I’ve never been the strongest. I’ve rarely been the fastest, and I have definitely never been the biggest guy in the gym or on the team. That being said, I had to make an impression on the coaches a different way. Rather than be a physical specimen that looked as though it was cooked up in the same Russian lab as Ivan Drago, I had to go the Rocky Balboa approach. I decided that I was going to go the route that didn’t require me to be the biggest or fastest. I just had to be stubborn. What I’m speaking of is mental toughness. Mental toughness is the ability to tell that voice in your head to shut up. You know that voice that tells you to quit a quarter through a run? That one. Being able to turn that voice down and ignore it is truly a skill. It is a skill that I try to sharpen every day and it is the one skill I am most grateful for. I don’t think mental toughness gets enough credit. After all, what is failure if it isn’t quitting. Now, I think it’s important to point out that there are reasonable times to quit, like when something goes against your moral compass, or if you break your leg in the middle of a long-distance race. But it really is a time and a place kind of thing. Rather, I would argue that it is almost always more beneficial to grit down on your metaphorical mouthguard when times get tough, tell that voice to shut up, and come out for Round 12 swinging for the fences. Not everyone has a reason to be as big as a bodybuilder, but everyone has a reason to get mentally tougher. The best part….there is no ceiling. You can always push yourself further and gain more mental toughness. You might still be thinking to yourself, “why on earth would I need more mental toughness, I work a nice cozy job, I have the ability to eat whenever I’m hungry and I have access to heat in the winter and AC in the summer.” If your expecting a conspiratorial response, you will be sadly disappointed. This has nothing to do with if there is a solar flare that knocks out all power and you now have to hunt neighborhood squirrel for dinner. Rather, this is about taking difficult, sometimes annoying parts in our lives and having them become bearable. Essentially, making them suck less. Let me try and through out a real-life example that may resonate with you. For those of you who have dogs, you can understand this one. Think about having to take your dog out in the winter months. It’s dark out, it’s cold, your dog is all over the place and apparently immune to the cold while you stand there in four layers of clothing freezing. For those of you who don’t have a dog, just go outside and yell at a tree to “go potty” for 15 minutes in -10 degree weather. The tree will respond the same way my dog does. Normally, this sucks. Every minute out in that biting cold feels like an hour of your life. That little voice in your head starts telling you how cold it is, you should go inside and the dog can pee in his crate for all you care. But then that mental toughness kicks in. You tell that voice to shut up and you begin to realize you have the ability to ignore the cold. Those 15 minutes feel like an actual 15 minutes and you realize you have more patience for your dog than you thought. This is essentially the day to day benefit of mental toughness, just now expand it out to other areas of your life. I have good news for you too. Mental toughness can be built in the gym. The bad news is that it takes a ridiculous amount of hard work, quitting more than you thought possible, picking yourself up, and doing it again. Mental toughness can only be built from finding your quitting point, pushing passed it somehow, resting, then repeating. You soon begin to realize that the voice in your head really doesn’t know what it is talking about and that you are capable of more than you realized. Yea, it’s a lot of work, but what you get out of it is so worth it. It’s especially worth it because along with mental toughness, you will see an increase in your self-confidence from realizing that you have the ability to tackle anything, and a decrease in stress and anxiety (more of a science-based reasoning that I won’t get into here). The point is, training for mental toughness will give you more than just gym tools. For this reason and many more, I have switched my training mentality from one where I have goals based on physique and performance to two simple goals. The first is to get mentally tougher every day I can. The second is to train for my own mental health. If my mental health is on point, I find everything else in my life falls into place. Of course, I want to look good and perform well but these things will come with training regardless. I also must point out that my training attempts to cover all aspects of fitness from strength and speed to flexibility and mobility. With this, I don’t have to worry about the physical aspects other than to make sure my training pushes me to my limit and occasionally beyond. In closing, I can’t stress the importance of mental toughness enough. I believe it is the key to any form of success, whether that be physical or financial success. You need a solid base of mental fortitude to push passed the crap when it hits the fan, because it always will. Yet, grit down and bear it with your now enhance mental toughness and you will be able to conquer anything!