Mental Toughness - It's a Winner

After a four week break (2 weeks pre- and 2 weeks post-ironman) it was back to Bootcamp this morning.

It was great to be back with the old gang again, turning up just before 6.00am under the harbour bridge not knowing what Richie was going to throw at us for the next hour.  I was feeling refreshed, ready to go and, more importantly, ready to push myself.

After our warm up and then the first couple of drill sets of squats, runs and steps ups, J turns to me and says "you make it look so easy".

Heart rate at 162, breathing heavily, sweating like a ... well sweating like a hot thing, and me, the non-athlete - making anything exercise-related look easy seemed like a complete oxymoron.  But, cool as a cucumber, my response was simple.

"It never gets easier.  I think you just get better at pushing yourself harder."

But it got me thinking.  While it certainly wasn't easy, why did it look easy?

I think it came down to mental focus.

Beginner or experienced, improvement only comes by pushing your limits, not only physically but mentally as well.  And I think people underestimate the role your mind plays in helping you succeed or fail in your goals.  This morning I was feeling mentally strong, focusing on good form and pushing myself to do as well as I could with the task we had been given.  As a result I suspect that, rather than portraying distress with pushing myself, I was instead portraying a calm determination and using my inner strength to push through.

You can see another example of this on the latest series of The Biggest Loser which has started in Australia this week.  The contestants are in that beginner stage of having no confidence in their abilities, no experience with pushing their bodies in exercise and the distress they are feeling is out there for all to see.  They are finding the workouts hard and their minds are telling them to stop.  They think they can't do it and, without the trainers there pushing them, they would give up.

Their minds haven't been trained to understand that a workout is supposed to be tough.  That you push through and feed off that difficulty in order to get stronger.

The trainers are pushing them to their limits and over the next few weeks we will see a transformation in these guys, not only in their physical abilities but also in their mental toughness.  The workouts won't get any easier, but those that make it through to the end will have become mentally stronger, more focused and will have been able to push themselves that much harder as a result.

You may not be athletically gifted but it doesn't matter.  Mental toughness could be your biggest asset - and ultimately that's what will get you to the finish line of whatever goal you've set yourself.