Mastery: A Choice We Must Make Regardless of The Circumstances

I first heard Jim Rohn say this.

"Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, and weak men create hard times"

It was one of his Youtube lectures on being aligned with the seasons.

It got me thinking.

What are strong or weak men?

What are good or hard times?

What are seasons?

It dawned on me that this quote, while often attributed to him, might not be originally from him. I found it more definitively written in a book by G. Michael Hopf, and it was in one of his post-apocalyptic novels.

While it has intuitive appeal, I'm wondering then why there are so many people who are complaining in spite of the fact that they had probably far more opportunities today than their forefathers. While there are people who get good opportunities, they can still languish and falter. In addition, during tough times, I don't really see a bunch of people rising to the occasion. Rather, they carry out the same attitude.

So I decided to study this from the lens of psychology.

Do Hard Times Always Create Strong People?

Developing resilience is not automatic.

Empirical research suggests that adversity can foster resilience in some individuals but not universally.

Psychological resilience—the ability to adapt and thrive despite adversity—is influenced by factors such as

• personality traits (e.g., psychological capital factors such as self-efficacy, hope, optimism and resilience),
• social or organizational support, and
• coping strategies.

Studies show that resilience is not an automatic outcome of hardship; rather, it depends on how individuals process and respond to stressors.

Research highlights that some people demonstrate remarkable resilience and even post-traumatic growth after adversity, finding meaning and strength in their experiences.

However, prolonged or severe hardship can lead to negative outcomes such as depression, anxiety, and diminished self-esteem, particularly when individuals lack protective factors like social support or coping mechanisms.

Persistent financial hardship, for instance, has been linked to higher rates of depression and lower self-esteem.

This indicates that while hard times can create "strong" individuals in some cases, they can also lead to psychological vulnerabilities in others, especially in the absence of education in psychological mastery.

Do Good Times Create Weak People?

The notion that prosperity leads to weakness is partially supported (i.e. be warned) by research on the psychological effects of wealth and affluence.

Studies suggest that material wealth can reduce empathy and prosocial behavior while fostering entitlement and self-interest. This aligns with the idea that comfort may erode certain virtues like grit or community-mindedness.

Yet, wealth also enables individuals to meet basic needs and pursue self-actualization, which can enhance well-being if managed wisely. The problem arises when affluence fosters complacency where people adapt to luxury without sustained happiness or growth.

Thus, good times do not inherently create "weak" people but may contribute to traits like complacency or entitlement if not balanced with purpose and accountability.

Can Hard Times Create Weak People?

Hardship does not uniformly result in strength; for many, it exacerbates vulnerabilities.

I've seen people collapse from difficulty, and others criticize it. But often, it's not of their own doing. Also, outsiders will view known problems but are often in the dark about unknown factors contributing to collapse.

Chronic stress from adversity can lead to mental health issues such as PTSD, depression, or burnout, which means that from the onset, people really ought to build their mental strength through voluntary application of "tough" challenges and circumstances, to build their self-efficacy.

Excessive adversity without adequate coping resources may overwhelm individuals rather than strengthen them. This aligns with the inverted-U model of grit: too much hardship is not necessarily going to assist individuals in magically developing grit.

Therefore, hard times can indeed create "weak" people when the challenges exceed an individual’s capacity for adaptation.

What Should We Do?

In my own analysis, there's a huge challenge for us as humans.

1. We have to create our own reality.

When your chips are down, you have no choice but to invest in inner resources to arrive at goals. When your chips are up, this decision cannot waver.

It means more than just waiting for circumstances to decide your destiny.

It means you have to be who you are (and more) in order to improve your circumstances.

Here are some implications on our ability to achieve success.

2. We need to learn to become bigger containers of capacity, and the only way is to become intentional about what we are doing, guided by core values, and constantly learn how to break barriers to achieve meaningful growth.

These will include:

• Meaningful goal focus and how goals should be systematically planned for and executed.
• A growth mindset to lean into learning and possibility rather than what's not possible.
• Emotional regulation for motivation, focus and recovery.
• Self-reflection to uncover strengths as well as limitations and their sources.
• Finding support through a network of trusted people.

2. We have to learn and implement better ways of managing our available resources of energy and emotions.

While worry and anxiety are going to always be a part of our lives, working up a muscle to ensure that they last less time than they did previously is a good indicator of your progress.

Rest and recovery are paramount in being resourceful; any sprint will require a period of recovery, should be systemically scheduled and arranged before moving forward in your next goal.

3. Stretching purposefully beyond the current zone of comfort requires effective goals to be set, and should be done with the whole human in mind. Just like any investment, the compound growth of such skills can triangulate to building opportunities in the future. The stretch ought to be explored through different aspects of life across 4 key questions

• What is my vision of this aspect in my life?
• Why is this important to me?
• What must I believe in order to make this vision come true?
• What steps must I take?

4. Striving for success is non-negotiable because if we don't keep moving in that direction and accumulate lessons in growth and grit, it may be too difficult to pursue anything let alone recover from critical mistakes. We don't have to always arrive at success but we cannot afford to have the mentality of not striving in the direction of success simply because it will be self-defeating.

5. Mastery is bi-factorial: we need to know how to keep pushing forward, while at the same time set the right goals to push forward in the correct direction. This can be done by

• Mastery experiences. Success in completing challenging tasks reinforces the belief that one can overcome obstacles, while repeated failures can diminish self-efficacy, which is the reason why we always need to learn from failures and reframe mistakes by looking at it not as a lack of capacity but as a lack of realization about what needed to be done, to prevent setbacks from undermining self-belief.
• Vicarious experiences (modeling). By observing others in action, immersing in successful behaviors, one gets the opportunity to develop a mental model that supports success, which is the reason why mentors make a difference.
• Verbal Persuasion. This is not jsut from hearing motivational talks, although many such talks can galvanize belief. It is even more important to guard your own mind with your own internal self-talk.
• Physiological and Emotional States. When you plan for a goal in a weak emotional and physiological state, you will always believe that goal is impossible. Instead, get into empowered states first, so that you aren't defeated from the get go.
• Releasing limiting beliefs about self. Sometimes, water flows naturally if barriers are removed. In fact, I've found that the lowest hanging fruit is sometimes removing barriers that are in front of us. After all, when you push hard but theres' a barrier, it's quite pointless. It becomes even worse when that barrier is within yourself.

A Conclusion

Renowned Japanese swordsmiths are masters of excellence.

It takes months, years to craft a great katana. It requires the maker to forge the sword by hammering it until the iron has its impurities hammered out. Why do they do that? Why not just get one machine made, especially since technology can do it literally in an instant?

The problem is that in the lens of modern society, we demand for resources and we actualyl can get them in an instant - purified iron. But in the day, swordsmiths did not have that to work with! All they had was inferior iron sand, and hence required methods of the day.

Furthermore, culturally, the katana is not the result. It is because of the journey - the toil of the swordsmith - that makes the sword legendary in and of itself. Each was truly unique and prized as a work of art.

What does this mean for all of us?

Are we constantly worried or afraid? Can we afford to do be that way?

Are we expecting resources to be thrust our way? Do we use-or even aware of- what we are given?

Are we able to build ourselves up to levels of resilience that can enable us to keep pushing forward without excuses?

The research is available for us to see.

In fact, I'm pretty convinced that you don't need to read the evidence to know this is a mountain that all of us must climb, even before knowing which mountain to climb.

Mastery is not an easy choice. But in my opinion, it is a necessary one that we have to commit to so that we won't regret it when bad times come!

Citations

Psychological resilience: an update on definitions, a critical appraisal, and research recommendations https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7678676/

Financial Hardship, Depression, and Self-Esteem: Temporal Analysis Using a Korean Panel Study https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9890047/

Introducing two types of psychological resilience with partly unique genetic and environmental sources https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-87581-5

The Culture of Affluence: Psychological Costs of Material Wealth https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1950124/

The Duality of Wealth: Is Material Wealth Good or Bad for Well-being? https://www.proquest.com/docview/1503674637?sourcetype=Scholarly%20Journals

A multidimensional understanding of prosperity and well-being at country level: Data-driven explorations https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6785080/

Wealth and happiness across the world: material prosperity predicts life evaluation, whereas psychosocial prosperity predicts positive feeling. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20565185/

Goal adjustment capacities in uncontrollable life circumstances: Benefits for psychological well-being during COVID-19 https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9124288/

6 Goal-Directed Strategies to Help Increase Your Resilience https://psychcentral.com/blog/6-goal-directed-strategies-to-help-increase-your-resilience#1