Grit: Building Mental Toughness With Five Steps!
One of the best ROI’s (return on investment) I’ve received from fitness is not the muscles. It was from the mental fortitude I developed over the years. To grind through one more rep, to learn a new technique, or to hit a new personal best. These require more than just body, but the mind.
Developing mental toughness or grit through exercise allowed me to utilize it in other areas of my life, from careers to competitions and more.
In this post, we are going to talk about grit, and the 5 steps to develop it.
Let’s dive in!
What Is Grit?
Grit is defined as perseverance towards long-term goals. It is one of the biggest drivers of success. In fact, according to a research study, it was concluded that no matter the career or hobbies or passions that you may have… grit trumps everything.
Talent is a short-term gain. Grit, tenacity, or mental toughness is what drives us beyond talent.
Now let’s talk about the 5 steps to becoming mentally tough.
I. What Is Your Purpose?
Firstly, ask yourself: what is your purpose in what you are trying to do? Whether it is a fitness or career goal, why does it interest you? How does it align with your goals?
Remember to find connectivity in all that you do. For example, realize that fitness helps both physical and mental health, allowing you to perform your very best. Believe that every action is a necessity towards your goals.
II. How Is Mental Toughness Defined To You?
Figure out what you perceive mental toughness to be. It could be an influencer that inspires you in a specific field of preference. Or maybe some goal you desire to achieve.
Many of us look towards an athlete or public figure that we aspire to become or to maybe learn lessons from. Use that athlete or figure as the person you aspire to be. Work on building those traits.
If you have to, embody an alter ego that allows you to become the person you want to be.
Mental Toughness — Defined By Us
To us, mental toughness is can be developed by realizing three goals:
- Being in control of how you respond to events around us. We can’t control the events around us directly, but we can control how we react to them.
- Redirecting our emotions into energy. We choose to view our emotions as neither positive or negative… they just “are”. How we choose to respond to them defines us.
- Never ruminating too long over adversities, conflicts, or hard decisions. To ruminate is to let your decision or obstacle affect you mentally for hours and even days. We need to be able to develop that mental grit that allows us to adapt and improvise during hard times.
Realize these three goals, and strengthen your mental grit muscle.
III. Work Towards Achieving Your Desired Goal
Work towards achieving your desired goal and persist through each battle — learning, losing, and winning. Break your goals down into step-by-step parts, allowing you to focus and dial in.
When I started Reforged, I was overwhelmed about what I wanted it to become… even before I started. What I had to do is worry about the first steps — of creating the product, adding the label, and more.
Remember this: the process over everything. Prioritize the process so that the results will be achieved. Don’t worry about the results if you don’t have the necessary processes to get there.
IV. Reinforce Your Habits
Motivation is the charge and discipline is the battery. When the motivational charge is running low, discipline is there to keep you going.
Sometimes we aren’t always motivated, which is why we reinforce processes or habits to accomplish our goals. Reinforcing these habits ensures that you will build your grit muscles.
Remember that at times, things may get boring with the process. This is where you embrace the monotony of your craft, the habitual side of it. Seek to become more proficient at it, and juggling more tasks. Everything you work towards allows you to build that mental grit to overcome immediate obstacles that may arise.
V. Surround Yourself In Grit.
Surround yourself with others who have the persistence and grit to do what’s necessary to be their best. Having people hold you accountable (whether directly or indirectly) allows you to work out your mental grit muscles.
Whenever I am working with like-minded individuals who are farther ahead than I am, it elevates me to perform at the same levels as them. If you’ve heard the saying “never be the smartest guy in the room”, that saying is true.
Surround yourself with people well-established or people that have used their mental grit muscles more than you have. You will be around some badasses that will motivate you to reach a greater potential.
Build Your Grit
Mental toughness (Grit) is like a muscle: it must be trained. You must go through obstacles in order to develop this mental muscle. In order to develop this mental muscle, we should work towards the following:
- Realize your purpose. What do you desire to build this grit for? Find connectivity in everything you do. Make it purposeful.
- Define what mental toughness is to you. To some, mental toughness may mean to go one more rep. To others, it’s to beat a personal record.
- Work towards achieving your desired goals. Whatever you desire to achieve, you should break down into step-by-step milestones that you can work towards.
- Reinforce your habits. Whatever you desire, work towards building the habits that support your goals. Discipline is greater than motivation.
- Surround yourself in grit. Look to connect with other like-minded individuals that have achieved the same, if not greater goals. Learn from the greats.
One final note I want to leave you: choose to Embrace that obstacle. To go one more. Allow yourself to reach a greater potential.
Any questions or comments? Throw them below!
Until next time everyone!
