WFN003: How to Develop Mental Toughness

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

What's going on ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to another edition of Warrior Fitness Notes. Now, today's topic is going to be about mental toughness and I think this is extremely important because we're getting more and more access out there to different modalities as far as strength and conditioning. Know, there's when I was a kid, there weren't a lot of gyms around. And today, we see like two to three gyms in every town across The US.

There are more and more people out there working out. There's more and more people out there practicing fitness. And I think that that is a really good thing. But here's the thing. If we are going to be practicing fitness in a way that's going to contribute to our lives, it can't just be the physical benefits that we're getting from it.

Now, what do I mean by that? Well, one of the things I just spoke about on YouTube was the fact that we can't look at fitness as just a hobby. It can't just be something that's added into our lives in addition to everything else we're doing. We really need to look at fitness as something that is going to make our lives better. That's gonna make us better at what we do for a living.

That is going to make us better parents. It's gonna make us better husbands. It's gonna make us better fathers. It's gonna make us better at every single thing that we do. And if we don't, what happens is fitness becomes something that's a nice to have.

And the thing that happens with things that are nice to have is that they tend to go away as soon as we run into trouble. Now herein is where the topic for today's episode really comes in. That is that if we are able if we are going to be able to be fit for the rest of our lives, if we are going to be able to be the men we're supposed to be, the women we're supposed to be, the people we're supposed to be, then we need to be mentally tough. And if we're not mentally tough, the first sign of of, you know, any opposition, the first sign of any obstacle, the first sign of any difficulty, we're gonna give it up in favor of what we make up in our minds to be more important. Now, I say make up in our minds because at the end of the day, the only two real assets we have in our lives are our minds and our bodies.

If we're not taking care of those, we can't be taking care of those we love. We can't be taking care of ourselves for the long term, right? Because if you're not taking care of yourself and your health falters, you're gonna get sick, you're not gonna be able to work, you're not gonna be able to provide for your family, and you're not gonna be able, most importantly in my mind, you're not going to be able to get the most that you can out of this life, success wise, enjoyment wise, or anything else wise. So what I wanna talk to you today about are three things that I think are really important to developing mental toughness. And you know, it starts with what I think is the primary thing you need to be doing is you need to find things that are hard to do, that you're not already good at, that you have a strong possibility of failing at.

Now, when I was a kid, right, I got into weightlifting at a fairly early age and I got into working out at a fairly early age and I got into pushing myself physically at a fairly early age. I'm talking about 12 years old. And I wondered to myself why that was so easy for me to do. And I think the big reason was because my mother forced me to play sports that I wasn't good at. When I was a kid, I used to play baseball, and I was the worst baseball player on the planet.

After a couple of seasons, I showed up for the first little league practice and my whole team, they were like, oh my god, I can't believe this kid. Like, they literally started moaning when I walked up to the team. And they were so mad that I had actually showed up for that practice because they thought that I wasn't gonna be there. And that had a huge impact me as on me as a kid. Obviously, I was emotionally crushed by that.

It it absolutely killed me. But I continued to play that season, and I still wasn't any good, but that taught me something. And it taught me that in order for me to be able to find success in anything, I was gonna need to work at it. I wasn't naturally good at sports. I wasn't naturally good at athletics.

So when high school football came around and high school wrestling came around, I pushed myself like nobody's business. I pushed myself to become strong in the gym. I pushed myself to become more endurant. I pushed myself to become tougher. And if it wasn't for those kids making fun of me when I was a kid, if it wasn't for all those difficulties I had as a child, I really don't think I'd be in the position I'm in today in coaching athletes, in teaching people how to become stronger.

And I don't think I would have been able to dedicate my life to fitness the way I have. Now, you might not want to dedicate your whole life to fitness, but I think that that notion of trying something hard, trying something difficult, trying something that's just a bit out of your reach is a really important thing for you to do and to continue to do throughout your life so that you don't fall into the comfort mentality. I think so many people out there, they're so scared of failure. They're so scared of being disappointed. But when you get when you fall in your face a few times and you get dirt kicked in your face, you start to understand that it's not a big deal and that it's not a real failure.

The only time a real failure starts to happen is if you completely give up and you stop pursuing what you wanted to pursue in the first place. So my suggestion is if you're young, focus on big things that are hard. If you're 18 years old, if you're 17 years old, think about doing something really tough. Think about, you know, trying out for an athletic team for your high school. Think about potentially joining the military, joining the Marine Corps.

Another really difficult thing that I did where I failed over and over again, but kept going and eventually earned the title of US marine. Even if you don't wanna join the military and you wanted to start volunteering for different organizations, potentially try out for the peace corps, try out for, you know, a crew team, try out for, you know, start doing martial arts. Brazilian jiu-jitsu was something again that has humbled me over and over and over again. Seek that humility, seek the opportunity to learn something that you're not good at and it starts by being humbled. The next big thing is this, and this is the second one.

Be grateful for the bad things that happen. A lot of people have a gratitude practice. And my friend Brian Rose from London Real, he teaches his students in the London Real Life Accelerator about gratitude. And this involves finding three things that you could be grateful for every single day. Now, one of the things that I found really helpful was not just to be grateful for the good things in my life, but to be grateful for the bad things in my life.

And a big example of this is I found a way to be grateful for the fact that I have ulcerative colitis, right? And the way it goes is this, ulcerative colitis is a disease that has nearly ruined my life. It has nearly killed me a couple of different times. It almost ruined my training career. It has made me absolutely miserable.

But having it forced me to actually research nutrition. Forced me to actually go into the scientific literature. To make the effort to try to understand it. To make the effort to try to find things that were going to help me. And going to help other people.

Had I never gotten ulcerative colitis, I would have never done the research that I have on digestion, on nutrition, on a lot of the things that I have developed in my own intellectual property that have helped the people who watch my YouTube channel or who have signed up with me as clients. Had I never gone through that, had I never gone through that pain, I would have never ever been able to do that. Another one is, one of my biggest business failures. I was one of the founders of the great Metroflex Gym in Long Beach, California. I helped start that gym but I couldn't financially support the gym so I had to leave the ownership.

I had to sell my shares and I ended up on the street homeless, living out of my car and at the end of the day, you know, had that never happened, I would have never had the impetus to start a YouTube channel. I would have never had the impetus to start an online business. I would have never had the impetus to do what I'm doing right now with Warrior Soul and starting my clothing line for US military veterans. I wouldn't have been able to help so many US military veterans to find their way and I wouldn't have been able to help so many people around the world with their fitness. And I wouldn't be sitting where I am right now.

So again, that's something that's really bad that happened to me, but I figured out a way to be grateful for it. And I think that the biggest thing that this does for you is to understand that even if something bad happens to you in this life, you can use that thing. You can absolutely 100% use that thing to make yourself better as long as you keep your mind open enough to find what the lesson is that you need to learn to make yourself better. So try that every single day. Try to think about three bad things that have happened to you in your life, because we all know that we go through more bad things, more hard things than we do good things.

Try to find three bad things that you've done that have happened to you in your life, and try to figure out a way to be grateful for them. And that way, you'll turn all those bad memories into lessons learned, and you won't be afraid to take chances in the future. The third one is this, And this is something I think that that people forget to do a lot of times, especially people who aren't used to success. And that is when good things happen, don't just sit back on your butt and become satisfied with the fact that that thing happened. Really set your sights on the next thing.

Great, awesome. Pat yourself on the back. Be happy with yourself and maintain that good self esteem. Don't be one of these guys who's constantly bitter. Oh, it's not enough.

Not enough. I'm gonna chase more. I'm gonna chase more. But don't be one of these guys who just sits there and says, you know what? I won this.

I got this. And and I'm done. And and you know, a great example of this is, you know, you think of the guy who was really good at football in high school and that's all he ever did. That's the only thing he ever did. And so that guy tends to just tell stories at the bar and a lot of these guys, they go home, they hate their lives, they're not happy with the person they're married to.

And I see this about the military too. You know, awesome. You served in the military. That's one of the greatest honors an individual can have. That is one of the the, in my opinion, one of the greatest things an individual can do with their lives.

But it should be one of the greatest things you did in your life. It shouldn't be the only great thing you've ever done in your life. So no matter what happens, good, bad, whatever, learn a lesson, set your sights on the next big thing, and keep working. Keep working to make yourself better. Don't be complacent with where you are right now.

Always set yourself a little bit of a tougher goal the next time around. And that way you keep stretching yourself, you keep stretching your efforts, and you make yourself more mentally tough. So with that guys, that's what I got as far as my Warrior Fitness notes for this week. And, you know, I wanna say that this show has been absolutely awesome. For the past year and a half that I've been doing it, the Warrior Soul podcast, I've gotten to talk to so many amazing people.

We're trying these platform changes now so that we could give you more value, so that we can give you more. So if you have any suggestions for topics you want me to talk about, for issues you want me to talk about, for guests you want me to bring on, please let me know. If you have not signed up for the Warrior Soul Fitness Academy yet, please do so because every week I'm going on there with Facebook lives. Right after this podcast, I'm going on a Facebook live. I'm doing a live q and a.

And anybody who signs up, all the gentlemen who sign up, you are going to get a free testosterone optimization checklist along with a free twenty one day testosterone optimization workout. I am really looking to create a community of men who are looking to live their best lives. And so I really want you guys to come join me on there. It doesn't cost you anything and we do nothing but give tons of value in that group. Finally, I just want to say that this podcast is sponsored by F bomb nutrition.

F bomb makes delicious packets of absolutely awesome fats. My favorite are their macadamia nut butters. They mix them up with chocolate, sea salt. They've got pecan butter, macadamia nut butter mixes, and all of our listeners get 20% off if you go to www.dropanfbomb.com and use the code Warrior Soul at checkout. I want to thank you guys very much.

I'll be back at you with a vlog very soon and we'll be back at you with another Warrior Soul podcast episode very, very soon. I said episode, episode, episode, episode. Alright guys, peace.