The following are just a couple of the powerful key traits and exercises that I have learnt over my long ultra marathon career doing the most extreme events and expeditions on the planet and through pushing the limits in my businesses and in my personal life.
These will give you a taste of the lessons you can learn in my online academy, in“The Path of an Athlete” eCourse and insight in to your true potential if you control your mind.
Why do you need mental toughness?
Life is hard and you need to be harder to survive, whether that be in your sport, in the boardroom, starting a business or striving for excellence as an artist or academic. The competition in the world is fierce and if you want to succeed and beat the odds you better believe you need to be tough, persistent and willing to do what others are not.
If you want to be a leader, if you want to do good in this world and leave a legacy that has impact, you will need to beat the odds, you will need mental toughness and resilience or you will break.
Being an ultra marathon athlete is all about mental strength. It has, contrary to popular belief, very little to do with you fitness or genetic athletic ability, I didn’t have either of those and was below average and had to overcome major physical obstacles even to stand on the start line.
What is most important for getting through the most gruelling training and races or surviving expeditions, is your mental toughness your ability to persist in the face of adversity, your ability to fight on when every cell in your body is screaming at you to stop, to keep going when everyone around you is telling you will fail, you aren’t good enough, you can’t do it, it’s too hard, the odds are against you. It’s having that relentless positive attitude that despite the fears, the doubts, the pain and the struggle keeps you putting one foot in front of the other.
Ultra marathons really test your mental mettle. They are designed to push you mentally to the brink, over and over again, until you are hardened and able to take on any task with confidence, regardless of the odds?— These events can have you at the brink of physical and mental collapse, for days on end. With your body shutting down, dehydration, extreme heat, the dangers of the remote corners of the earth you are battling through, fatigue, extreme pain and fear are all constant companions.
We often defeat ourselves, our plans and dreams and goals by letting that negative voice win over and give us the easy way out which is only ever easy in the present tense but always leads to bigger heavier regrets, negative consequences later.
By disciplining our thoughts and being hyper-vigilant we control our eventual destiny.
If you want to learn more about mindset check out my online Mindset Academy "The Path of an Athlete" at Mindset Academy