that was a story About the mental strength of Kobe Bryant that I will never forget. It will look like this.
The Chicago Bulls and LA Lakers were scheduled to play at 7 p.m. Knowing the importance of the game, Chicago Bulls’ Jay Williams took to the court at 3:00 p.m. and had 400 shots before the game.
When he showed up, he saw Kobe was on the court and already working out. After an hour and a half of exercise, he sat down and unlaced his shoes, and of course I heard the ball bounce. Kobe was still working out. Kobe looked sweaty when Jay arrived on the court. And he kept going after Jay finished.
Confused, Jay sat down to see how much Kobe could work out. After another 25 minutes Kobe was done. And in the game that followed, Kobe scored 40 points against the Chicago Bulls. Jay Williams wants to understand why Kobe works the way he does, and he couldn’t help but talk to Kobe after the game.
He asked, “Hey Kobe, why were you in the gym for so long?” Kobe replied: And there is nothing wrong with that. I’m not saying I don’t like him as a person. You just inspire me to be better. “
Ever since watching that video, the concept of mental strength has been like a faucet dripping into the back of my mind. I was. It means that you need to strengthen your mental strength.
Seeing Spiritual Strength in a New Light
Before we get into the principles, it’s most important to look at mental strength in a new light. I don’t know you very well, but I do know that you don’t crave comfort. You want something special in your life.
I want my own extraordinary life. At first, though, I couldn’t face the fact that it would take tremendous mental strength to get there.
We all grossly underestimate the importance of mental toughness. But I can’t afford to be mentally fragile. We can all be witnessing this pandemic, so we need to understand that life is trying to disrupt us in ways we don’t understand right now.
Such incidents cannot be predicted or prevented. In such situations, those who can shift gears quickly, do what they need to do, and produce output that can meet exponentially increasing demand will always come out on top.
We all need to adopt a “build before we have to do it” mentality. James Clear speak in either his newsletterHe says—
- Build your knowledge before you need it.
- Build strength before you need it.
- Build your emergency fund before you need it.
- Let the internal pressure take over today so you can handle the external pressure tomorrow.
I felt the same way. You have to build your mental strength before you need it. We have brought you the news that external pressure is on the horizon and if you don’t build up your mental strength today you will be strayed.
So I encourage you to consider building your mental strength as a new project of your own. concrete ones. But building a mindset is the ultimate project we all have to work on.because as Buddha said: The mind precedes all phenomena, the mind is the most important, and everything is made of the mind.
See this as a new project. Get excited about it. Write it down in your diary. Tell your friends and family or declare it on social media. I don’t care what you do as long as you have a big deal in mind.
SAID principle
Having been obsessed with fitness all my adult life, I do a lot of research into exercise physiology.and SAID principle laying the foundation for this research field. It stands for “specific adaptation to imposed requirements”.
It claims that whatever challenge you place on your body, your body will adapt to it. Doing 10 pull-ups each day will grow your latissimus dorsi (muscle) and allow you to perform these pull-ups very efficiently.
But more importantly, it also means that after a certain period of time, the challenge ceases to be a challenge and instead becomes mundane. This means that 10 pull-ups won’t stimulate your lats.
This is the essence of another principle in exercise physiology. progressive overloadWe have to keep doing a little more than we ever have before. obvious! Very clear. But when you sit down to reflect, you have to struggle to find out when you last challenged your mind.
Often we act out of habit. We are trapped in our comfort zone. And we like it there. But if you continue to consciously break the SAID principle, your comfort zone will continue to expand. And in theory, as it gets bigger and bigger, you’ll unknowingly swallow all the unseen future problems into your comfort zone.
One excellent example of this comes to mind as I write. In his book Discipline Equals Freedom, retired Navy SEAL Jocko Willink writes:
During training, we always hit the platoon hard on the main objective, but after the platoon left the main objective, the platoon returned to the base to patrol, and their minds were already home and ‘off’. It always attacked even more violently when it became .
He wanted to train his subordinates from a tendency to relax. Similarly, life can strike at any moment, so we need to be prepared today.
To break the SAID principle, just do something you’re not used to. If you feel like you’ve been living out of habit for too long, do something that makes your heart hesitate. Deciding how to do it is an opportunity to get creative. Some examples are —
- Long runs even if you’re not a runner.
- For the past few days, I’ve been waking up at 4am.
- Fasting for a day.
- Work 10 hours instead of the usual 8 hours.
- Turn off technology for 24 hours.
Challenge yourself in at least one way each day. It could be something as small as he cuts his lunch portion by 70%, or as big as a 10-mile run. it’s not what you do. It’s about telling your mind over and over again that you can conquer it by doing things you don’t want to do.
Also, if you want to maintain this habit, you have to be accountable. If you don’t, you’ll go insane and return to the pattern again. An easy way to do that is for him to write down in his diary one way he challenges himself each day.
Every time you do this, it sends a small message to your brain that says, “I can outdo myself.” Sending this message over and over rewires your subconscious mind. You will stop being a slave to the whims of your reptilian brain. Expand your comfort zone to a radius of 50,000 miles. And you won’t be able to stop.
Mental strengthening is a must
Having a great life is essential. Being able to handle adversity is paramount. However, many of us take a very passive stance in building our mental strength. It’s time to challenge And because many of us haven’t faced many organic challenges, we’re lagging behind in mental toughness.
When it comes to mental strength, you need to adopt a “build it before you need it” mentality. We must consciously dedicate time and energy to building our mental strength and view it as an essential life project. assume that Only then can change be stimulated.
The SAID principle of exercise dictates that your body specifically adapts to the demands placed on it. And the same is true of our minds. In order to continue to develop mental strength, you must continue to work against your habit patterns. We have to find different ways to push our brains out of their comfort zone a little bit.
In short, challenge your brain every day and write about it somewhere. Ultimately an upward spiral occurs, developing an elaborate set of mental six packs.
Akshad Singi, MD has been featured in Better Humans, Mind Cafe and more.
This article was originally published at: Moderate. Reprinted with permission of the author.
