(upbeat music)
Come on, toughen up.
Just push through it.
Nobody cares about your emotions.
You know, stop whining.
I feel that is how the society
or how in popular opinion we see mental toughness.
It is about pushing through.
It is about being like projecting confidence,
pushing through pain, ignoring any type of pain,
and especially ignoring any type of emotion, right?
Like if you want to be mentally tough,
none of that matters.
You just are super confident and that's that.
You know, nothing is gonna get in your way.
Well, maybe if you are like me, you have tried that.
I have tried to project confidence
and then I never ended up following up on it.
You know, like I wasn't as successful
as I pretended to be.
I wasn't as confident as I pretended to be
and that in the end was much worse.
You know, then there is the pushing through pain,
which I've also done, ignoring it,
and then eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore
and it was probably much worse
than if I had reacted to it earlier, you know,
when the pain came up.
And it was a third one,
oh, pushing through emotion, my favorite one,
shoving around, shoving aside emotions,
ignoring them, pretending they don't exist.
Just, you know, keep them bottled up somewhere else
for them to show up in the worst possible situation
and me having an emotional outburst,
which is totally disproportionate or out of proportion
to the actual situation on hand and yeah, no.
So maybe you've experienced that as well
and the conclusion of this should not be that I,
and maybe you, if you'd had some of the experiences
that we're not tough, it's just that we have the definition
wrong, we have our understanding of it wrong
because that's not what mental toughness is.
And today in this episode, I'm gonna clean up with that.
I'm gonna, you know, we're gonna talk about mental toughness.
So welcome to the healthy & aligned podcast.
My name is Lisa, I'm your host.
I am a mindset coach, I am a tapping coach,
and I love to talk about anything that is related
to our mindset, to how we can create, actively create a life
that we really want to live the life of our dreams
and how we become the person that lives that life
that we desire to have, right?
So I love talking about these things.
And today I feel mental toughness is a topic
that really aligns well with the quest
to live the life of our dreams
because I'm gonna cover what mental toughness is.
I'm gonna kind of like debunk it
and we can redefine it together.
I'm gonna give you some input on it.
We will talk a little bit about the science behind it
and really understand the key behaviors
that are part of being mentally tough.
And of course, we're gonna conclude the episode
with some actionable strategies and tactics
that we can implement in our daily life
to figure out, not to figure out,
but to train our mental toughness
and just get better at it.
So let's get going.
So what is mental toughness?
Listen carefully, where we're going to define it.
So mental toughness is the ability to resist,
to manage and to overcome doubts, worries,
concerns or circumstances or something along those lines
that prevent us from going after our goals,
from excelling at a specific task that we want.
So basically it is resisting, managing, overcoming,
whatever is between us and where we wanna be.
And if we wanna take it a step further even,
it's not just resisting, managing and overcoming,
it is actually performing under that pressure.
It is, you know, looking for these types of adversities,
looking for these challenges and these difficulties
that can be in the way between us
and what we want to achieve.
It is a can active search for challenges
that make us stronger, that make us bigger.
So first level of mental toughness is being able to resist,
to manage it, to just be able to hold up whatever you're doing
on university.
And then the next level of mental toughness
is thriving in it and being like, yeah,
adversity challenges, that's my juice, that's my fuel,
that's, you know, what makes me bigger, better and stronger.
So yeah, I would see it in sort of like two levels.
And here that I said it's an ability, right?
An ability is something we can develop.
It's a skill, it's a competence.
It's not something that, you know, is there or it isn't.
It is something that we can work on.
It's a mental muscle that we actually get to train.
And also, when you listen carefully,
it's not just about endurance.
It is about learning, it is about growing,
it is about using those difficulties
and those challenges to come out stronger at the other end.
So yeah, that is what mental toughness is.
And there was no word about ignoring pain, you know.
But let's talk about some of the key elements
that make out mental toughness.
Because I still think it's sort of a vague expression,
even though we define it a little bit,
but what does that actually look like?
And there are four main components of mental toughness
that have been found in different research papers
and different studies.
And they're not always called the same way
and sometimes there are six, sometimes there are five.
But in the end, I think those four kind of like,
uncompas the general understanding
and the general idea of mental toughness.
And the first one is resilience.
Resilience is a skill, again,
all of these things are skills, is a skill
that explains how we bounce back from setbacks,
how we recover from failure, you know,
how we learn from failure.
And resilience often is described, you know,
with the help of, you know, imagine a bambu stick, right?
Cause bambu is super resilient.
It's very difficult to break the bambu stick.
They're bendy.
Like if you apply pressure to it, it bends to it.
And then if you let go of the pressure,
it really snaps back with a lot of force, right?
And that's what often is used to explain resilience.
So the more resilient you are, the more, the bendier,
if that is a word, you are or more bendable or, I don't know,
you are before you crack, right?
And the forest with which you bounce back
is also an important element of it.
So resilience bouncing back from setbacks
is definitely, like even how I explain it,
doesn't that sound like a tough cookie,
someone who bounces back from, you know,
force from pressure with so much power to me
that sounds so much like a mentally tough person.
So yeah, I love that image to it.
I think it helps so much to understand resilience.
And it basically is not just the bouncing back,
but it's the becoming stronger because of it, right?
It is the learning from it.
It's the enduring and growth in one.
The next thing is focus.
So having a laser-like focus on what matters to you
is, it's priceless.
It is like you are so clear about the purpose,
about the why you're doing something,
about where exactly you're going.
There is no room for distractions for you.
You're just like going straight at it.
And when challenges hit you,
when there are bumps in the road or something,
you'll never lose your focus.
You know exactly where to go and what you do.
And again, I feel that's a very good description
of someone who portrays or demonstrates
some type of mental toughness.
Even when things get difficult,
they never lose sight of where they're going,
of what they want.
And yeah, you combine resilience with focus.
Ooh, it's already your strong.
You're great.
Now let's add the third component to it.
And that is determination.
And sometimes I feel like determination and focus
is used a bit interchangeably, but it is different.
While the focus is the knowing where to look,
where to go, having a clear direction,
having that clear path towards your dreams,
determination is what keeps you going.
It's the fuel.
It's the relentless pursuit of going for it.
It's never stopping.
It's the maybe even stupid refusal to quit.
That is determination.
Because if you don't quit, you can only win.
If you keep going, you know where to go.
You bounce back stronger if something happens to you
and you just don't quit.
I mean, what is supposed to happen, right?
So those three things that is mental toughness,
but there is a fourth one.
And that last piece of the puzzle is emotional control.
So having that clear understanding
that your emotions are there for a reason
and that your emotions are an important part of who you are
is crucial because emotions are information.
Emotions are, I mean, it's a neurophysical reaction
in your body, right?
That is triggered by something.
That is triggered by something in your environment
that maybe your body picked up on,
maybe your subconscious picked up on, maybe, you know,
it's a, it's like a hyperfast processing
of a wealth of information that you're not even aware of,
that it's happening and the result of that processing
is an emotion, right?
And that is so valuable, that is so important
to pay attention to because it wants to tell you something,
right?
And understanding at the same time that an emotion
is just that, an emotion, an information,
a result of information processing
and not a command, you know, like,
you get to decide how you react to a specific emotion.
You are not at their mercy, your life is not ruled by emotions
or it doesn't have to be, maybe it is right now,
but it doesn't have to be.
It is up to you how you react to it.
And so instead of ignoring emotions,
managing emotions, taking in all that information
and information and using it
and not letting it run the show,
but being grateful for having that knowledge,
that additional knowledge for you,
that is the last piece of the puzzle of mental toughness.
So we have resilience, we have focus, determination
and emotional control or emotion control,
however you want to call it.
So those are the four most important elements.
And if you're like me and all,
you're already like going in your head like,
oh, I'm good at this, not so good at this.
I wish I was better at this.
You know, you start to already like,
put yourself somewhere on a scale on these four components.
But before we talk about, you know,
what we can do to get stronger at those things,
let's look again at the misconceptions
because that's how I started this episode.
And I feel like especially when it comes to mental toughness,
there is so much like popular opinion about it
of what it's supposed to look like.
And again, pay attention.
I just defined it.
I gave you the key components.
There was nothing about, you know, fake confidence
or pushing through pain or, you know, like pushing away
your emotions.
It's the contrary.
It is not about pushing away your emotions.
It is taking in your emotions.
We are emotional beings.
That's what humans are.
It's we are thinkers, we are emotional.
And I know that it triggers people.
When I say that, we are emotional people, people or beings.
But I think what they misunderstand,
when I say that we are emotional,
they probably picture someone who is completely like,
the slave to their emotions.
And that's not it all what I'm saying.
It's that we have emotions for a reason
and they are so valuable, they are so important.
They can be such a good motivator.
They can be such good tools for us
because fear can give you so much power.
They can give you that extra of anger,
releases so much like strength in your body or spite.
Sometimes spite, it's an ugly emotion.
I think, well, I shouldn't say that.
All emotions are fine.
But it's not a pretty thing, but you know,
spite can be a very, very good fuel or revenge
or those things, you know?
So I believe that we can use our emotions
to our advantage and not shove them aside,
push them aside, ignore them because let me tell you,
is you ignore an emotion?
It would be like, but I got some to tell you,
there's something important here that you need to pay attention to.
And you're like, "Nana, I don't hear you.
"You don't exist."
You know, it'll knock on your door again.
And maybe that time it'll knock louder.
And you again don't answer the door.
And it will keep knocking, it'll keep getting louder.
It'll keep getting more persistent
because it really wants to tell you something.
And then one day, it'll just come bursting through your door.
And you know what?
It'll come bursting through your door in the worst moment.
It is not when you are chill at home on your couch
and you can contain the situation.
No, it's gonna be in a high pressure, high stakes situation
where people see you, where you react
in the worst possible way.
I've seen athletes burst, you know,
we've all seen athletes.
I'm not gonna give examples,
but we've all seen top athletes in front of international cameras,
you know, on TV.
And one of the most important games of their life
or races or whatever of their life,
do the stupidest things, do embarrassing things.
They are, you know, they explode
because that, in that moment,
their emotion that they try to ignore
just comes through the door.
And we don't want that.
We don't want that to happen.
Instead, we will listen to our emotion.
Instead, we pay attention to them
and we use them as, again, as fuel, as motivators.
And also as insights, because often fears
or doubts or insecurities and those types of emotions,
they point us towards a direction where we could be better,
where we could, you know, pay more attention to or train for
or be more specific about or learn more about, you know.
So I feel that emotions, especially the so-called unwanted
or negative or however you want to call it, emotions,
I think they're all welcome because, yeah,
I mean, I just said it.
I don't want to repeat myself, but it's beautiful, I think.
And we just not rob us.
Let's just accept the fact that we're not.
No, what else?
Oh, another misconception.
Oh, you're either born tough or not.
And honestly, I don't really want to go
into that whole nature-neutral debate,
but I strongly disagree with the fact that you are born
mentally tough.
Again, it's an ability.
It is something that you get to learn and develop
and get better at.
It's a mental muscle we get to train.
And I believe, you know, it's obviously also
the whole discussion about fixed mindset and growth mindset
that we started, I don't know, two episodes back,
three episodes back.
So I believe that with effort and work,
you can get better at something.
And you can define who you really are
and who you really want to be, rather than you are
pretty determined and fixed.
I do believe that we all are born
with our own unique, specific, individual,
personal mission statement, our purpose,
and that our whole being, like the things that come
easy to us, the things that are joyful to us,
they are all pointers towards our purpose.
Like if we follow those things,
we are very much aligned in living in our purpose, right?
And the things that we dream about,
that we get really excited about, you know,
like the crazy ludicrous dreams that we have,
that we don't really dare to talk about,
you know, when you close your eyes,
and you really, you know, remove all limitations,
and you can feel like every cell in your body
is like electrified by the idea.
If we trust those, you know, doing the things
that we're good at following the things
that bring joy to us, we are well on our way.
So I do believe that that is the case
for each and every one of us.
And within that setting, though, you got, you know,
you can be whoever you wanna be.
You can express that in whatever way you wanna express that.
And we can grow, we can learn, we can become bigger
and better and faster and stronger,
in the way that we choose to, in the way that is joyful to us.
And there is a reason, like I never had the dream,
even the thought of becoming an international soccer,
top soccer player, you know, and be at the Olympic Games
or be at the whatever World Cup, I guess,
and soccer is more important,
play in the national team and the soccer World Cup.
I never had that dream.
And I know that there are a lot of people out there
who do have that dream and who are going to be that person
and who are eventually someone who we will see on TV
playing for, you know, those national teams.
And there is a reason why I don't have that dream.
I have different dreams, right?
And I have a different setup, you know,
to live that dream that I have.
And so I believe that within that context,
we get to be however and whoever we want to be,
if that makes sense.
So no, I don't think you were born with mental toughness.
I believe that you can train it, you can develop it,
you can get better at it if that is something that you want.
And that is something that you consider important for you.
And the last misconception that I would like to mention
is the whole idea of pushing through pain, you know,
and I think that's an interesting one.
Because again, pain, distress, discomfort,
whether it is physical or mental,
it's again, it's information for us, right?
It is something telling us that, ooh, what's up?
Something is happening.
And it is, you know, according to the definition,
it is something that is in the way between us
and reaching our goal or doing, like,
excelling at a specific task or doing what we set out to do.
So definitely it is.
I think that the thing with pain is that we got to be smart
about it.
So pushing through pain can be the right answer
and it can be the wrong answer.
I feel like we need to understand when it makes sense
and when it doesn't.
When we need to rest, when we need to recharge,
rejuvenate, when we need to heal,
we need to understand what are the consequences
of pushing through the pain.
Isn't just for muscles, you know, maybe yeah,
maybe we can push through that.
But is it like a serious injury
and pushing through it will make it worse
and will make recovery so much longer?
Huh, maybe not.
You know, like be smart about it
and also consider your circumstance.
If it's the first game of the season,
maybe you react differently, then if it is
one of the last games in the playoffs, you know,
and you probably push yourself much,
through much more pain in the playoffs
because the consequences of you taking rest,
are so different than maybe the first game
or the second game or whatever of the season
where the consequences might not be as dire, you know,
so be smart about pain management
and understanding better how to deal with it
and maybe that's also an interesting topic
to talk about in an episode.
So let me know if you think that's interesting
pain management, but it is also a lot of mental work
when we talk about pain.
So yeah, I think in general, it's about being smart
when it comes to that.
So a quick excursion into the science of mental toughness
and I just want to quickly touch on it
because it is about neuroplasticity.
So that is a topic I have talked about before
and neuroplasticity refers to the process
that happens in our brains where we build neuro pathways,
neuro pathway, so that's a mouthful.
And that basically means that the more we do a specific thing,
the more we repeat it, the more we train it, you know,
the better is the communication within different parts
of our brains and the stronger gets the communication
channel, let it put it this way, between different parts
of our brains.
So you know, when you do something for the first time,
you feel really awkward, you're not really good at it,
you know, and it's a bit like, oh, how does this work?
Like, let's say you're throwing your first three pointer
in basketball, right?
The first one, I mean, maybe you were lucky and, you know,
you hit it, maybe you were not, but it was probably
an awkward situation and, you know,
you didn't look very elegant and very athletic doing it.
However, once you do a hundred of them, once you do a thousand
of them, it looks very different.
You know the process, you know, like the order of movements
that you need, where to put your hip, where to put your foot,
where to put your hand, like all of these things, you know,
and you get better and better and better at it.
And you can start working on specific small details
because you don't have to pay attention to your feet anymore.
You don't have to pay attention to how you hold your left hand
anymore because you have created those strong pathways
in your brain that allow your brain sort of to run
with an autopilot, right?
And you don't have to be like, very conscious about it.
I think that's what people refer to often as well
when you drive a car, you know, in the beginning,
you have to pay attention to everything.
And it's so exhausting and it's just so many different parts
that you have to pay attention to.
And then eventually you get to drive and have like,
the most difficult conversations or like,
listen to the audio book or whatever and you don't pay attention,
you know, to exactly each hand move anymore
as you did in the beginning.
Again, that is because you have practiced those pathways
because you have trained your brain to drive a car
or to throw a three pointer or whatever it is.
And that's again, then when you can use your mental capacity
for other things.
So that's why neuroplasticity is such a super important concept
to understand, I believe, because it allows me to kind of
convince myself to practice and convince myself to train
and do things over and over and over again,
because I know I will inevitably get better at it.
There is the science to back it up, right?
It's not just motivational things like,
"Yeah, I just keep going to follow and never quit."
And la la la, all the smart things that people say,
you know, there's science behind it.
It makes sense, actually, if you understand how that works.
So every time we choose a challenge,
every time we face adversity and go for it anyways
and not avoid it, not shy away from it,
but we go for it and we are curious about it
and we are willing to face whatever is coming towards us.
We train our brain to be braver,
we train our brain to be more courageous,
to be more daring maybe.
And also the more we do that, the easier it is for us
to stay calm, to stay focused when things get difficult,
when the pressure is up, you know,
and you are in this crazy high-stake situation
where so many things are happening
and your mind is occupied with so many different things,
the more you have trained yourself beforehand,
of those situations, the easier it is than to deal with that.
So mental toughness, I'm making, you know,
another point that mental toughness is a skill,
an ability that we get to learn.
We get to invest in training to be resilient.
We get to train to be focused, to be determined,
to be in emotional control
because all of these things, they sound beautiful on paper,
especially emotional control.
I feel like when I say it, it makes so much sense,
at least it does to me, but the amount of times
that I find myself in a situation where I am emotional
and I am not in control of my behavior
or it feels like I'm not in control of my behavior
and I burst and I do things I don't wanna do
or I react in a way that, you know,
I wish I had reacted differently.
Like, it is something that I am consciously training
and I can see myself get better at it, but I'm not there yet.
You know, I know I don't know if I ever will be, you know,
and that's fine because, you know,
I think it's human as well too, sometimes,
you don't be overly emotional
or you know, say things that we regret after.
But the more I can get better at this,
the more I get to train this,
the more I feel that I get to decide my path
and decide my future, right?
So knowing that there will be so many more
emotional alborists in my life, you know, that's okay.
Because I know I'm in training, right?
I am a student to emotional control
and to all of the other things.
So understanding that and allowing yourself
to practice emotional toughness
with the understanding of neuroplasticity, I think, is,
it's a very good combination.
There have been a couple of studies around mental toughness,
especially with athletes.
And in general, they have like the four components,
key components that I mentioned earlier,
they are the result of a couple of studies as well.
And they have found that it is definitely a skill
to be acquired.
It is a skill you get to develop.
So I'm not just saying that.
It's not the science as well.
And also they found that people who are mentally tough,
so who check those four boxes of the key components,
they are also more confident.
Because it is sort of a cycle that reinforces itself, right?
So if you go for a challenge, you face it,
you face the difficulties,
you go through it, you practice it, you overcome it,
and you come out stronger the other end,
you now know that you are capable of doing things
which makes you more confident.
And the more confident you are, the more likely you are
to face those challenges and do the difficult things.
So confidence and mental toughness,
they definitely go hand in hand.
And who doesn't want to be more self confident,
especially if you want to go far and beyond
and be someone great confidence,
is definitely a key component to that.
So yeah, let's talk about strategies
on how we can build mental toughness.
And I have like a couple of steps for you.
And before we talk about the steps,
the very first thing that we need to do
and that I hope I did so far in this episode
is redefining what mental toughness is.
So again, it is not fake confidence,
it is not pushing through pain, ignoring emotions,
all of that bullshit.
Let's just completely forget that.
And remember that mental toughness is a skill
which has four key components.
I'm gonna brainwash you now.
I'm gonna keep repeating it so often
that you will remember it.
The first is resilience.
Then we have focus, determination,
and the last one is emotional control.
That is what defines mental toughness.
And that is what we get to train.
So let's talk about those steps.
First step, check your goals.
Check the goals that you have
and make sure that they are personal goals.
They are goals that are important to you
and not necessarily goals to impress other people.
Maybe whatever is important to you
also impresses other people.
That's great, you know, like no problem with that.
However, when we practice mental toughness,
it means that we actively search out challenges
and adversities.
And that is hard.
It is hard.
There will be moments where you feel like shit
and you question yourself, you doubt yourself
and knowing why you're doing it
and understanding how important this goal is to you
will allow you to stay focused
and determine so much better.
It is so much easier if you do it for yourself
than if you do it for someone else.
So reassess your goals and make sure
those are really aligned with who you are
and who you are actually more importantly,
who you want to be, who you want to become in the long term.
And then I guess that's the next step.
When these doubts come as they inevitably will
because they do for all of us, those thoughts
where you question your whole journey
and will you be able to do this?
You have that fear of failure that we talked about last week.
When you have those things come up for you, take them in.
Don't follow up on them, but listen to it.
What comes up for you?
Which doubts do you actually have?
Because those doubts tell you something
about where you believe you could be better.
Where you believe that you have room for improvement.
So doubt and fears, excellent information,
for your strategies, for your tactics.
You know what to focus on when you look at
where you're most doubtful.
So ignoring everything that comes up,
it's not gonna be helpful.
So you get to change your current strategies,
your tactics, your workout plan, your training plan,
your preparations, whatever you're going for,
based on that information,
based on the doubts that you have,
based on the fear that comes up for you.
Now, when we talk about goals,
I think I might have mentioned that
in another episode as well.
It is important to have different sets of goals, right?
Because there are these dreams,
the ones that I mentioned earlier,
the ones that just feel so good,
but they seem so impossible and so out there.
Like high flying girls become the fastest person
on the planet or win the World Cup
or BCO of a specific company.
Or I have no idea.
Like what you dream of, maybe one of those things
is close to that.
But it seems so far from your current reality
and that is okay.
That's why those things are dreams
because they give us the general direction
of where we want to go.
And now it's important to break those dreams down
into goals, into manageable targets actually.
Things that are in your control,
things that you can actively work towards
and you know it's hard to get there.
You will have to stretch yourself to get there.
It's not like you do what and you're done.
Like, there are definitely outside of your comfort zone,
but they are possible.
And I think that is,
it's starting to rain really hard right now.
I'm not sure how much the microphone is picking up,
but it is what it is, right?
So those goals are very important to have.
And again, ideally they are aligned with, you know,
the personal motivation, your personal individual purpose
and not just some goals that have been given to you
by outside people or the environment or society,
but something that is really important to you.
And having those manageable targets will foster
or feed your determination.
It is a great motivator to, you know,
check a target off your list, check a goal off your list.
And you know, it's a good feeling.
You can see me smile because I recently checked one
of my list and it's a damn good feeling, you know?
So I recommend having that, you know?
And knowing that those targets, those goals
will get you closer to your dream.
What else?
Oh yeah, another thing that we can do
to practice our brain, to practice our mental inner strength
is to automate whatever we think is most important
to reaching our goals, right?
So we have the dreams, we have the goals and the targets
and we know how we can get there,
what we need to do to get there.
Usually it's activities, right?
It's training, it's practice, it's rehearsals, it's whatever.
And including those, breaking those downs
into individual steps, individual tasks
and the most important ones,
the ones that have the biggest impact, put them
into your routines, into your daily habits
because what happens when we do that
is that we automate the process.
We take out the negotiations with ourselves
like, I don't really feel like, you know,
working out right now, I don't really feel like going
for a run, no, no, no, it's a non-negotiable, it's a habit.
You don't think about it, it happens, right?
And you get to practice that reinforcing positive habit
in that context to build your resilience,
to build that muscle of showing up for yourself,
of showing yourself the respect,
showing your goals, the respect that you do it
and you do it without asking, without questioning.
And again, that is something that we can practice,
that doing it anyways, muscle, you know,
don't feel like it, do it anyways.
That is definitely something that we can make
easier for ourselves if we automate those processes,
if we include that into habits, into routines,
into things that we do anyways.
So yeah, why not make it easier, right?
And that over time, again, we'll give us more confidence,
we'll make us feel like we're on the right track,
we're on the right way and make us feel stronger
in our conviction and in our direction.
And I guess the most, I'm not sure if most important
is the right way to say it,
but definitely an important thing is to regularly check in
with yourself, reflect on what you're doing,
reflect on those routines that you created,
reflect on those habits, check in with yourself,
if the goals are really still your goals,
if everything that you're doing is going in the direction
that is supporting you, because we wanna stay healthy
and sometimes with all these routines and the goals
and all of these plans and systems that we set up for ourselves,
we might put ourselves into a corset that we don't wanna be in,
and it stifles our freedom, our sense of expression
and our individuality, and we feel stuck in sort of
the box that we build for ourselves.
And that is not good, and that is not mental toughness
to just stay in the box anyways,
because we once said that we were going to do it.
Now, regularly check in with yourself
to make sure that you are physically healthy,
that you are mentally healthy,
and that this is still joyful to you.
Not every moment has to be pure joy, of course,
that's fine, sometimes it sucks,
I mean, we're talking about mental toughness here, right?
So, no, not everything is, you know, rainbows and glitter,
but overall, your life, your journey, your direction
should be joyful to you.
It should be something that you really truly enjoy,
and that is important, you know,
because if it isn't, you're completely wasting your time
doing that for what, you know?
So, having that regular check in with yourself
and that honest review and allow yourself,
show yourself the respect and the self-love
to adjust and change your plans where I needed.
Instead of being stubborn and just sticking with it,
because, you know, a past version of you decided
that that is the right way to go.
So, yeah, I think, I think those are,
like, general strategies, general ideas,
things that you can do and think about in your daily life.
And I think that brings me to the end of this episode.
I think I said what I needed to say about it,
and I am so excited to talk about this topic
of mental toughness,
especially because it has been so misunderstood,
and so, like, used wrongly, like, in a hurtful way,
I think, to a lot of people.
And at the same time, it is such a fundamental necessity,
fundamental skill for anyone who wants to go foreign beyond,
who wants to be that person and become great, right?
Be great.
And especially in the world of sports and athletics,
there were so many high pressure moments,
so many high stakes situations,
and now or never, you know, situations, it's crazy.
The amount of competition there is,
the amount of mental games that are happening
between athletes, with coaches, between teams,
and then there is media, and then there is, you know,
rankings and judges and referees,
and all of this is high pressure,
because in the end, sports is usually competition based, right?
So having that mental toughness and that mental muscle
of inner strength, having it trained, having it strong,
that can be the differentiator between victory and defeat,
'cause, you know, everyone is physically great,
at a certain level, you know,
and then the mental game really makes a difference.
So I think that mental conditioning that needs to happen
in the world of sports, through various tactics, you know?
I mean, there is visualization, which, you know,
is super powerful.
There is goal setting, which I kind of like touched on today,
as well, there is self-talk.
I can't have you listen to top athletes,
they're all talking to themselves.
It's such a powerful tool.
And I am going to have an episode on all of these topics,
because I feel like we can learn so much
from these top athletes in any area of life.
So I'm definitely gonna talk about that.
But putting in the work, I believe, is completely worth it.
So now, in the next episode,
we are going to talk about confidence.
I kind of talked about confidence a little bit today,
but it's such an interesting topic.
And it is something that will help me help you help us
in any situation, in any part of our life,
like whether we are athletes or incorporate,
or just want to be a person that, you know,
lives a better life, self-confidence is definitely,
not bad thing to have, you know?
So yeah, I'm really excited about that episode.
That's a good one.
And if you gained any insights today,
if you learned anything new,
or if you just enjoy these type of contents,
let me know, rate this podcast, give it a review,
subscribe to it because you know how these algorithms work.
It's those things that allow the podcast to be seen
by more people, and then also in turn,
it allows me to do it for a long time to come,
which is what I would love to do.
So I would highly appreciate it if you subscribe,
if you rate it, if you give me a review.
And until the next week, when we talk about
building self-confidence, I wish you a beautiful rest of your day.
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