Callus The Mind!

The face of David Goggins is no stranger to the socials, one scroll the direction of all mindset motivation related content, there his videos will be. Apart from the brazen profanity he sometimes uses without flinching, I have always been struck by his sheer will power and the message of strength and resilience he is so synonymous with. David Goggins is an American ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete, public speaker, and author. He is a retired United States Navy SEAL member who served in the Iraq War. It is no wonder he beams this message with such ease and passion.

With such ceaseless passion and conviction about his message, I could not help but be a little curious about this individual, the source of his strength I thought must be rooted in some form of deep pain that he surely overcame in order to advocate and even write a book about this topic. It turns out after I read the first chapter of the David Goggins book : Cant Hurt Me, Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds (I am early in and can say I already like the format and the writing style of the book). Without saying too much, he's upbringing says a lot about the gravitas of his message. An extremely abusive father that seemingly shaped his deep rooted resilience. I am digressing, the essence of the message I would like to convey today is the importance of the message David lives by, strenghthening and conditioning the mind.

The mind, as David would say is one of the most critical tools you have when going through hardship, the way you chose to channel and condition your thoughts in times of adversity is the way you go about constructing the DNA of your resilience. The art of choosing to deliberately seek pain, seek obstacles and challenges in order to condition your mind to resiliance is the stuff that separates the conquered vs the conquerors. I am akin to the message of seeking discomfort becuase cliched as it may sound, that's where the growth happens. Endurance if you're a runner is built with every long distance run you engage yourself in, if you want to be a stellar 10km runner, you need to run 15km more frequently, if you want to be a great half marathon runner, you simply must clock in the additional 25km-30km runs to give yourself that leg room of stretch to get you through the 21km.

My message to you this week, is that you seek ways to create a strong mindset for yourself, do the things that are hard, do the things that challenge you, read "Screw it lets do it" one more time, dare to wake up at 3am for three days in a row, run an extra 1km or 5minutes on the treadmill, get into the practice of stretching yourself, because in that practice is how you begin to callus the mind. Wishing you a fruitful and expansive week.