Training Yourself to be Mentally Tough

Step One: Know What You Want 

To start with, you have to know what you want. You have to be able to picture it clearly in your mind. The first step is to make a clear, attainable goal. Define what being mentally tough looks like in context for you.  

If you want to clean up your finances, maybe your mental toughness training for the week is making dinner every night instead of succumbing to ordering takeout. If your goal is to be more knowledgeable this year, commit to reading a book a week for the rest of the year. If you want to work on sharpening your self-discipline skills, work your schedule so you can fit in a good habit, like meditating or jogging. If you’ve been really bad lately about being present in your relationships, maybe your first step is deciding to leave your phone somewhere out of sight and spend half an hour with your spouse and your kids.  

Notice how none of these tasks seem to be mountains you couldn’t climb. The task itself doesn’t have to be gigantic. The hard part is doing it consistently, every day, working at it even when you don’t want to. There will be days you don’t feel like cooking. Grit is grown by doing it when the motivation is at an all-time low, just because you know you should. 

When creating these goals, keep in mind where your roadblocks will be. Make sure the tasks you create to accomplish your goals are built into your routine to become a habit. When you don’t want to or don’t feel like showing up, accomplishing your task out of habit will save you. Remember that being mentally tough isn’t about what feels good. It’s about sticking to the schedule regardless of how you feel about it.

It’s about being consistent with your habits and your routine to get to your goal. That’s what’s going to set you apart. Every day when you complete your task, be sure to celebrate your progress and your wins. Every step you take is getting you closer to the person you want to be. 

Step Two: Tweak Your Self-Talk 

Your brain is a powerful machine, and it’s constantly working. Whether you realize it or not, you say 300 to 1,000 words per minute to yourself. What do they sound like? It might not seem like a big deal when you mutter, “Oh, that was stupid,” to yourself after making a mistake, or, “Yikes, that could’ve gone better,” when you bomb a presentation. But for Navy SEALs, self-talk can mean the difference between passing or failing. Welcome to the Pool Comp. 

The Pool Competency Test is all about staying calm and positive when everything around you threatens danger. Imagine this: you’re underwater, decked out in scuba gear. Everything is normal, in the surreal kind of way the world feels underwater. Suddenly, the equipment feeding oxygen to your mouth is ripped out, and the tube filling oxygen to that mouthpiece is tied in a knot. 

If we went into this exercise cold-turkey, without any training, our hearts would be racing. You have to get your equipment back under control. But your hands are shaking, your mind is racing, and your heart rate won’t relax for an instant. Panic sets in. Game over.