby boomers know that
when they first entered the workforce, it was far different than it is today. The
use of computers was minimal, and the internet was not as popular as it is
today. Social media was nonexistent. Then a change came that hit the
workplace and society in general and these older members of society saw the
skills that the younger generation possessed take over even after all of their
years on their job and seniority. Some of these people may have had a hard
time adjusting to the changes that were taking place; however, those who
wanted to be successful worked hard to make sure that they could keep up
with the changes that were taking place in society so that they could fit in
with the times and still have value at work that would allow them to receive
the salary that they desired and qualify for the jobs that they wanted. This is
something that is normally discussed with the younger generation which is
just coming in to work. Flexibility and the ability to adjust to change are keys
to longevity that one must possess to keep going and stay current in this
world. Mental strength allows a person to realize this and make the changes
that he or she needs in spite of p0ride or years of doing things a certain way.
Change comes at many times in our lives. Sometimes change comes when
you move to a different city for a new job. Sometimes change comes around
when you leave a relationship that you have been in for a while such as what
occurs with a divorce and sometimes change occurs when you enter a
different stage in your life. Many people try to resist adjusting to the changes
that are occurring and what things to stay the same. People with mental
strength, however, are mentally tough enough to understand that changes take
place in life and in order for you to be successful and live life to its fullest,
you need to change with it.

To establish a winner’s mind:

Working on and establishing mental toughness is like setting a standard of
excellence for yourself that causes you to strive for a higher level of
excellence that you may have ordinarily strived for had you had you not
worked to cultivate your mind. It is like setting a higher level of expectations
for yourself, and you are aware of what these expectations are. Oftentimes,
thinking that you can do or excel at something is half the battle and when
trying to establish mental toughness, conditioning your mind for winning
thoughts processes is very important. Your mindset can help you with your
willpower, dedication, time management, and the other essential things that
you need to do to establish your goals and to succeed at the things that you
set out to do.
Mental toughness promotes longevity in your career or goals:
Mental toughness is what allows you to stick around in your career or at your
set goals. For instance, let’s say that you want to be a dancer. You must
undergo a great deal of practice and training to get started. Then you go on a
number of auditions, a number of which will be rejections. You may hear
criticism of your skills in a not so friendly manner, maybe even a little
hurtful. If you ever want to get on Broadway, you have to go through all of
this and that just to make it in the show. After that, there are rehearsals,
shows, and more rehearsals and shows. If you do not have a strong mind, you
are not going to make it that long under these conditions. It is very important
that you use your mental strength to keep pushing on and to help you
understand what you are working for.

Building mental toughness allows you to stand up for the difference between
right and wrong when others won’t:
Most people know the difference between right and wrong, but does that
mean that they are willing to stand up for it? It takes mental strength to stand
up for what is right when other people won’t. You may feel like you are
standing by yourself which can make you nervous and a little scared but you
will only be able to stand up for right versus wrong if you build up enough
mental toughness to withstand the crap that gets thrown at you for not staying
on the side of the majority of the people.

Mental toughness allows you to be able to handle distractions and keep your
focus:

Building mental toughness allows you to keep your focus and not be swayed
by distractions when they come your way. This is very important because life
is full of distractions and you will run into a large number of them if you
want to achieve lofty goals. This distraction will not knock you off your
game as much if you have a strong mind and the ability to focus.
There are a lot of things in life that may cause someone to lose their focus.
Everything that happens in life generally involves some type of emotion and
not having mental toughness can allow these emotions to take over your
thoughts, cloud your judgment, cause you to dwell on issues instead of using
your time wisely and be an all-around distraction. Even though you may have
a number of important things to do, you will find them very difficult to get
done if you cannot focus. This can even lead to dangerous situations if you
become distracted while driving or doing other things that really require
concentration.
Mental toughness is the answer to being distracted. Although mental
toughness does not allow you to block out emotions and emotional situations,
it does allow you to handle your emotions and emotional situations in the
proper manner so that you can address these issues at the proper time and still
be able to function during the day.

Mental toughness allows you to be able to prioritize.

The new slogan Priorities First is very important. You need to handle your
priorities first and then handle the rest of the stuff later. It is not okay to
neglect your priorities for something that seems more enjoyable or more
important. This can cause you a great deal of problems in the future, and you
will regret it. Mental toughness helps you understand your priorities and your
obligations no matter how many other things you need to do.
In life, there will be a great number of things that you need to get done that
may cause you to neglect your priorities. This is simply a fact a life that can
not be changed, and you need to have the mental toughness to figure out what
your priorities are and how to get everything else done without neglecting
them.
Mental toughness helps you to identify and change irrational thoughts:

Mental toughness allows a person to identify irrational thoughts so that you

can address these thoughts and their origins and replace them with new
beliefs that are more accurate. This is very important for people to do so that
they have an accurate perception of the things going on around them. People
who have not established mental toughness often stick to old belief; however,
people who have developed mental toughness have the strength to examine
their beliefs and admit when one of them falls short from what is rational and
let it go. Establishing an accurate perception is very important because your
perception is your reality. Inaccurate perceptions can skew your way of
thinking so that you cannot make proper judgment decisions.

Mental toughness teaches you patience

You cannot have everything at once, and mental toughness will help you with
patience in the same way that it helps with willpower. You cannot expect
immediate results. Time and patience are part of the key to success in the
long run. You can expect to get everything at one time; therefore, patience is
a virtue that mental toughness instills in us.

Mental toughness gives you greater life satisfaction:

Mental toughness helps to increase a person’s life satisfaction. This is
because it gives you the basic tools you need to succeed and the drive to do it.
Mental strong people are able to handle life, in general, better than people
who lack mental strength. They are able to control their emotions, work more
efficiently, they are better listeners, and they bond better with others.
The people who are the most satisfied with their lives are the people who
make wise choices and exercise some form of control over themselves. It is
very important to control the need to spend money, waste time, or do harmful
things that seem fun at the time. Developing mental toughness affords you
the mental resources to live your life more responsibly. This is the primary
reason that people who have taken the time to develop mental toughness are
more satisfied with their lives.
The fact that someone has spent time honing their thoughts and brain power
into a winner’s brain also shows determination. This means that this person is
willing to do what it takes to achieve his goal and one of which is life
satisfaction. Mental toughness helps you understand that it does not make
sense to complain that you are not satisfied with your life and not do anything
about it. There is no point in expecting anything to change unless you take
steps and do something to move toward happiness.

Mentally tough people plan out goals that are the steps that move them along
the way to happiness. These people do not take no for an answer. They are
strong enough to face challenges that they may encounter and determined
enough to make it to the point at which they feel that they can rest assured
and happy that they have done all that they could do to be satisfied with the
way that their lives are going and the way that it turned out.
Mental toughness is akin to inner strength, and it makes life easier in
general:
Developing mental toughness does for the mind what working out does for
the body. It makes your brain stronger, faster, and better than it would have
been if you had not taken the time to do so. Thus, mental toughness is like a
workout routine for the mind that strengthens your thought processes, your
emotions, and your resolve to succeed.

Just as working out makes it easier for you to walk around, jog, run, walk
upstairs and participate in daily activities, working out your mind by
developing your mental strength makes it easier to think under pressure,
establish and fulfill goal, focus on the things that are important at the time,
establish willpower and more.
Many people do not have the mental strength to make tough choices and take
the steps that they need to to get them done. This makes their lives more
difficult, so it is very easy to see why mental toughness makes life easier. It is
much better to be mentally tough, with inner strength, than to not develop
your mind just like it is much better to be physically strong than it is not to
develop your body because you never know when you are going to need to
use your mental strength and fitness just like you never know when you are
going to need to use your physical strength and fitness. But it definitely
makes life easier to have it so that you never get caught off guard. It is of
utmost importance to make sure that you mental toughness skills are at their
peak when you need them so that you can navigate through the things that
may trip others up in life and give them a difficult time.

Mental toughness allows you to reduce stress and anxiety:

Stress and anxiety, a subject that will be discussed in more detail later in this
book, are harmful to your mind and body if left unchecked and allowed to
fester. Stress causes a number of health problems, both mental and physical.
It can affect everything in your life as well. You may become agitated when
you get stressed out and take it out on those around you including family
members, children, co-workers, friends, strangers and more. This can cause
problems in relationships that may be hard to fix if done repeatedly, over a
period of time, or the stressful situation is not fixed.
Stress is not something that should not be addressed; however, people who do
not have fully developed mental toughness skills may not know how to cope
with stress healthily. They may come up with negative solutions to dealing
with stress such as drinking, smoking, and more. When you develop your
mental toughness, however, you develop skills to help you adequately cope
with stress and stressful situations so that they do not get out of control and
you can handle such incidents and occurrences better.
Furthermore, people who do not have mental toughness skills suffer from
more stress than people who do. There are a number of reasons that stressful
situations arise. One common reason that a stressful situation occurs due to
poor time management. For example, let’s say that you have a project that is
due on the first of the month and you have had two weeks to complete it. You
know that you should start on the project immediately, yet you choose to
procrastinate until you only have four days left before the project is due. If
you had managed your time properly, you would have had it completed with
ease; however, because you failed to manage time properly, you are down to
crunch time. This can cause you to stress out about whether you will get your
project done in time. In addition, you may become stressed when thinking
about whether you will be able to complete the rest of your obligations. If
you had developed your mental toughness skills before this situation arose,
you would have been less likely to fall victim to stress. This is because you
would have understood the importance of managing your time properly and
had the discipline to do so.
There are many other examples of how mental toughness skills and
development can help you to reduce, avoid, or alleviate stressful situations.
This is because mental toughness involves discipline and being disciplined in
areas of your life helps to keep you from finding yourself in negative
situations which can cater to the creation of stress and anxiety.
 THE POWER OF RESILIENCE AND
DISCIPLINE
It’s time to address the core tenets of mental toughness: resilience and
discipline. These are the key concepts behind everything that mental
toughness can do for you. Once you’ve learned to apply them in your life,
you’ll witness changes that you may never have imagined before.

What Is Resilience?
When faced with hardship, what do you do? Do you wallow and wonder how
your life has gone so wrong or get up and fight? Your reaction to adversity
shows your resilience, which goes hand in hand with how you manage stress.
More resilient individuals will be less affected by stress than those who rarely
or do not show resilience at all. It doesn’t mean they don’t feel it, but they
have learned how to set it aside so that they can focus on the issue itself and
not on their reaction.
Resilience, in the simplest terms, is your ability to adapt to and come back
from difficult life situations and setbacks.

Examples
Here’s what resilience looks like in real-life situations:

An athlete who suffers from a devastating injury and comes back

to win it all
A divorcee who becomes financially stable after bankruptcy

A child with a severe illness who keeps fighting until they beat it
Rescue workers who don’t stop until they’ve combed every pile
of rubble and saved as many lives as they can

Refugees who cross oceans, mountain ranges, rivers, and

countries to escape war, crime, and poverty and give their
children the chance to live a better life
What Is Discipline?
This isn’t the kind that parents use on kids or you use on yourself. Self-
discipline is setting aside all excuses, temptations, and distractions and doing
what needs to be done. It involves learning to master your emotions and push
past your limitations in order to achieve greatness. Discipline is what you
turn to when motivation and inspiration aren’t enough.

Examples
Discipline comes into play in the following situations:

Going to the gym when you want to go home and eat cake
Focusing on an important project instead of allowing distractions
to take you off task
Practicing with a musical instrument every single day, even
when you don’t want to

Getting up early to read, exercise, or make a good breakfast

when sleeping in sounds more appealing
Putting money in a savings account instead of buying useless
items that provide temporary joy

What Do They Have to Do With Mental Toughness?

In short: everything. Without resilience and discipline, mental toughness is
not possible. They’re the backbone, the foundation, and the cornerstones that
every other aspect of mental toughness leans on. Without these two, you’re
back to square one. It’s 1000x harder to get out of your comfort zone,
develop habits, and manage stress if you’re not resilient and disciplined.
They’re essentially requirements, so it’s of the utmost importance that you
take their development seriously.
The wonderful thing about both resilience and discipline is that they’re not
for occasional use only. You can apply them to everyday life and situations.
Like a muscle, the more you exercise them, the stronger they will become.
Don’t wait for the going to get tough before you turn to discipline or
resilience. Build them up each and every day so that when you’re faced with
adversity, you already have what you need to conquer it.

How to Be More Resilient

The obvious next step is to learn how to build up your level of resilience, but
it can be tough to know where to begin. The following tips will help you start
applying resilience to your own life starting today, this very minute. There’s
almost certainly a situation you’re facing right now that requires or could
benefit from resilience. Don’t wait for the “right time.” Start now.

Know Your Why

If you don’t know why you need resilience, how can you use it? If you have
no end goal, what’s the point? Businesses rely on identifying a ‘why’ in order
to motivate employees and know where to pool resources. You can apply the
same thinking to your life in order to know where the focus should go and
where resilience is needed the most.
Your ‘why’ is essentially your purpose. Why are you in your career field?
Why are you going to the gym every day? Why are you saving every penny?
Without a why, you might as well not do any of these things. Without a why,
you’re shooting arrows in the dark hoping a target will magically be found.

Your ‘why; doesn’t have to be grandiose or world-changing (although it most

certainly can be). If it’s meaningful to you, it’s enough. To find your why,
ask yourself these questions:

What would I be happy to do every day, even if I didn’t get paid

for it?
What do I want my legacy to be?
What does success mean or look like to me?

What gets me out of bed every morning?

Once you have the answers, you’ll not only be able to find your why, but
you’ll also know more about yourself and what drives you. It’s easy to be
resilient when you’re working towards a purpose that means something to
you. Just as Fredrich Nietzsche said, “He who has a why to live can bear
almost any how.”

See Change as Positive Instead of Negative

It’s all in your mindset. If you expect bad things to come from change, what
do you think you’ll see and experience? It’s far easier to be resilient when
you begin from a place of positivity. Even if change brings with it
difficulties, don’t automatically see them as negative. By doing so, you’ll
have a harder time dealing with and accepting them. Instead, treat change as a
welcome reprieve from monotony and sameness. When life stays the same,
we become bored and complacent. Change allows you to grow, and that’s
always a good thing. Embrace change with positivity, and you won’t have to
rely on resilience alone to get you through.

Look for the Good in Every Situation

Just as in times of change you should look for something positive, it also
helps if you purposefully seek out the good. Have you ever heard the phrase
“look for the silver lining”? It’s good advice. When you look for the good
━ 　 or the silver lining ━ 　 you’re redirecting your attention from what
may bring you down. You’re not ignoring your problems; instead, you’re
seeing beyond what is immediately obvious.

For example, you were laid off. Immediately, you’ll be worrying about how
to pay the bills, where to start looking for a job next, and how to
communicate to your loved ones that you are no longer employed. None of
this seems like a good thing, but look closer. Were you happy with your job?
Did you feel you fulfilled? Was that the only job for you, or could you find a
better one? On the surface, it looks like a setback. Underneath, though, it’s a
chance to point yourself on a different path. It’s an opportunity for
reevaluation. Instead of letting yourself feel dejected and stressed, look for
what the situation can offer you. Resilience is, after all, about bouncing back,
which is far easier to do if you treat adversity as opportunity.

Have Confidence in Yourself and Your Abilities

If you always expect yourself to fail and have no faith in your ability to
succeed, do you think success will find you? Definitely not. Do you think
you’ll want to keep going after you fail if you knew it was going to happen?
No way! Resilience requires confidence both in yourself and in the things
you do. If you aren’t confident, you’ll have no reason to believe you can do
anything. Where there is no confidence, there is no resilience.
Confidence is just as important when you win as when you fail. You don’t
stop believing in yourself when things go wrong because that’s not what true
confidence is. True confidence means knowing you can persevere just as
much as you know you can succeed. If you know you can, you will.

Remember how mentally tough Olympic athletes knew they would win
before they did? That’s confidence. Apply the same idea to your life, and
resilience will have something to lean on.

Treat Problems Like Puzzles

Resilience isn’t about strength alone but intellect as well. This doesn’t mean
that you have to have a high IQ, though. It merely means training your brain
to treat problems like puzzles that have a solution and can be solved. In every
aspect of your life, your ability to use logic to solve an issue will help you
remain resilient and work towards an ideal outcome rather than give in to
your emotional response.

Here are a few ways to exhibit your problem-solving skills effectively.

Make sure that you know what the core issue is. For example, if
your daughter is having trouble in a class, the problem may not
be the class itself. Before you look for solutions, know exactly
what you’re solving. It’s just like putting together a puzzle—the
box shows you a picture so you know what you’re working on.
List every possible solution, no matter how impractical or silly.
Brainstorming isn’t about being perfect. Instead, it’s about
putting every idea on the table so that you know your options.
Evaluate the solutions you’ve come up with and choose the best
possible one. If that doesn’t work, move onto the next one and so
 on.

Don’t be afraid to be flexible. Your solution may not fit the

problem perfectly, so be willing to trim around the edges.

Get Ahead of Problems When You Can

If you were standing in the middle of the road and saw a truck barreling
towards you, would you stay there and wait for it to hit you? The answer
should be ‘no.’ So, why do you do that with problems? When you know one
is coming, why wait for the dust to settle before taking action? Do what you
can to prepare before it arrives.
Let’s say your firm is going to lose a big client, and the fallout will affect the
whole company. You can just wait for whatever is going to happen to happen
and then clean up the mess afterwards. However, why will you do that when
you can make preparations now? Instead of accepting the ‘inevitable,’ find
out if there’s anything you can do to keep them around. If there isn’t, try to
find a client or clients to replace them immediately. Don’t keep the lose from
other employees. Instead, let them help you find solutions.

Some setbacks may not be avoidable, but many can be anticipated and
prepared for.

Never Ever Give Up

In the end, resilience is just about fighting when you don’t think you can fight
anymore. You have so much more strength in yourself than you realize. Only
a few of us ever truly reach our limit, the point where we can’t go on
anymore. Even if you feel run down, beat up, and tired from the struggle,
you’re not done. You haven’t reached the end of the road until you’re in the
grave. Even then, who knows what happens after that?
Your brain and your body are capable of great things. If you quit before
learning what they can do, you may miss out on the revelation of a lifetime.
Do you want to spend your life wondering what could have been, or do you
want to find out for yourself?
How to Be More Disciplined
Thank goodness, we’re not born with a set amount of discipline that’s
supposed to get us through the rest of our lives! You certainly (hopefully)
have more discipline now than you did when you were a kid, which proves
that discipline is a skill that can be learned.
The main reason why many of us have issues with discipline is that we live in
a world of instant gratification. We’re used to getting what we want when we
want it. Because there’s no time between asking and receiving, we have no
time to consider the consequences. Discipline involves acknowledging that
part of us that wants to give in to temptation and telling it no. After all, as Jim
Rohn once said, “We must all suffer one of two things: the pain of discipline
or the pain of regret or disappointment.”

Use these strategies to become more disciplined in every aspect of your life.

Keep Temptation Far Away

This seems obvious, but it’s actually harder to implement than you think.
When you’re on a diet that limits sugar, isn’t it counterproductive to have
candies and desserts in the house? If you want to read before bed instead of
watching TV, why have a set in your bedroom? Logically, we know that
having temptations nearby makes them more tempting. When it comes to
getting rid of these temptations, though, discipline can be difficult to come
by.

You may get rid of most forms of sugar, but leave one candy bar in the
cupboard, just in case you have a bad day. The TV set has to stay because
what if something important happens in the world that you need to know
about right away? Excuses readily appear when we don’t want to give up
what we’ve become accustomed to.
This will be your first discipline challenge. After all, that’s what you need in
situations like these. You need to be firm enough in your convictions and
recognize excuses as the limitations they really are.
Identify your goals, discover which temptations are getting in the way of
those goals, and get rid of them.
Tackle the Toughest Task First
This is often known as eating the frog, and it really is one of the best pieces
of advice you’ll ever get. If you know that you have a difficult task to do and
put it off for later, what do you think is going to happen? You’ll keep putting
it off until it’s moved to tomorrow’s to-do list, then the next day, and so on.
An important part of discipline is recognizing what’s most important and
going after it with everything you’ve got. Hence, by doing the toughest task
first, you’ll be exercising that discipline muscle and start to get used to the
process of prioritizing.

Procrastination Is the Enemy

Building off the last point, procrastination is the enemy of discipline. By
putting things off until the “right time” or until you “feel like doing it,”
you’re telling yourself that those tasks aren’t important and that your
priorities lie elsewhere. The more you procrastinate, the harder it is to call on
discipline when you truly need it.
The reason you procrastinate is simple—it feels good. Happy chemicals in
your brain are released when you put off doing something you don’t want to
do. Sounds great, right? However, that’s not the end. Once those happy
chemicals wear off, you’re left with guilt for putting off an activity, as well as
anxiety when you realize that you now have more to do in less time. In order
to feel better again, though, you put it off again, and the cycle continues.

On the other hand, when you decide to tackle something right away, you may
feel displeasure at first. However, when you finish something important, that
accomplishment also puts those happy chemicals into motion, except there’s
no guilt to lessen the effects this time.

Keep Your Promises

How often do you make commitments only to back out at the last second?
This can be acceptable in certain situations, such as if you’re sick or have a
family matter to deal with. However, what if you do it all the time? It takes a
fair amount of discipline to stick to your commitments and responsibilities
when something better comes along. When you cancel plans at the last
minute, leave the laundry in a pile when you promised you’d fold it, hand a
task off to someone else that you said you would do, you’re sending the
message that whatever you’ve chosen to do instead is more important. Take a
good look at what you’re prioritizing over your promises. Are those things
you want to be known for?

Keep Your Goals Where You Can See Them

Just as you’ve committed to keeping temptations far way, do the opposite
with your goals. When you’re hard at work on a Saturday morning when you
may sleep in, seeing your goal in front of you either in writing or in the form
of a picture will remind you why you’re doing it and give you the discipline
that you need to keep on going.
If you’re saving for a trip to a country you’ve always wanted to visit,
wouldn’t it be easier to stop spending if you have a picture of the destination
close by? When you want to get into shape, photos of the body you’re after
will inspire you to keep on going to the gym even when you feel worn out.
Have a visual representation of what you’re working for, and the discipline
will be there.

Take Care of Your Basic Needs

When you’re hungry, tired, sick, or unhappy, discipline is nearly impossible
to conjure. Before you pursue anything that requires discipline, ensure you’ve
taken care of the basics. Eat whole foods that fill you up and give you the
right kind of energy, sleep 7-8 hours a night, go to the doctor when you’re
sick, and practice being grateful and seeing the good to ward off
unhappiness.

Of course, it’s not as easy as it sounds, but make an effort to prioritize your
well-being. Your mind and your body work together, so when something’s
off about one, both are thrown out of whack. If you find yourself struggling
to implement discipline, check in with yourself. Does anything feel wrong, or
is there a basic need you haven’t met? Once you’ve addressed whatever it is,
you should find it much easier to focus on other things.
Don’t Equate Discipline with Depravation
We all think of discipline along the same lines as keeping our hands out of
the cookie jar. While this isn’t an entirely inaccurate idea, it suggests that all
we’re doing is forcing ourselves to give up something, but it doesn’t take into
account the benefits received.
Instead of thinking about discipline in terms of ‘can’t,’ ‘won't,’ or
‘shouldn’t,’ replace them with ‘will’ and ‘can.’ For example, rather than
telling yourself you can’t watch TV before bed, say that you can read an
interesting book. With this new phrasing, you’re giving yourself something
instead of taking away what you can have. This removes the negative
connotation that makes discipline seem difficult. The worse you make
something sound, the less you’ll want to do it. So, by presenting yourself
with a beneficial alternative, you’re seeing the positive in the situation.

Try this the next time you need to apply discipline to any situation. Avoid
thinking about the lack and instead think about the gains.
Anyone who has ever achieved anything did so by applying resilience and
discipline to every situation. The people who do not do it rarely make
history.
 BUILDING MENTAL TOUGHNESS
You need to be mentally tough to squash and stomp out any doubts that may
creep into your mind. Mental toughness is a valuable asset when it comes to
overcoming your distractions and becoming a more self-disciplined person.
Mentally tough people are not quitters. They have the drive to do what it
takes to succeed; to get back up ten times after falling for nine.
A strong character is also essential for self-discipline. Often, a lack of self-
discipline is a sign of weak character. Building a character will enable you to
withstand any challenge you may face. If you are successful, self-discipline
will never be a struggle in your life.
Now let’s get more specific: Why Do You Need Mental Toughness?

Mental toughness is required for managing emotions.

It is unavoidable that people will experience emotions. Emotions are a
naturally occurring state of mind that results from a person’s surroundings,
moods, and relationships and interactions with other people. Because
emotions are naturally occurring, they may actually overtake a person’s
thoughts and become their main focus if a person lets them do so. This is
where mental toughness comes in. Mental toughness gives a person the
ability to control, to some extent, their emotions, as well as the way in which
they react to them and how much these emotions take over the person’s
mind.

Mental toughness is required for controlling and handling your

thoughts.
Thoughts differ from emotions due to the fact that they are not always about
feelings. In fact, a significant portion of our time is spent thinking about
things that do not have much to do with our emotions. You may think about
whether or not you are going to be able to finish your homework or work
project on time. Although the thought of not finishing the assignment on time
may evoke some feelings and emotions, the thought of whether or not you
will finish the assignment on time is not primarily based on emotion.
Mental toughness is the key to willpower.
Most people would be surprised to find out that willpower or a lack thereof is
the primary obstacle that most people face when trying to better themselves.
You would probably assume that it would be money, race, or class; however,
in this day and age, these hurdles have been lessened by the slow growth of
acceptance in the workplace.

Mental toughness is required to navigate through trying

times.
During times when you are doing well, have some money in the bank, your
relationships are good, you are in good health, and you are rather happy, your
mental toughness may not be called in as much unless it is in certain high-
pressure situations. However, if you ever experience hard times, such as the
death of a spouse or a child, loss of a job and source of income, a natural
disaster or something of that nature, then it is very important for you to have
mental toughness to get through the situation the best that you can and get
back on your feet. Hard times really are a test of your will. And hard times
can happen to anybody, whether they expect it and have planned for it or not.

To establish a winner’s mind

Working on and establishing mental toughness is like setting a standard of
excellence for yourself that causes you to strive for a higher level of
excellence that you may have ordinarily strived for you had you not worked
to cultivate your mind. It is like setting a higher level of expectations for
yourself, and you are aware of what these expectations are. Oftentimes,
thinking that you can do or excel at something is half the battle and when
trying to establish mental toughness, conditioning your mind for winning
thought processes is very important. Your mindset can help you with your
willpower, dedication, time management, and the other essential things that
you need to do to establish your goals and to succeed at the things that you
set out to do.

Mental toughness promotes longevity in your career or goals

Mental toughness is what allows you to stick around in your career or at your
set goals. For instance, let’s say that you want to be a dancer. You must
undergo a great deal of practice and training to get started. Then you go on a
number of auditions, several of which will be rejections. You may hear
criticism of your skills in a not-so-friendly manner, maybe even a little
hurtful. If you ever want to get on Broadway, you have to go through all of
this and that just to make it in the show. After that, there are rehearsals,
shows, and more rehearsals and shows. If you do not have a strong mind, you
are not going to make it that long under these conditions and deadlines. It is
very important that you use your mental strength to keep pushing on and to
help you understand what you are working for.

Mental toughness allows you to handle distractions and keep

your focus
Building mental toughness allows you to keep your focus and not be swayed
by distractions when they come your way. This is very important, because
life is full of distractions, and you will run into a large number of them if you
want to achieve lofty goals. These distractions will not knock you off your
game as much if you have a strong mind and the ability to focus.
Mental toughness is the answer to being distracted. Although mental
toughness does not allow you to block out emotions and emotional situations,
it does allow you to handle your emotions and emotional situations in the
proper manner so that you can address these issues at the proper time and still
be able to function during the day.

Mental toughness teaches you to prioritize

In life, there will be a great number of things that you need to get done that
may cause you to neglect your priorities. This is simply a fact of life that
cannot be changed, and you need to have the mental toughness to figure out
what your priorities are and how to get everything else done without
neglecting them.

Mental toughness teaches patience

You cannot have everything at once, and mental toughness will help you with
patience in the same way that it helps with willpower. You cannot expect
immediate results. Time and patience are part of the key to success in the
long run. You can expect to get everything at one time; therefore, patience is
a virtue that mental toughness instills in us.

Mental toughness gives you greater life satisfaction

Mental toughness helps to increase a person’s life satisfaction. This is
because it gives you the basic tools you need to succeed and the drive to do it.
Mental strong people are able to handle life, in general, better than people
who lack mental strength. They can control their emotions, work more
efficiently, they are better listeners, and they bond better with others.

Mental toughness allows you to reduce stress and anxiety

Stress and anxiety, a subject that will be discussed in more detail later in this
book, are harmful to your mind and body if left unchecked and allowed to
fester. Stress causes a number of health problems, both mental and physical.
It can affect everything in your life as well. You may become agitated when
you get stressed out and take it out on those around you including family
members, children, coworkers, friends, strangers, and more. This can cause
problems in relationships that may be hard to fix if done repeatedly, over a
period of time, or if the stressful situation is not fixed.

But How to Build Mental Toughness:

Develop a strong support system

Create a positive, strong, and encouraging support system to gain strength
from whenever required. During challenging times, we must be able to share
our feelings with a close, trustworthy, and motivating group of people.
Exchange thoughts and feelings, enlist the support of people you trust, learn
about people’s journey, gain constructive feedback, enlist support, and
discuss possible alternatives. The people you surround yourself with
contribute largely to your thoughts and mental framework. Speaking to
trusted people can help you gain new insights, views, and solutions about
challenging situations, which in turn boosts your mental toughness.

Take cold showers

You might think this is unnecessary suffering, but it is not because taking
cold showers has a lot of benefits such as boosting your immune system,
increasing levels of testosterone, reducing inflammation, and so on. When the
cold water touches your skin for the first time, try not to yell or wince. Just
bear it and keep your mind and body as relaxed as possible by taking deep
breaths. Try to stay in the cold water for at least 30 seconds and just make it
longer as you get used to the coldness.

Minimize social media usage

It takes a lot of mental toughness to unplug from social media. You can either
stop using it completely or try to use it only when necessary, like for
communication or sharing important stuff. But minimize social media usage
as much as you can and just spend your free time doing more productive
things. Believe it or not, Steve Jobs didn’t let his kids use iPads because he
knows how toxic it can get once people start to go online and use social
media.

Get out of bed right away

When you hear your alarm go off in the morning, do not press the snooze
button, and do not stay in your bed even for just one minute longer. Get out
of bed right away and do something to keep your blood flowing. Splash your
face with cold water, make coffee or tea, prepare breakfast, and just do
anything to wake yourself up. This is all just mind over matter. And you will
feel a lot better later on when you realize how much you were able to finish
in a day because you woke up early.

Sleep on the floor

You can also try sleeping on the floor once in a while. You don’t necessarily
need to give up your comfortable bed for good. Just do this from time to time
to help you build your mental toughness. For a really tough challenge, sleep
without a blanket. Use a thin sheet if you are not ready for the difficulty
level.

Do small exercises
This will not be your regular full-blown workout. That is another thing that
you should be doing even if you are not trying to lose weight because it will
keep your body strong and healthy. These mini workouts are workouts that
you can incorporate in your everyday life.

Move slowly
You might think that this tip is counterintuitive, because slowness is often not
associated with success and achieving goals. But this does not literally mean
working at a slower pace. It just means that you do not make impulsive
actions and snap decisions.

Get dirty
Some people are so afraid to get themselves dirty because getting dirty is way
out of their comfort zone. Although being clean is something that we should
all strive for, there is nothing wrong with getting yourself dirty from time to
time.

Read
Reading a book can make you tougher mentally because it helps you improve
your mental focus for a long period of time. Read a book for a couple of
hours every day; that can teach you a thing or two about delayed
gratification, unlike television and online videos that are passive
entertainment and do not really contribute anything to improving your mental
toughness. Reading is also an activity that allows you to use your mind active
and learning new words and information is always a welcome bonus.

Take a break
When something doesn’t help you achieve the desired results, go on a break
or change your strategy rather than giving up. Tackle the task with a
rejuvenated, fresher, and brand-new perspective after recharging your
batteries. True success and glory come to people who do not quit.

Build a mindset
When faced with tough situations, brainstorm. Think of solutions, ideas,
alternatives, and possibilities for resolving the situation instead of giving up.
There are various ways to work out a solution strategy by keeping your mind
more open, flexible, and fearless. You may require a change in the approach
or a slight strategy change. Recognize various ways to deal with a
challenging or overwhelming situation.

Develop a sense of humor

This is a simple, easy, and enjoyable hack for people to develop mental
toughness, yet a good number of people fail to see its virtues. When you
experience challenges, humor can help you sail through the situation with
ease. Look at the lighter side of things. This helps us overcome stress,
disappointment, and anxiety connected to it. You gain a totally different
perspective about challenges by viewing them using the lens of humor.
Build a positive or constructive view of your skills and abilities

An individual’s sense of self-esteem, self-confidence, and self-image is

largely affected by perseverance. Keep reminding yourself about your
strengths, achievements, skills, abilities, and wonderful moments. Make a list
of tough situations you have tackled, and how you battled them. Draw
inspiration from winning and positive moments of the past.

Observe your self-talk

What is your mental talk sound like? If it isn’t positive, abundant, and
successful, latch on to a different frequency. Our self-talk has the power to
determine our chances of success. This self-talk can help us sail through
challenging circumstances or dive into failure. Realign your self-talk for
success by making it more positive, balanced, and constructive.

How Mental Strength Improves Self-Discipline

Mental strength is one of the most important elements of self-discipline.
Knowing how it contributes to self-discipline will help you to see why you
need to be constantly working to enhance it.

When you are mentally strong, it allows you to conquer self-doubt so that it is
not able to interfere with your level of discipline or cause you to procrastinate
out of fear.

Motivation comes from your mental strength. When you are not mentally
strong, you will find that it is much easier to lose your motivation before you
even have a chance to take full advantage of it.

You can easily tune out comments and advice that are simply not going to
help you. This is critical for self-discipline since it is all about efficiency and
removing unnecessary baggage.
When you are mentally strong, you are able to face your fears. Fears are one
of the biggest reasons that people are not able to develop a strong sense of
self-discipline.

You can more easily rebound from failure with mental strength. When you
quickly come back from failure, it’s more difficult to disrupt your ability to
be disciplined.
Lastly, you can easily learn from your mistakes. Remember that learning and
accountability are paramount when working to enhance your discipline
level.
 ESSENTIAL TRAITS OF THE
MENTALLY TOUGH
While there are many different habits and practices that define the actions of
a mentally tough person, there are only three essential traits that make a
mentally tough person unique from everyone else. These three traits are self-
confidence, critical thinking and setting goals. Each of these traits represents
a specific path to success, therefore when you develop them all you increase
your chances of success exponentially. Since all of the habits and practices
covered in this book can be traced to one or more of these traits, it is critical
that you develop them within your day-to-day life.
This chapter will focus on the first of the three traits, self-confidence. It will
reveal 16 different tips on how to develop and strengthen your sense of self-
confidence. Each tip will discuss a specific practice that you can perform
each and every day, thereby instilling self-confidence in everything you do.
By the time you have read this chapter you will have everything you need to
build the confidence required to pursue any dream, regardless of size, scope
and inherent challenges.

Self-Confidence
In this section, you will learn about the different tips that you can make use
of for developing your self-confidence.

Tip 1: Invest your energy carefully

Ask yourself an elementary question, “What is the worst that could happen.”
More often than not, we tend to place a lot of importance on “likely” or
potential problems. Our energy reserves are finite, so instead of wasting it all
on worrying about hypothetical problems, why don’t you concentrate on
building and developing your personal and professional relationships? Spend
your energy on positive and important things like your personal and
professional goals that you would like to achieve. If you are really worried
about something, then why don’t you take some action to correct the problem
or minimizing the risk? Be careful while investing your energy and time.

Tip 2: Visualization can help

If you are doing something for the first time, then visualize that you have
done that task in the past. Close your eyes for a moment and conjure up a
vivid image where you have succeeded in doing what you are doing now for
the first time. The mind doesn’t know the difference between a vivid
imagination and something that’s real. So, make your imagination as vivid as
you possibly can.

Tip 3: Try copying others

Find a role model for yourself and observe their attitude and behavior. Try
adapting all their positive qualities while letting go of the negative ones. Try
being as confident as that person seems to be. How can you do this? Try
talking to them, provided you have access. If you cannot talk to them, try
gathering as much information as you can about them.

Tip 4: “As-if”
Try making use of the “as-if” frame of mind. This is quite simple. Imagine
that you are a self-confident individual and think about the manner in which
you would approach a given situation. How would you behave? How would
you move? How would you talk? And what would you be thinking? When
you do this, you are encouraging yourself to put yourself in a state of mind
where you are self-assured and quite confident. Do this often, and within no
time, you will start feeling confident as well.

Tip 5: Step into the future

Take a peek into the future and ask your “future” self if the problem that you
have to overcome is as difficult as you think it is. At times, the problem
might not be difficult or even complicated. We tend to complicate it. Make
use of the 5*5 rule. Take a moment and think about whether the problem that
you are faced with would matter to you five years down the line. If your
answer is no, then it isn’t worth wasting 5 minutes of your time. At times a
slight change in perspective can be really helpful.
Tip 6: Let go of the negative internal self-talk
Self-talk is useful only when it is positive. Negative self-talk can make you
feel quite low. Ignore the nagging internal voice that isn’t positive. You have
the option of listening to it or ignoring it. So, decide carefully. If the voice is
bothering you, mute it! After all, it is in your head. So, you can decide
whether you want to listen to it or not.
Self-confidence is a beautiful accessory, and when you are confident in
yourself, you will be able to think more clearly and decide rationally. Self-
confidence also helps in improving your mental toughness.

Tip 7: Self-motivation
You can start out in a straightforward manner. You can motivate yourself by
placing motivators around your workstation. Motivators are the things that
keep you going; elements that provide the initial spark. Things like a family
photograph, an inspirational quote, a picture of an exotic destination you
want to visit and so on. Always keep good company. Your circle can have a
positive or a negative impact on the way you think and behave. Surround
yourself with happy and optimistic people, and you will feel optimistic.
Never stop learning and keep reading. When you start learning more, you are
bound to feel more confident about yourself. Don’t let negativity get to you.
Maintain a positive outlook towards life in general. Look for the good in bad!
If you find that you don’t have the necessary motivation to do something,
then you should perhaps set that project aside for a while and get started on
something else. This will help you in building some momentum. Once you
have gained some momentum, you can go back to the previous project. The
more you keep telling yourself that you aren’t supposed to think about
something, the more time you will spend thinking about it. It is how the
human psyche tends to work. It becomes almost impossible to not think about
it! The trick is not to let this happen. When you feel yourself leaning towards
postponing something for a while, you should try and avoid it. Just shift your
attention towards something else. For instance, instead of thinking that you
aren’t supposed to procrastinate, try thinking about how good you will feel
once you have completed the task. In this manner, you will be able to take the
necessary action instead of worrying about a specific behavior.
Keep track of times when you feel motivated and the times when you feel
like giving up. There will be a specific pattern in it, and once you know the
pattern, you can find a way to work around it. Keep track of your progress.
You can make a progress bar, and when you see it grow, you will want to
keep nurturing it, and it will keep you motivated. When you are motivated, it
is easier to accomplish things. It is even easier when the motivation comes
from within and is not dependent on someone else. You can help others as
well!

Tip 8: Stop procrastinating

The act of intentionally putting something off for a later date even though it
should be done right away is known as procrastination. Not all
procrastination is negative. For instance, if you rush off to your yoga class
before starting a new project at work will make you feel energetic for the new
challenge. Maybe you like cleaning and organizing your room before you
start studying. These habits are not harmful and will help in preparing
yourself for the challenge that lies ahead. However, if procrastination is
wreaking havoc on your personal and professional life, then it obviously isn’t
constructive. Once you have decided whether it is constructive or destructive,
you will need to identify the underlying cause for procrastination. Here are
the most common reasons.

Drama: It can be quite exciting to procrastinate, waiting until the

very last minute to complete a task can feel like you are
gambling against all odds. You are betting on yourself that you
will be able to pull it off and the things that aren’t in your control
(reaction of your coworkers, the copy machine, or even the
highway traffic), will work in your favor. So, procrastination can
create drama in your life that might make things seem
interesting, and this might feel better than going about doing
things promptly.
The fear of failure: If you wait until the very last to perform a
task, then you can always claim that you could have done better
had there been more time. Procrastination helps in providing
yourself with an excuse when things don’t work in your favor.
 Fear of success as well: Being afraid of success is quite real.
Maybe you are worried that your responsibilities will increase if
you perform well. This fear might deter you from performing
well. In fact, you are effectively sabotaging yourself and your
career.
Perfectionism: You are your worst enemy. Trying to be a
perfectionist will prevent you from completing a task. It is
almost impossible to live up to the standards that you have
created for yourself, and this will demotivate you from even
starting.

Hostile feelings towards someone: Perhaps you resent the person

that assigned you the work, and by procrastinating you are
merely channelizing your hostility towards them. When you
don’t like whom you work for, it is very likely that you wouldn’t
want to do the things assigned to them.
Lack of interest: Perhaps the task that you are put up to is boring,
or it doesn’t interest you. Or maybe you don’t have any personal
interest vested in its outcome or result.
Task seems confusing: Maybe you don’t understand something
about the task on hand. Or maybe it looks unmanageable and you
don’t know where to start from or even organize it.

It is important to determine the reason for procrastination. Once you know

the reason, you can try to rectify it.

Tip 9: Focus
Your level of mental toughness depends on your ability to stay focused. If
you can stay focused, only then will you be able to achieve your goals? In
this section, you will learn about the different tips that you can follow to stay
focused.

Tip 10: Getting some exercise is important

Physical activity is essential to improve your ability to focus and concentrate.
Exercising or any other form of physical activity helps in releasing chemicals
that enable the brain to learn and remember. Exercising is so much better than
a cup of coffee. It can provide you with a boost of energy that improves your
mental and cognitive functioning. Thereby making it easy for you to stay
focused.

Tip 11: Staying hydrated

Did you know that mild dehydration could lead to wavering of your
attention? Yes, it does! So, make it a point to have at least 8 cups of water per
day. Keep drinking plenty of fluids. If your consumption of coffee is high,
then increase your water intake accordingly.

Tip 12: The important things in life

Take a couple of minutes and think about all the things that are important to
you in your life. What are the tasks or chores that cause you a lot of worry
and stress? Now, think about whether you think these tasks are important to
you. If the things that stress you out the most aren’t amongst the list of
important things, you can safely stop stressing over them. By getting rid of
such unnecessary tensions, you can start focusing on things that are important
to you. Once you know where you need to focus, you can start breaking
down those important things into smaller functions that are manageable.

Tip 13: Getting rid of all distractions

Technology is the cornerstone of the world that we live in these days.
Technology has provided us with the ability to stay connected with everyone,
regardless of where you are. Technology has plenty of advantages. However,
one of the major disadvantages is that it is a distraction. So, technology does
lead to inattention, and it diffuses your focus as well. It is highly unlikely that
you will be able to concentrate on something if your phone keeps buzzing
constantly! So, get rid of all your gadgets and gizmos when you are trying to
concentrate on something. It is a common habit to wake up in the morning
and immediately check your texts, emails and social media updates. Your
mind tends to be fresh, and your ability to concentrate is quite high in the
morning. When you squander away this energy on trivial things, you are
hurting your productivity.
Tip 14: Working on one thing at a time
Don’t try to multitask. If you want to accomplish something, then focus on
that one thing alone. If you try to multitask, you are spreading your attention
on multiple things, and you will not be able to give it your best shot. Learn to
prioritize your tasks and start with the ones that are your top priority and
work your way down the list.

Tip 15: Taking small steps

If your goal is to lose weight, then you will need to start taking small steps
that will help you in achieving your goal. You cannot achieve a goal if you
don’t focus on the little things that are equally important. If you want to lose
weight, you shouldn’t just concentrate on getting physical exercise. You need
to make sure that you are eating healthy food, you are getting sufficient sleep,
and you are exercising too.

Tip 16: Prioritizing

Making a to-do list is very helpful. Take a paper and make a note of all the
things that you have to do on a particular day. You have two options when it
comes to making a to-do list. You can either make this list early in the
morning or before going to bed on the previous night. When you have a to-do
list prepared, you don’t have to worry about running around like a headless
chicken and will have a sense of direction. When you have a sense of course,
you can start working towards achieving the goals you have set for yourself.
When you know what you have to achieve, you can set aside all the other
distractions and instead focus on your goals. When you see the tasks that you
need to complete, there is no room for distractions. You can develop your
mental strength if you have goals.
 EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize and understand your own
emotions as well as the emotions of others. It has a variety of different
definitions with no one definition being superior to the others. Some texts
define emotional intelligence as having four fundamental parts which
include: managing emotions, perceiving emotions, understanding emotions,
and using emotions. Other texts consider emotional intelligence to be self-
awareness, social awareness, relationship management, self-management, and
emotional intelligence. Still more consider emotional intelligence to be
composed of five parts; these five parts are social skills, self-awareness, self-
regulation, motivation, and empathy. One thing that is agreed upon is that
emotional intelligence consists of being both aware of your own self and your
emotions as well as being conscious of the people around you and their
emotions.
Emotional intelligence gives you the ability to differentiate between different
emotions that you may experience and identify and label each one correctly.
This skill is a very important skill for people to possess because
understanding your own emotions and being able to differentiate between
them gives you the opportunity to control your emotions and take steps to
adjust them. For instance, if you notice that a given thing makes you
depressed, you can take steps to counter that in advance to avoid or minimize
this emotional response.
Understanding and being able to differentiate between the emotions,
responses, and behaviors of others allows you to interact better with other
people. This is very important because a great deal of our lives has to do with
interaction with other people. You can benefit from this in almost every facet
of your life. A salesman can understand body language, and facial
expressions, and understands which statements a person may take offense.

The Ability to Listen to Your Emotions

Emotional intelligence is also the ability to listen to and adjust your thinking
and behavior based on the information that your emotions are giving you.
For it to be a good idea, however, for you to listen to your emotions and be
guided by them, you need to have the ability to keep your emotions in
balance.

Your emotions need to be under control before it is okay to listen to them. It

would not be wise for an overly emotional person to listen to and be guided
by his or her emotions. Thus, you must be able first to identify your
emotions, and then understand where your emotions are coming from and
what triggers them. Is it an event from the past? Is it negative thoughts about
your worthiness? Is it an overly inflated ego? It is important to understand
whether your emotions are coming from the event or person that you are
dealing with or something else before you judge your reaction.

Your emotions need to provide you with accurate information in order for
you to be able to use them in a manner that is beneficial to you. Thus, you
need to be in tune with your emotions and tune them up from time to time so
that the information that they are presenting to you is useful and accurate and
thus a good guide for your behavior.

Why Do You Need Emotional Intelligence?

Everyone needs to have emotional intelligence, and it can definitely make
your life easier if you have a great deal of emotional intelligence. The ability
to understand the way that others are thinking, feeling and may react as well
as being in touch with your own emotions that are formed for the situations
that are in can help you navigate through situations in daily life far more
effectively and with greater ease than you would if you lacked this skill.

It is important for a person to understand how his or her emotions connect to

his or her behavior. Emotions have a significant effect on how a person
perceives things, and in turn how he or she reacts to it. If you do not
understand and are not in control of your emotions, you may not understand
the reason for your reaction. Many people never even bother to think about
why they react a certain way to certain things. Your behavior directly relates
to your reaction to certain stimuli.
Furthermore, the way in which other people react and behave toward you is
directly correlated to the emotions that they feel when they are around you as
well. So, it is best to be in tune to the so that you can do well. In fact, people
with a high degree of emotional intelligence often manipulate other people’s
emotions to tilt situations in their favor.

When Do You Need Emotional Intelligence?

There are a significant number of situations in life when you need to have
emotional intelligence so it would be wise to think that it is always good to
have and utilize emotional intelligence. In fact, it can be argued that the only
time that you do not need to have emotional intelligence is when you are
sleeping…alone. This is because life is filled with interactions between other
people and these interactions often involve emotions.

In Relationships
One of the most obvious times in which you can benefit from having
emotional intelligence is in your personal relationships. Relationships are
often filled with and even based on emotions.
Knowing when your spouse or significant other is happy, upset, or annoyed
can help your relationship run a lot smoother, so does knowing the right thing
to say and when to say it. Awkward people, people without adequate people
skills often have a difficult time meeting people and thus forming
relationships. If you have no clue what to say to the opposite sex, when or
what they may find offensive, you may have a difficult time finding a mate,
most cases are not this extreme, and most people do have some emotional
intelligence; however, improving your emotional intelligence can help you to
enjoy your relationships more, form more relationships and closer bonds with
other people, feel less intimidated in social situations and network better with
others.

At Work
Although it may not seem as though emotional intelligence comes into play
as much at work, if there are other people around you at work, and these
people are likely to experience emotions, then emotional intelligence can be a
great asset to you in the workplace. In fact, emotional intelligence can help
your workday go more smoothly, help you to get along with your coworkers
better, get the people around you to look more favorably upon your ability to
do your work and even get you a raise or a promotion that you have wanted
for a long time.

The first time you use emotional intelligence at work is at the job interview
itself. Since the interviewer may be seeing a number of different candidates,
you do not only want to make sure that you impress him or her with your
credentials and impressive resume, you also want to make sure that you do
not rub the person the wrong way. Yes, catering to your interviewer’s
emotions is important if you want to land that job.

You know you need to be able to read signals and take hints in order to
secure the position. But what does taking hints involve? Taking hints and
reading signals involves identifying the emotions of the interviewer and
acting according to what is pleasing to him or her. Or, it may mean realizing
that this is not a person that you want to work with and that you need to look
for another job. Either way, it is important for you to be in tune with the
thoughts and feelings of the interviewer so that you can perform well or make
a judgement call as to whether this is an environment that you can work in.

Emotional Intelligence versus Intellectual Intelligence

When looking at the benefits of having emotional intelligence, one has to
wonder which one is better to possess, emotional intelligence or intellectual
intelligence. Intellectual intelligence is a test of someone’s academic
intelligence and is often measured by standardized tests. Intellectual
intelligence gauges your ability to learn and understand information that is
being presented to you. In addition, it is representative of your logical
reasoning ability, reading comprehension skills and often reading and math
skills as well. This type of intelligence is very beneficial to have in the
workplace and is often an indicator of who will perform well at the tasks
assigned and shine at his or her job.

How to Gain Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence is important to have since so much of life is spent
dealing with other people, and you also need to understand your own
emotions in order to be successful and enjo0y your life.
Some people may be blessed with emotional intelligence already, and these
people may know who they are. They are the ones who are always making
friends and have an easy time with people. Even still, they may not have
developed their emotional intelligence skills in all situations and
environments. A person can have a high level of emotional intelligence with
their friends but a very low level of emotional intelligence at work. This can
come from feeling connected to friends and taking the time to listen and
emphasize while, at the same time, feeling disconnected at work and not
making the same effort to understand the emotions of others and interact with
them well. This type of person can benefit from learning how to gain
emotional intelligence as it applies to different situations.
Other people may have a more difficult time around people and fail to make
friends easily. They may also have trouble relating to people at work. They
may even experience some anxiety when they are in situations where they are
meeting people for the first time. If you are one of these people, you probably
already believe that you need some extra help when dealing with other people
and trying to understand how to better interact with them. You simply may
not have been aware that increasing your emotional intelligence can help you
do this.

Here are some ways that you can improve upon your emotional intelligence:
Get in touch with your own emotions by taking time to reflect on them.
Emotional intelligence involves not only understanding the emotions of
others; it also involves getting in touch with your own emotions as well. This
is important when interacting with others because the way people think, feel
and act towards you may be significant in the way you interact with them. It
is also significant to how you perceive the experience no matter how it goes.

Because it is so important to understand your emotions in different situations,

you need to get in touch with your emotions and the best way to do this is by
taking the time to think about them actively. Reflect on your emotions
through the day at the end of the day. Jot down the emotions that you
experienced in different situations, how you felt, whether or not you enjoyed
it. Did something make you nervous? Did you experience fear?
Understanding what emotions you experience in different situations can
allow you to gain better control over your emotions. This is especially true if
you are a person who experiences anger issues. Determining exactly what
type of events may trigger anger in you will help you to control it better.

Solicit the opinions of others.

When assessing emotions and trying to gain a great understanding of how
yourself and others think and feel, it is important to get other people’s
opinions. This is because another person may view a situation differently
than you do and may experience different emotions in the same situation.
Another person may even offer you a different way for you to look at a
situation that is troubling you or you have not figured out how to handle on
your own.
Ask as many questions as you can about different situations and scenarios
that you face and interactions that you have so that you can gain the most
accurate insight into how the other people involved and even the people
watching think and feel about the situation.

Stop and think before doing some things or having some

interactions
Normally, we go through our day doing the things we need to do and
interacting with the people that we need to interact with without thinking
about it first. Take a moment to stop and think about some of these things
before you do them and some interactions before you have them. As yourself
what do you expect to feel about doing this? How would you feel if you did
not do it today? How do you think that this interaction is going to go? Do you
think that you will enjoy the interaction? Are you dreading it?

After taking the time to stop and think and asking yourself some of the
questions listed above, you may want to jot the answers down on a piece of
paper and slip it in your pocket.
After the event or interaction takes place, think about whether it went the way
you expected and whether it went differently because you stopped and
thought about it. Answering the first question will help you to understand
how closely your expectations about the event or interaction coincided with
the actual occurrence. After doing this a few times you may be able to see
where your perception is off and start bringing your expectations beforehand
and the actual occurrence closer to matching. Answering the second question,
‘Do you believe that the event or interaction went the same way or that it
went different from what it would have if you had not stopped and thought
about the situation first?’ can help you understand whether you need to take
the time out to think about your actions, thoughts, and interactions before you
have the to make sure that you are in control of your emotion and react the
best way that you possibly can to the situation.

Observe and study the emotions and interactions of others.

To learn more about how other people experience emotions and how they
think and react to things, it is a good idea to simply watch them for a while so
that you can see for yourself how they experience certain situations.
Maybe go to a local park or a shopping mall, sit on the bench and simply
watch people when they walk by. How do people seem to treat each other?
Are people who do not know each other polite to each other?
Jot down so notes about some of the things that you see. Especially note the
reactions that you did not expect and maybe hypothesize as to why your
opinion of what the reaction would be was wrong.

Practice putting yourself in situations which may help to improve your

interactions with others and your ability to understand their emotions.

If you are uncomfortable meeting people, you should not try to avoid such
situations. On the contrary, you should go to as many of these types of events
and place yourself in as many of these situations as possible until you get
better at it. (Important Note: If you really need practice in this area, it may be
best to start off in some places where you do not have to worry about seeing
the people again. Try and out of state conference for a hobby or interest of
yours and see how you do at mixing and mingling. Or try going to a
nightclub or bar in a neighboring city, mingling and asking someone to dance
with you. You can even stay at a hotel overnight and think about your
experience.
The more experience you gain in certain situations, the better you will
become at understanding them and handling them with poise ease and grace.
So, go out there and practice interacting and take notes to see how this
improves your level of emotional intelligence. Practicing certain situations
which you find socially challenging is also part of developing mental
toughness, the ability to endure and succeed in the given situation through
practice and perseverance. And take notes!

Learn to handle criticism well and even learn from it.

Sometimes, as you go throughout your day something that you have done or
said may receive some criticism from someone else. Do take this personally.
On the contrary, try to learn to handle criticism, so long as it is not too harsh,
in a constructive manner. Ask the person who gives the criticism of what he
or she saw wrong with the situation that led up to the criticism. If there really
is a flaw of some sort, this gives you the opportunity to fix it. And even if you
do not agree with the criticism, you get to hear the other person’s thoughts
and feelings on the matter which leads to an improvement in your level of
emotional intelligence.

The Negative Effects of Not Having Emotional Intelligence

There are a number of negative effects of not having emotional intelligence.
In fact, if you lack emotional intelligence, you are probably experiencing the
negative effects and may even know what they are.

People who do not have emotional intelligence struggle when dealing with
other people, some may not even realize it. Emotional intelligence is often
referred to as people skills. People with poor people skills tend to misread
situations and may say things that are inappropriate or even offensive due to
the fact that they have a lowered ability to read other people.

As stated earlier in this book, empathy, or the ability to empathize with others
is a trait that a person needs in order to have a higher level of emotional
intelligence and form significant connections to others. Without the ability to
place one’s self in another person’s shoes and understand how he or she feels,
a person can only relate to situations from his or her own perspective. This is
similar to ‘going in blind.’ This type of person can get some things right, but
he or she would get a great deal wrong due to the fact that he is only speaking
from his own perspective.

There are certain signs that a person may have a low level of emotional
intelligence. These signs tend to illustrate a failure to understand and relate to
how other people feel.

Getting into frequent arguments

When you do not have the emotional intelligence to communicate well with
others, oftentimes, this can result in your communications becoming
contentious. This is because positive communications often break down when
one of the parties in the conversation is insensitive, condescending, arrogant,
selfish or displays other negative characteristics that may frustrate, annoy, or
anger the person with whom he or she is conversing, and this may often
escalate into an argument.

Feeling a lot of negative emotions

Emotional intelligence is not just the awareness of the feelings of others; it
includes self-awareness as well. Therefore, if you are feeling a lot of negative
emotions, you may not be in touch with your emotions and what is causing
you to feel this way. People with higher amounts of emotional intelligence
tend not to let a lot of negative emotions linger. They seek to find out what is
causing these emotions and try to address them so that they can experience
more positive emotions and less negative emotions.

Overly negative perceptions of other people and situations

Poor emotional intelligence can lead to not only negative feelings and
emotions but also overly negative perceptions of situations which other
people may not have viewed as poorly. Failure to be able to connect to people
can lead to you seeing more negatively than people who have the emotional
and social skills to make a connection.

Behavioral Issues
Some people who have low emotional intelligence actually develop
behavioral issues as a result of not knowing exactly how to handle their
negative emotions. Negative emotions which are not addressed and remedied
to some extent often aggravate things and can lead a person to develop
frustration and anger which often manifests itself as behavioral issues.
Lower Performance

When you are dealing with unresolved emotional issues which result from a
lower level of emotional intelligence, this may often result in lower
performance. Emotional issues cloud your mind and your judgement causing
you to be able to concentrate less on your work. In addition, these issues
could be the elephant in the room in a workspace if this is where the
emotional issues originate.

Lower Level of Self Confidence

When you do not know how to relate to other people, this can result in a
lower level of self-confidence. The fact that things tend not to go smoothly,
and problems tend to originate when dealing with other people can weigh on
a person’s self-esteem until it starts to diminish.

Refusing to Listen to the Opinions of Others and Their Point of

View
People who have lower levels of emotional intelligence often have
narcissistic personality disorders that cause them to believe that their
thoughts and opinions are superior to that of others. You have probably met
this type of person who tends to be loud, rude, and wrong. It is hard for this
person to understand that there can be another way of thinking about things
that differ from the way that he or she thinks about it.

Blames Other People for His or Her Own Mistakes

Everyone has met someone who has someone else to blames for everything
that goes wrong around him or her. This person barely takes responsibility for
his or her own actions if something goes wrong. Part of mental toughness is
feeling as if you can control a situation; therefore, people who have
developed their mental toughness and emotional intelligence tend to take
more responsibility for the mistakes that are made.

Find it Hard to Develop and Maintain Close Relationships

Close relationships are important to develop and maintain; however, they
take a good deal of emotional intelligence to do so. Close relationships tend
to require that one person empathize with the other, take responsibility for his
own actions, listen to the other person’s thoughts and opinions, and
understand how the other person may feel in given situations.

Just as there are traits that people with a significant amount of emotional
intelligence display, people with insufficient degrees of emotional
intelligence tend to display some common traits as well. These traits are, of
course, negative in nature and result from a lack of understanding or caring
about other people. Part of developing mental toughness includes developing
emotional intelligence which can benefit a person in many facets of daily life
and help minimize these negative traits.
 APPLYING MENTAL TOUGHNESS IN
DIFFERENT FIELDS
Applying Mental Toughness in Sports
Mental toughness originally started in sports, and naturally it was highly
successful in this area which is why the concept has since spread to many
other areas of life. In sports, people who are mentally tough are far more
capable of achieving their fitness goals. They lose their weight the fastest,
bench press the most pounds, run the fastest, swim the longest, and can
ultimately achieve any fitness goal they set out to accomplish. The athletes
who partake in the Olympics are known especially for their mental
toughness. If you listen to any Olympic athlete, they always have a story that
involves overcoming many challenges in order to get to the level they are at
now: competing in major international sporting events.
Overcoming cravings, encouraging themselves to show up every day to work
out and eat healthier, and stopping themselves from comparing their own
success to others can be extremely challenging. Not only will they hit periods
where they may feel like they are severely failing, but they may also feel
guilty or jealous when they see that other people have quicker success than
they do. This is completely natural. However, it can also be very taxing on
your emotions. In fact, this is often why many people will stop working
toward their weight loss goal altogether. This doesn’t have to be the case,
though. If the person were to first focus on developing their mental
toughness, and then work toward developing mental toughness throughout
their entire weight loss experience, they would be far more likely to achieve
their goals. They would be resilient toward their challenges, confident that
they can accomplish their goals, brave enough to say no to the urge to quit,
and emotionally intelligent enough to recognize that the feelings of guilt or
jealousy are only temporary emotions that can be leveraged to motivate them
to show up even more.
Other people who benefit from mental toughness include those who
genuinely enjoy sports and simply want to get better at their favorite sport,
those who are interested in taking up new hobbies such as body building or
basketball and want to increase their abilities, and even those who simply
want to see themselves living a more active lifestyle. Moving beyond your
current abilities often means moving beyond your comfort zone and pushing
yourself harder than you have ever pushed yourself before. Being able to do
this takes incredible energy, but also incredible mental strength. Therefore,
mental toughness is a powerful asset for anyone who is invested in or looking
to become invested in physical activities.

Applying Mental Toughness in the Workplace

In the workplace, mental toughness has a powerful effect in helping us move
forward and see success in our careers. One major way that mental toughness
helps us in the workplace is by teaching us that there are always solutions and
opportunities to the many challenges we face on a daily basis.
The workplace can be challenging for a variety of reasons. Perhaps, for
example, you work somewhere and you are not particularly fond of some or
even many of your coworkers. You may also not have an affinity for your
boss, or other people who are in charge. In these circumstances, exercising
mental toughness means that you not only show up to the job each day, but
also that you are willing to give it your best. You show up each day, put the
previous days behind you, and focus on what success you can create on that
day. You pay attention to opportunities to increase productivity, do your job
with your best abilities, and ensure that everything flows smoothly. When the
people you are not fond of or the work you are not fond of comes along your
way, you are willing to put in the effort it takes to make these situations
positive. You do not let them hold you down, nor do you let them hold you
back. You are not willing to let these circumstances stand in the way of your
own success. Not only do you show up, but you show up your best, ready to
work and with a willingness to perform.
Problems at work can seem so overwhelming that quitting may seem easier
than carrying on. However, what separates those who quit and those who
persevere is how mentally tough the latter is. There are circumstances when
you have no choice but to stop. The most important thing to keep in mind is
that you have to develop mental toughness no matter what you are doing or
where you are. Here are some tips on how to do it.

When you are not satisfied with how your career is going, or you are facing
problems at work, you might lose interest in your work. You will develop and
practice mental toughness by defining and upholding your standards even
when you are facing a tough situation. When things don’t go as planned, your
ability to maintain high standards will help you get through it.
Having a moral compass is also important. What is your viewpoint? Your
beliefs define who you are. You will also know the path and direction you
should take. It is easy to get confused and lost when you want things to end.
Don’t be someone who can be influenced easily. You can’t really control
everything. That’s a fact you need to accept. You will have to give up some
control so that you can control what is important. This way, you can avoid
pointless conflicts.

Applying Mental Toughness in Entrepreneurship

Just like with your job or career, mental toughness has a powerful ability to
help those who are involved in entrepreneurship. Arguably, those who do not
possess any level of mental toughness will not succeed in entrepreneurship.
The reason why is simple: you are on your own. When you have a workplace
that is complete with a boss and a set of employees, you are not on your own
when it comes to achieving things. You do not have to set your own
schedule, make all of the difficult sales, and do all of the other challenging
aspects involved in the business side of things. You leverage the strengths of
both your coworkers and your management team. However, when you are an
entrepreneur, you are faced with all of these challenges. You must learn to
develop your confidence, your resilience, and your overall mental toughness
enough that you can show up every day and create success in your business.
If you don’t, your business will not become successful.
People who have mental toughness can handle the natural ups and downs that
come with business. When it is your own business, the stress that comes from
the downs in particular can be extremely difficult to handle. With these
downs come a large amount of fear, uncertainty, and even desperation if you
are trying to come back up again. If you are able to exercise your mental
toughness, it means that you will effortlessly bounce back from these downs.
Not only will you be able to exercise your emotional intelligence to help
regulate your own emotions, such as fear and desperation, but you will also
have the confidence necessary to take the action that is required in order to
come out of these natural ruts. The more resilient you are, the more resilient
your business will be. This is especially true for entrepreneurs because in the
beginning it is often just them and a few other people. A company is only as
strong as its leader, so lacking mental toughness means that your business
will be at a serious deficit when it comes to having a faithful, resilient,
confident and brave leader to drive it forward, even in times of uncertainty.
If you want to become an entrepreneur, or if you already are one, developing
your mental toughness on an ongoing basis is completely necessary. Not only
will this skill help you start your business if you haven’t already, but it will
also help take you to entirely new heights. Even if you already have some
degree of mental toughness, regularly focusing on developing it is necessary
if you want to have total success.

Applying Mental Toughness in Education

Educational settings can be difficult! In fact, they may be even more difficult
than a career. In an educational environment, you are constantly being pushed
to learn new things. Rarely do things ever slow down for you to fully
embrace everything you have already learned. Instead, you must take your
personal time to study so that you can fully grasp and memorize what you
have already learned. Then, you are fed more information to learn so that you
can continue your education and earn your certificate, diploma, or degree.
People who lack mental toughness often struggle greatly in educational
environments. They are often unwilling to devote their personal time to
studying, likely because they struggle to overcome difficult emotions and
commit themselves to the studying process. Sometimes, they might feel like
they are already behind, or they may simply feel uninterested in the learning
process. Therefore, rather than overcoming these emotions and dedicate
themselves to studying, they will skip studying and struggle to keep up with
the rest of the class. Negative grades can harshly affect their confidence,
especially if a person lacks resilience. If they are having a hard time in
school, someone who lacks mental toughness is likely to fall behind and
either hardly pass, fail, or even drop out altogether. Without mental
toughness, it can be very difficult to brave educational environments.

Mental toughness can play a huge role in making education feel a lot easier
and more achievable. People who are mentally strong have the capacity to
“turn off” their disinterest and regain focus on what they are attempting to
achieve. They are more likely to bounce back from bad grades and try harder
to ensure that they do better in the future. They are committed to studying,
and they possess the confidence that they can achieve their education if they
set their mind to it. These people know how to say no to distraction, no to
fear, and no to feelings of unworthiness or inferiority. Instead, they are
willing to show up every time and put their greatest effort into successfully
completing their educational program. They are capable of recalling why they
started in the first place and they can use this goal as motivation to keep them
moving forward, no matter what challenge they may face along the way.

Applying Mental Toughness in the Military and Navy SEALs

Mental Toughness
When it comes to particularly difficult careers such as being a part of the
military or Navy SEALs, mental toughness is an absolute must.
Virtually every aspect of these careers is difficult. These individuals are
actively involved in war and war-oriented practices, such as their trainings,
and they are subjected to incredibly strict rules. They are expected to behave
a very specific way, are required to submit completely to their sergeants or
leaders, and are not allowed to show weakness on any level. Weakness may
imply that they are not qualified, which is detrimental to the entire team on
both the physical and psychological levels. They are yelled at often, put
through incredibly difficult training as well as physically-and emotionally-
taxing practices, and may see things that are extremely traumatizing for them.
In many cases, they will even have to face seeing the death of many other
people, some of which are comrades. In fact, they may even find themselves
responsible for it, as per the nature of their job.
Based on everything that these individuals must go through, mental
toughness is absolutely necessary. In fact, they test for it before even
allowing people into the military or Navy SEALs. If someone is not mentally
tough, it is assumed that they will not be able to handle the stress and
hardship that comes with being a part of these programs. They will be far
more likely to develop severe cases of PTSD, or even suicidal depression.
They may have regular and severe emotional breakdowns, which can be
incredibly dangerous if they have them in the wrong place at the wrong time
when they are on active duty. Furthermore, they would likely struggle to
handle the exceptionally high standards that are expected from them on every
level. From their fitness capabilities to their ability to keep their bunk clean,
and to complete every other task given to them with complete perfection and
attention to detail would likely be far too difficult for a person who lacked
mental toughness.
Those who are mentally tough, then, would be the ones that experience
greater success in these career paths. Not only can they handle the yelling and
constant pressure applied to them by their higher ups, but they will also be
more likely to bounce back from any potential depression, PTSD, or other
mental challenges they may face during and after their involvement. People
with mental toughness will also be able to get themselves through the
exhausting amounts of physical training that is required in order to be a part
of the military. Since there are so many demands that a military or Navy
SEALs member must go through, both physically and mentally, it is
imperative that they possess a level of mental toughness that will successfully
carry them through these challenges. Otherwise, they will be at a severe
disadvantage and may not be able to physically or mentally handle the
challenges they will face.

Applying Mental Toughness in Personal Matters

Believe it or not, mental toughness is not only an asset when it comes to
facing large obstacles such as the obvious mental and physical challenges that
come with the previously discussed situations. In fact, mental toughness can
be a powerful asset when it comes to managing your personal life as well.
Developing your mental toughness will not only help carry you through these
difficult obstacles and challenges, but it will also help you tremendously in
your personal life, too.
There are many times in our personal lives that we are faced with challenges.
These challenges can be related to family, friends, finances, racism, sexism,
societal class, religion, personal beliefs, politics, or any other number of
topics. We face challenges on a daily basis, often surrounding one or more of
these particular subjects. If we struggle with mental toughness, we will likely
find ourselves being victimized by these challenges. Perhaps you may feel
that you are hopeless against them, or that there is no chance that you will
ever be able to prevent them from harming you. Maybe you feel as though
these are things that you will have to face forever based on your
circumstances, which may be ones that are outside of your control. These
feelings can lead to many more difficult challenges, such as increased stress
levels, anxiety, depression, and other hardships.
If you were facing these challenges with mental toughness, however, they
would not affect you the same way. Instead, you would have the confidence
to face them and stand up for yourself when necessary. You would have the
resilience to bounce back whenever you were struck by these challenges, and
both the faith and confidence in yourself and your ability to do better by
yourself. You would not feel additional levels of stress or depression because
you would not victimize yourself. Your emotional intelligence would help
you understand the true nature of these hardships. If you were facing racism
or sexism for example, you would know that the true problem belongs to the
people who are abusing you and not you personally. You would also have the
confidence to stand up and fight for change, rather than sit back and let these
things happen. You would also be able to sort through the inevitably painful
emotions that would arise as a result of these experiences, rather than bottle
them up and have them turn into depression or something else that is equally
as painful. Any challenge you would face in your personal life would be far
easier to navigate and overcome if you were equipped with an advanced level
of mental toughness.
 GAINING FULL CONTROL
If you are like most people you probably have a whirlwind of thoughts
spinning around in your head every minute of every day. The chances are you
have wished that you could empty your head of every thought, memory and
idea and simply enjoy the peace and quiet of a clear, silent mind. While this
may seem like a good idea the fact of the matter is that thoughts aren’t always
a bad thing. After all, without thoughts you wouldn’t have dreams, ideas or
ambitions–things that keep your life from becoming stagnant and boring.
However, when you allow your thoughts to dictate your life you create a
whole list of other problems to deal with.
The trick is to understand that you are not your thoughts. Instead, you are
defined by the actions you take. Therefore, it is vital that you separate
yourself from your thoughts so that you can make clear and informed
choices. This will ensure that the actions you take are meaningful and
effective, thereby leading you towards the accomplishment of your goals and
dreams. This chapter will reveal several methods for gaining full control over
your mind, including how to organize and control your thoughts so that your
thoughts no longer control you.

1: Understand what thoughts actually are

In order to be able to control your thoughts you must first understand what
thoughts actually are. While they may appear to be many different things, the
fact is that thoughts are nothing but sound bites of information, or better said
they are ideas.

Many of those sound bites come from your surrounding environment.

Conversations you have with other people, things you hear on the radio or on
TV, and even random things you read on billboards, cereal boxes and the like
all serve to deposit fragments of information into your mind that become
stored as thoughts. Needless to say, most of these thoughts are of no real
value, however when left unchecked they can collect in your mind the same
way that spam can collect in your email account, taking up valuable space
and energy.
Alternatively, there are thoughts and ideas in your mind that are highly
valuable and meaningful, and that can serve to help you improve your life in
any number of ways. These thoughts include your dreams, ambitions and
visions of a better life. More often than not such thoughts come from within
rather than from without, being born of your imagination and subconscious.
Other times such thoughts may be inspired by outside people or events,
especially those that encourage you to discover and fulfill your true potential.
In any event, such positive thoughts are critical for creating a better life, and
thus should be nurtured and utilized to their fullest.
Finally, there is the category of thoughts that are comprised of memories.
These thoughts can be the most poignant as they tend to instill emotional
responses. On the one hand, any memory of failure will usually evoke a fear
of failure that will make pursuing your goals ever more difficult. Ignoring
such memories is all but impossible, which is why most people succumb to
their fears and never chase their dreams or ambitions. On the other hand, any
memory of success will evoke a sense of confidence, one that provides the
strength and will power to chase your dreams regardless of their size and
complexity. Such thoughts prove valuable beyond measure for those who
want to live a life of meaning and fulfillment.

2: Organize your thoughts

While it might seem tempting to try to empty your mind of the thoughts that
fill it, the fact of the matter is that all such efforts usually prove futile. Even if
you could empty your mind of every single thought, which is the goal of
certain forms of meditation, such emptiness would prove short lived as your
mind would begin collecting thoughts as soon as you got back to your regular
life. That said, this doesn’t mean that you have to endure the chaotic flow of
thoughts that most people experience. Instead, you can actually organize your
thoughts so that your mind becomes a neat and orderly repository of dreams,
ideas and goals.
How you organize your thoughts is entirely up to you. One method is to
separate those thoughts that come from within from those that come from
without. This will help you to keep track of which thoughts are truly yours as
opposed to those that are put in your mind from the words and actions of
other people. A benefit of this is that any negative thoughts that come from
without will have less power over your mind when you realize that they don’t
reflect your true feelings. This will also help you to keep track of which
dreams and ambitions come from your heart, enabling you to choose
ambitions that are truly yours over those that are put into your mind by
others.
Another way to organize your mind is to separate thoughts by category rather
than origin. In this way you keep all negative thoughts together, whether they
come from your own heart or the words of others. This can be highly
effective as you can close the door to all negative thoughts when they are
kept together far more easily than if they are allowed to flow freely among all
the thoughts in your mind. Furthermore, by placing all positive thoughts
together you can choose to focus on those, thereby increasing your
confidence regarding any dream you are pursuing. In the end, when you
organize your thoughts you make it possible to control which thoughts to
entertain and which thoughts to ignore. This is a critical element of mental
toughness.

3: Turn negative thoughts around

When you have your thoughts organized the next step is to decide what to do
with each type of thought. Some thoughts, such as hopes, ambitions and
dreams should be nurtured and pursued, whereas other thoughts, such as fear
of failure and regret, should be neutralized in order to minimize the damage
they can cause. Again, it is almost impossible to rid your mind of negative
thoughts, regardless of where they come from. Therefore, another method for
neutralizing their effects must be found.

One proven method for overcoming negative thoughts is to turn them around,
thereby reversing their polarity. For example, if you have a fear of failure
based on a memory of failing in the past, rather than letting that fear control
your thoughts and actions you can turn it into motivation. Instead of trying to
forget that you failed in the past you can focus on how it felt to lose,
determining to never face those feelings again. Now you will be even more
determined to succeed, not just for the sake of succeeding, but also for the
sake of not having to feel defeated again.

Another way to turn negative thoughts around is to treat them like warnings.
Again, in the case of facing a fear of failure, consider why you failed in the
past. Perhaps you weren’t as prepared as you should have been, or perhaps
you ignored important information or advice that could have led to your
success. In any event, if you learn the lessons from past failure you can use
your current fear of failure as a warning against making the same mistakes
again. Now, instead of the fear being a negative it can be seen as a guiding
hand that is keeping you from repeating the actions that led to failure in times
past.

4: Separate yourself from your thoughts

Defining and organizing your thoughts are critical steps in taking full control
over your mind, but they aren’t the be all and end all. Instead, it is critical to
actually separate yourself from your thoughts, even after they are organized
and tamed. This helps you to maintain a clear perspective on the fact that
your mind doesn’t necessarily reflect who you are. Instead, it reflects the
information you have been exposed to on a daily basis. While you can choose
the things you listen to and the people you spend time with to a certain degree
you can never totally control those things. As a result, ideas, thoughts, fears
and the like can enter your mind whether or not they are things you agree
with or believe in.

This is why it is absolutely vital to separate yourself from your thoughts. The
easiest way to do this is to reflect on the true nature of thoughts, namely that
they are simply sound bites of information. A person can have thoughts of
any nature, but that doesn’t mean that the nature of those thoughts defines the
person. This is where programming comes into play. If you allow the
thoughts in your mind to run wild they can begin to define how you think,
which in turn will define how you act. However, when you remain detached
from your thoughts you maintain control of your mind, thereby preventing
yourself from being programmed by the fears, envies and negative thinking
of those around you.

Perhaps the best way to separate yourself from your thoughts is to question
every thought you have. By asking the simple question “how do I feel about
that?” you avoid defining yourself by a specific thought. In the event that you
disagree with the thought you can easily cast it aside as the junk that it is.
However, if you decide that you like and agree with a particular thought you
could put it in a safe place and nurture it accordingly. In the end it’s about
recognizing the simple fact that while you might be a vital part of what’s in
your mind you aren’t necessarily the thoughts contained in your mind.
Rather, you are the intelligence that sorts through and processes those
thoughts in a way that creates meaning and value in your life.

5: Choose acting over thinking

There is one final step that goes above and beyond separating yourself from
your thoughts. This is the step of choosing acting over thinking. The old
axiom “Actions speak louder than words” sums up this concept quite well.
Although the axiom refers to actions over words, the same principle applies
to actions over thoughts. What keeps so many people from ever being truly
successful is that they never translate their thoughts into actions.
Subsequently, their dreams remain dreams, their hopes remain hopes, and
their lives remain unfulfilled and stagnant. Only when you turn thoughts into
actions can a dream begin to transform into reality.

A simple way to see this is to consider someone who has achieved greatness
in their life. Take Napoleon for example. Whether you respect Napoleon or
not, the fact remains that he became emperor of most of Europe for a while.
This is no small feat, especially when you consider his humble origins. The
key was that he took every opportunity for self improvement that came his
way. He made the most of every position he held, did as much as he could
with what he had and actually transformed his environment based on his
vision of how things should be. As a result, he rose to power and became a
name remembered by history. Thus, it was his actions that defined him, not
his dreams. If dreams alone defined a person then most people would be
emperors, kings and billionaires. However, dreams don’t define a person,
only actions do. As a result, only those people who choose acting over
thinking will ever transform intangible dreams into solid reality.
 CONCLUSION
Almost everything that you want to do and is worth doing in life takes some
degree of mental toughness that is the determination to push forward and
surmount hurdles, stay organized and motivated, use willpower and resilience
to keep moving forward toward the goals and dreams that you want to
achieve.

Mental toughness is as important, if not more, than how much money,

education or status you have when you are trying to achieve the goals that
you have set for yourself.

There are some traits that are common to people who have established and
developed their mental toughness skills; and these traits include: mental
competency, emotional intelligence, resilience, willpower, a winner’s mind,
the ability to focus, they surround themselves with people who are mentally
tough, and they avoid trying too hard to go against the grain.

They also possess some common habits: one consists of leaving the past
behind and learning from it by improving the present situations. There are
even some interesting techniques that you can use to let go of the past if it is
still weighing on your mind. You can try holding a ceremony to let go of the
past and move on positively.

There are a number of reasons that you should develop your mental strength,
and one of the primary reasons is so that you can be more productive.

Did you realize that people who have a great amount of mental strength get
more things done? This is because they are able to concentrate and focus.
They handle emotional issues when they arise so that they do not become
overrun with emotion.

Moreover, they manage their time and money wisely. Feeling in control of
your life is another reason to develop mental strength. Feeling that the things
that take place around you are out of your control is a feeling of
powerlessness that can be remedied.
Furthermore, building your mental toughness will help you transition more
smoothly through the changes that occur in your life. Mental toughness is
needed for everyday life situations because you never know what is going to
occur.
Additionally, mental toughness helps a person navigate through tough times
more smoothly. Mental toughness helps you prioritize. And there are a
number of other reasons that a person should develop mental toughness.
There are certain techniques that you can use to build mental toughness.
One such technique is to take a long hard look at yourself and evaluate who
you are. Evaluate where you are in your life and your values and belief
systems. Identify your strengths and weaknesses so that you can strengthen
the areas where you need improvement. It is important not to allow your
mental energy to be wasted on either things that are insignificant or things
which you have no control over. Meditate and reflect on your day at the end
of each day. Do not try to be a perfectionist. To develop mental strength, you
also want to practice staying calm in high-pressure situations.